Happy 18th Birthday, Nintendo 64

Prepare to feel very, very old: today marks the 18th birthday of the Nintendo 64.

As well as reminding us all just how long ago our childhood actually was, now seems like a good time to look back on the days when a games console was more simple, straightforward and robust. As I write this my N64 is sitting on my desk, still in perfect working order. It remains to this day just about my favorite gaming system, the one that pushed graphical boundaries, introduced vibrating controllers, memory cards and turned Christmas day into a maelstrom of screaming children. I wasn’t sure what to do to mark the occasion, I toyed with idea of getting my console drunk, taking him out and getting him talking to an attractive Sega Saturn or something but I thought a much more appropriate (and less insane) thing would be to encourage all of you to dust your 64s off, sit back and reminisce, as long as you’ve kept it safe and haven’t broken it I more or less guarantee you that it’ll still be working. It’s difficult to pin down even 10 games that defined the console that brought me so many hours of joy. I just about managed it and I have to emphasise that this is very much a personal list but just to keep from being yelled at or sent indignant emails that use bold red letters, here’s a shortlist of other marvelous N64 games that might not appear on this list, but are still well worth mentioning:

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Majora’s Mask, Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, Rogue Squadron, Donkey Kong 64, Super Smash Bros., Lylat Wars, Blast Corps, Diddy Kong Racing, Jet Force Gemini, Body Harvest, Perfect Dark, International Superstar Soccer ’98, Wave Race 64, Quake II, Conker’s Bad Fur Day

 

Yoshi’s Story

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I was at a stage when Yoshi’s Story came out that meant that I had zero interest in it, it was too cutesy, I let my brother have it whilst continuing to pester my parents to let me watch and play things that were violent and gory. As such, I was almost embarrassed when I finally played it and found out just how fun it was. Yoshi’s Story was the first game to feature Yoshi as the starring character, a 2D side-scroller that had you eating fruit to progress through levels in order to ultimately reach Baby Bowser.

You had a set number of Yoshis to call up and once one died you didn’t get them back unless you restarted, I remember that in particular because losing a Yoshi remains one of the most soul draining mishaps to occur in any game, watching them get carried off into some shadowy castle and then being taken back to the crèche to get another one, the remaining Yoshis silently pining for their fallen sibling. Equally though, when you got the final fruit the entire screen lit up with sheer joy, that was the strength of Yoshi’s Story, it was one of the most evocative, colourful games you could play and it was varied enough aesthetically to keep things interesting. It also totally changed up the formula laid down by 2D Mario games, with more emphasis on exploration and using your abilities to reach certain areas, it was somewhere between Mario and Metroid.

 

 

Turok 2: Seeds of Evil

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My abiding memory of Turok 2 was that the cartridge was black. This seemed appropriate at the time because it was the first 15-rated game I ever played, it felt forbidden, sacred. For those who don’t remember, Turok was a series of FPS games where you played as a Native American in this kind of alternate, futuristic universe full of dinosaurs. That’s more or less all you need to know set-up wise, the main draw of the game was that it was gory, fast paced and fucking terrifying. I remember being reduced to a gibbering wreck the first time I saw a velociraptor coming at me. I also remember being giddy with excitement the first time I shot someone and their head popped, which seems so dreary and commonplace now. Even by today’s standards though, some of the weapons in Turok 2 were ridiculous, like the one that shot little drill heads that bored through their victim until they were reduced to red mush. Turok 2 was the first game that really frightened me and the first one that really showed me how visceral games could be.

 

 

Pokémon Stadium

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Passing my driving test, getting a place for my masters, my first kiss, my 18th birthday, Disneyland. Those are all things that I was less excited about than I was when I got ahold of Pokémon Stadium. I was right in the dead center of the Pokémon craze, I played them all to death, had the trading cards, watched the show and went to see the first 2 movies in the cinema, chaperoned by 2 very jaded parents who were utterly baffled by my interest in such things. Was Pokémon as shallow and manipulative as South Park suggested? Kind of, yeah, but the games were excellent and they remain so.

Pokémon Stadium was particularly exciting because you could actually take the Pokémon you’d caught and trained in Red and Blue and use them on your console in full 3D. At the time that was utterly mind blowing. The thing is though, it was actually an insanely deep game, allegedly one that is extremely hard to complete even now (I never bothered with the campaign mode). It also has a surprising amount of longevity, I still play it from time to time, mainly for the mini games, which make for extremely compelling playing when you’re either very drunk or very stoned.

 

 

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

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Keep in mind that this is a personal list, I know that there are other Star Wars games that are more fondly remembered but I adored this game. It was one of only 2 games that my Dad ever took a serious interest in and completing it was a team effort between us both. The history behind it is actually rather interesting; it was released as a tie in with a book and comic, featured a part of the story that took place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and it was one of the first pieces of Star Wars spin-off material to feature some original scoring work, done by Joel McNeely.

It followed Dash Rendar, a friend of Han Solo and member of the rebel alliance and took you through the battle of Hoth, a speeder race on Tatooine, an encounter with Boba Fett and much more besides. Famously it was largely only played for the first level, the original 3D recreation of the AT-AT/snow speeder battle from Empire but it had a great deal more to offer. The rest of the game was a 3rd/1st person shooter with an array of weapons and access to a jetpack from about halfway through the game onwards. It was engaging, atmospheric and great fun.

 

 

 

Banjo Kazooie

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The sheer breadth of technological advances that have pushed gaming forward since the late 90s should render almost every game that came out back then hopelessly dated. Somehow though, you can still play Rare’s bizarre platforming masterpiece Banjo Kazooie and find that it holds up remarkably well, it still feels as fresh as it did back then, I can’t think of a higher compliment like that.

There’s a fine line between imaginative and outright weird and many of Rare’s games walked that line, Banjo Kazooie definitely did, being that you played as a humanoid bear with a large bird in his backpack collecting puzzle pieces to thwart a narcissistic witch. It was easy to get past that though when you had such a vast, memorable world to explore, the best games create an atmosphere that doesn’t compare to anything else and thanks to the colourful visuals and a score from the legendary Grant Kirkhope, Banjo Kazooie did exactly that.

 

 

 

Extreme G

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Once again, this is a completely personal list and while Wave Race 64 or F-Zero might be more fondly remembered, Extreme G will always stand out as one of my most loved racers. It certainly wasn’t anything groundbreaking, you raced a futuristic bike around a futuristic track, reaching breakneck speeds, defying gravity and firing off various projectiles and traps to upend the other racers.

The word ‘extreme’ in the title is what sets it apart, everything was turned up to 11, it was faster, the weapons were crazier and the whole thing was set to a ridiculously huge Goa Trance soundtrack that wouldn’t be out of place in a warehouse full of sweaty people with aching jaws. The tracks were varied enough to stay interesting and the addition of ‘shoot-em-up’ and battle modes kept it from getting stale. The Wipeout franchise kind of has the market cornered in futuristic racers now so it’s sometimes easy to forget just how massive they used to be, the N64 age was definitely a golden era for them and Extreme G remains one of the best.

 

 

 

Mario Kart 64

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Of course, no racing game released on the N64 or any other console to date can stand up to the daddy. This was the game that I got bundled with my console and I’ve probably played it more than any other video game over the years. I’m far from alone in that. The previous Mario Kart was good but 64 was in a class of its own, paving the way for every other kart racer to have come out since. It introduced us to the skid mechanic, the blue shell, the best battle-mode to appear in any racer and of course the legendary trippy dreamscape that is rainbow road.

Mario Kart 64 is a flagship example of a game that got literally everything right, balanced characters, good controls, great variety of tracks and an appropriate range of difficulty. I can’t think of a single person with any experience of gaming great or small who hasn’t at least come into contact with Mario Kart 64 and you won’t find anyone who has a bad thing to say about it. Even my Dad likes it.

At this point I feel the need to include a little disclaimer: if you do some internet trawling you will find that a Mario Kart 64 drinking game does indeed exist. For the love of God, don’t play it. Seriously, I speak from experience.

 

Top Three Nintendo 64 Games

 3: Goldeneye 007

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Singling out decent movie-tie-in games isn’t difficult, there’s like 5 that aren’t abysmal cash-ins. Singling out the best move-tie-in game is even easier, it was Goldeneye then and it’s Goldeneye now. Based on one of the only two decent Pierce Brosnan Bond movies, Goldeneye was a standard FPS that took you through the entirety of the film’s storyline in a tight, enjoyable campaign.

Much like a fair few more recent first person shooters, the campaign meant bo-diddly next to the multiplayer. Beyond having mechanics and a style that set the tone for every shooter to follow, Goldeneye had a balanced, varied, addictive multiplayer that I and many of my peers played relentlessly. It taught us all just how lethal a well placed karate-chop to the shoulder can be.

I still remember which mode, map and character I favored and could dive back into that game like a reflex, almost as reflexively as I would savagely beat anyone who dared to play as Oddjob. Do not play as Oddjob. Some might argue that spiritual successor Perfect Dark was the stronger game, but from age 8 all the way to now, any time I met up with some friends to sit up all night playing video games, Goldeneye was never absent, it was essential, there aren’t many other games that can claim that.

 

 

2: Super Mario 64

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Breaking ground seems to be a pretty common theme amongst the games on this list, Super Mario 64 is perhaps the best example of that. Everyone knows about Mario’s legacy, the early games defined the 2D platformer, so when it came time for him to make the jump into the third dimension, it was a risky play.

Not only did it pay off, it revolutionized platform gaming forever, at the time of release it was one of the biggest, most absorbing games ever to be released and the number of people who can claim to have beaten 100% is fairly minute to this day (although, ahem, I’m one of them). In case there’s actually someone out there in the world who doesn’t know, the game had you using Princess Peach’s abandoned castle to port between different worlds in order to find out where Bowser had stashed her.

This lead you to worlds of desert, lava, subterranean cave networks, haunted mansions and much, much more. Many previous games in the franchise had added things but 64 went absolutely all out, it had everything. Every power-up, every kind of enemy, every character and all while introducing a while new style of play, pioneering graphics and a score that was so perfect that hearing it now brings a tear to many an eye. I can recall many an idle evening when the game’s soundtrack provided the background to my writing. The importance of this game is impossible to understate.

 

1: Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

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Shut up! Shush! I don’t want to hear it! Not a word about predictability or obvious choices. Believe me I tried to think of a way not to put this game at number 1 and I came back empty handed, I just can’t do it. After you get past all the awards, ‘best ever’ lists and wistful recounting from gaming peers, the strongest argument for the sheer, all-encompassing majesty of Ocarina of Time that I can levy is that it remains the only game I’ve ever played that had me so absorbed that I actually feigned illness so that I could stay home from school and play.

Mum, if you’re reading this I am deeply sorry, but I must have cumulatively skipped about a week’s worth of school time to complete this game. I do not regret it.

People look for many things in games, challenge, viscera, fun, even fear but the thing I always wanted more than anything else was to be placed in world that I could get lost in. Movies, TV shows, books, those things all put you in worlds too, but you’re always following somebody else’s steps and when the story ends that window closes, games actually put you in their world and the first one to really, properly give me that feeling? Ocarina of Time. The first fully 3D Zelda game, it was darker, more rounded and more evocative than any Zelda to come before it and tonally it ranged from awe-inspiring to endearing to hilarious to utterly terrifying (I still struggle with the Shadow Temple, those fucking hand things man, eurgh….).

It’s all well and good taking a nice nostalgia trip through some old classics to celebrate your favorite console, but Ocarina of Time means even more than that, it’s ridiculous that you still have to contend to convince some people that gaming is a legitimate art from, but Ocarina is a convincing argument in and of itself, one of the most important games ever made.

 

And that wraps it up, nothing left to do but huff some air into the cartridge, dig out some batteries for the rumble pack and try and curl your fingers around that woefully un-ergonomic control pad. I think I can join all my peers in wishing the N64 a very happy birthday; our childhood wouldn’t have been the same without it. Hopefully somewhere out there in the world, this guy (presumably a bit taller and hairier now) is celebrating too:

Now where the hell did I leave that scart adapter!?

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