Round Table: Remembering the Nintendo 64

Great round table to all the team. Love reading these.

Playing GoldenEye, both single-player and multi-player, is one of the highlights of my gaming life.

Watching a neighbour play the Battle of Hoth level in Shadows of the Empire was what made me want to get an N64.
The game that impressed me the most in terms of graphics was Conker's Bad Fur Day, and the most played multiplayer was Super Smash Bros. Conker had an excellent multiplayer actually; my cousin and I were shocked to discover that if you killed your AI teammates enough times, they'd turn against you!

Of course my favourite game remains Ocarina of Time...which I only bought because it was going for £20 at Electronic Boutique's online shop, VERY cheap for a brand new game at the time. Before that I wasn't interested because despite scoring 98% in N64 Magazine's thorough review (spread over two issues actually) I thought it looked like 'boring Final Fantasy rubbish.'
Oh well, you live and you learn.

Since I was born in '95, I missed out on the N64 era. However, some friends of ours had a Nintendo 64 in their basement, and at 6 years old, Mario Kart 64 was one of the most fun experiences I ever had.

I miss the N64. Unlike the systems that come out today, the N64 was the last great system that felt like it brought something great and magical to the world. I remember sitting up for hours, ignoring my best friend next door (he got a PS1!) and never sleeping. It was the best time of my video game life.

Today, any system that comes out just feels like a new gadget to add to the plethora of others that a majority of us have filling the hours. Everything is so hi-tech now adays, that nothing feels revolutionary.... Not like the N64 did.(and come on Nintendo, bring the word Nintendo back to the system)

I remember sinking many hours into Mario 64 and really being blown away by the design and control of this fully immersed 3d world. I had a PS1 so it wasn't entirely new but still it hadn't done anything on that scale before at all.
Shadows of the Empire is a good one that I almost forgot. The mood was really nice, despite the fogginess, and a good 3D Star Wars adventure is still a pretty rare thing. It's hard to top Perfect Dark, though more people seemed to know 007. So sad that all those Rare games are just gone to us now; what a mess. Rare really did make so many of the games that made this system shine. The discussions of the potential of 64 games on 3DS just re-opens the wounds of all the lost Rare games, thanks to Microsoft.
Never really understood the excitement over Killer Instinct and Wave Race even then. It was a thing all the game magazines drooled over then, but when you actually played them they looked nice but got boring very quick. Jet Ski racing? Who is eagerly awaiting the next jet ski game? or Generic fighter for that matter? Not me.

l was born in '95 but still got an N64 so I didn't have many games for it because of how late I got it. That and I wasn't much of a gamer back then but my most memorable experiences with it would probably be Super Mario 64 and Star wars: rougue squadron.

I was born in '99, so I missed out on the N64. Sounded like a cool and fun time. I would love to be astounded by Mario 64's or OOT's transition to 3D, but my first console was the GameCube.

PS1 was not technically suprior.

Man I remember buying an N64 right around the time GoldenEye came out. The was the first FPS I ever bought and it's still my fav. Only one other person in my dorm had an N64, but after month half the people in the dorm had one and everyone was playing GoldenEye. Man I got a lot of milage on that game. And when we got bored with that we just switched to Mario Kart. Man those were the days.

@Ren: Wave Race 64 was the reason I bought an N64. I still consider that the best racing game ever made. The AI was immpecable. The levels designs are awesome. And the physics are still the best to this day (only beaten by it's sequel). Even the sheer amount of customization is pretty impressive to this day. I'm waiting for wave race's return, hopefully on the 3DS.

The only problem I have with Nintendo selling Rare was the lose of all those great franchises and never being able to see them on the VC, or as 3DS remakes.

Banjo Kazooie is the greatest platformer on all time. It has the simplicity and humor of a cartoon, yet complex and engaging enough to want to explore every area for everything this game has to offer. The game mechanics were great, and all the worlds were so colorful and lively. But i can't longer play it confortably on my N64 because of the control sticks on the controllers being all weared down.

I agree with you Corbie.

I bought my first N64 in 2011 lol

Loved the N64. Sums up my childhood right there. Loved the uniqueness of all the console colors and controllers. Everyone had their own preference. Kinda why I was disappointed in how long it took the Wii to break away from the White scheme even though one could buy shells or skins to remedy the situation between that time.

I'm waiting for wave race's return, hopefully on the 3DS.

They should call it simply Wave Race 4, because it would be the fourth game.

Awesome.

@Ichabod
I know exactly what you mean. I remember the first time I played the N64 and it just felt magical. I'm not exactly sure why, but I haven't had that feeling since.

N64 multiplayer defines a large portion of my childhood. Everyday consisted of waking up late, playing with friends outside on a trampoline or bikes and such. After a few hours, go inside and break out the N64 with diddy kong racing battle mode or even better, in announcer voice SUPER SMASH BROTHERS! then of course go home when the sun starts to fall, eat, watch anime on toonami, then go back outside until bedtime(then stay up to some ungodly hour to watch adult swim).
And then repeat!

MK64. Good times

@Bass_XO You my friend just proved yourself to be a true Nintendo fan. Very few seem to know that WaveRace 64 was actually the second game in the series, as WaveRace on Gameboy preceded it.

Good point! But you never really hear about it. I just remember looking at the back of the box and thinking it looked like the speedboat bits in Micro Machines.
Not sure if it's worth looking forward to on the VC then, but any other Wave Race stuff would be welcome! (1080° Snowboarding too).

It has to come down to Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Banjo Kazooie is my favorite N64 game, but FPS are incredibly popular today and these two games had just as much fan fare in my little world growing up. Another equation is "all meat sims + unarmed = beat the meat"

I have a very foggy memory of my first N64 experience. I was a little boy maybe 8 years old. We had a Super Nintendo but I wasn't thinking too much about the games other than what we owned. I remember it was a dark room with many people, maybe on a ship! I remember my parents were a somewhere else and there were intriguing and also scary things around, until I saw a screen with Mario's face. Someone was fiddling the controller, and when they saw my face they kindly gave the controller to me. Now remember, I played the first area with the bombs and was frustrated of how difficult it was to maneuver 3D-jumping
Didn't think too much back then, for all I knew that could've been the only machine with that game in the world! I played Mario 64 at our relatives maybe year/years later and had a silent "ohhh this".
Writing that now felt like a brain excavation

@dimlylitmonkey The GB version of WaveRace is allot like MicroMachines. It's a pretty good game and fun for the nostalgic type like myself.

These roundtables are great. I love reading them a lot. Glad to see you guys doing this. It's fun to read.

Wow, the N64. This article brought up so many memories. That console was great! It was a party machine for sure. Smash Bros., Goldeneye, Mario Kart64, and countless other games. Plus all the great single player games and the fact this was Nintendo's first step into 3D! This console was revolutionary. I love the fact there was very little to no loading times...unlike the PS1 >:[ (worth it for MGS though.)
I still have my N64 hooked up. I play Smash Bros. with my brother a lot and still play Pokemon Stadium 2 by myself and with friends sometime.

@TheDarkness: It's still totally possible to see a rare game, either remake, sequel or new franchise, on the 3DS, since Microsoft doesn't have a competing handheld they do allow Rare to occasionally work on handheld projects for Nintendo, consider the following rumour posted right here back in April: http://3ds.nintendolife.com/news/2011/04/rumour_rare_looking_into_3ds_development
Therefore, it IS possible, just not as likely as we'd like it to be.

But to get back on topic, there are no greater memories of my childhood than Ocarina of Time and Banjo Kazooie, best games EVER

I'm a huge Zelda fan. Its my favorite series. And the N64 is suppose to have 2 great Zelda games (and Ocarina is a great game).

BUT

I'm currently playing Majora's Mask, and may God have mercy on my sanity and stress tolerance, because it is the first horrible experience that I've ever had with a Zelda game. Don't get me wrong, I've played, completed, and enjoyed every single Zelda game except for Majora's Mask. This is my first real attempt to finish the game, and so far, I'm really frustrated, even with a walkthrough. The consistent, forced backtracking, re-beating boses, re-gathering items, re-playing songs, ultra-high difficulty in side-quests, and only 4 dungeons? The whole game is nothing so far but back-tracking, loaded with re-doing and un-doing what I've been constantly re-doing, and loaded with side-quests, so many in fact that it makes the game itself a side-quest, with no real depth.

But hey, I'm not yet finished with it, so maybe it will get better, and redeem itself to me toward the end. But then again, so far, its getting worse and worse and worse. Thank God that Skyward Sword is coming soon, a REAL Zelda game.

--EDIT/UPDATE---- I just finished Majora's Mask a few days ago. I must admit, it did get better toward the end. My conclusion is simple. If you play the game primarily to finish it, then it's worthy of a purchase. However, if your hoping that its Ocarina of Time x2, then you're going to be disappointed, unless you have strong nerves, alot of patience, and side-quests are your thing. (I did manage to find out that some of the side quests are not so difficult once I learned a few simple tricks).

Overall, I feel that Gamespot's score of a 8.3 is very fair, and perhaps a bit too generous. Gamespot is usually the harsh critic (or at least they use to be). To quote Gamespot.............

"Majora's Mask is a great game, but it isn't for everybody. Even though it uses the same engine that drove Ocarina of Time, and the gameplay is the same on the surface, the adventure is extremely different. Some will appreciate the game's differences, while others will find the game's focus on minigames and side quests tedious and slightly out of place. While the game definitely has a lot going for it, and in the end comes together in a pretty tight package, skeptics should definitely rent this one first."--end of quote.

Could not have said it better myself.

Check out their original review here---> http://www.gamespot.com/n64/action/legendofzeldamajorasmask/review.html

Oh, and the same guy (Jeff Gerstmann) gave Ocarina of Time a 10, and said it was perfect. So, he's not anti-Zelda at all.

Majora's Mask is my probably my favourite N64 game but it's hard to choose. It definitely is my favourite Zelda game just ahead of Wind Waker. I just loved everything about Majora's Mask. It was so much darker and deeper than Ocarina. There were less dungeons, yes, but there were so many interesting sidequests and all the characters had a story and a schedule to follow, something Nintendo has never done since. The Expansion Pak made it a graphically better game than Ocarina too. I really hope Nintendo remakes it in 3D. Maybe then it would be more appreciated.

But as for mulitplayer experiences, Mario Party 3 is my favourite game on the N64. I first played it when I was like 5 and for years I searched for the game again that I could barely remember. After getting Mario Party 1 I knew what series it was in and had to guess whether it was Mario Party 2 or 3. I eventually got Mario Party 3 and at last I had found it. But the length of one game meant my family wanted to play Mario Kart 64 instead. I grew to love it though and I have never played a better battle mode than Mario Kart 64's. I didn't get Mario Party 2 until it came out on VC last year and I didn't get Smash Bros until this year too. I played little bits of Goldeneye 007 when I was little but we never owned it.

Me and my brother had to pool our money and do extra chores for months to buy the N64 when it first came out. We'd read about it in Official Nintendo Magazine (or Nintendo Magazine System as it was known then) and were blown away by the screenshots. At launch the console was something insane like £270-£300, and the games were £50 each (Turok was £70!)
If it had been anything else, it wouldn't have been worth it, but the N64 was a landmark console in the same way the NES and Atari 2600 were. It wasn't the first with 3D graphics (although they were much smoother than the PlayStation and Saturn's) but bringing in the analogue stick as standard, and the trigger, and camera control, and force feedback, and 4 player ports, made it so much more than just a step up. Of course the games are what made it really great. It was at that time when developers couldn't exactly push for realism, so they focused more on gameplay. And family games like Banjo Kazooie were still cool to play even if you were a teenager.
Not sure when we'll see a leap like that again, if again. Maybe when some kind of virtual reality becomes available to the public, in the not too distant future.

These features are getting better and better.

I was so happy when the yellow controller came out. I hadn't been able to have one for a console before or since. I love the colour yellow, and there is a severe lack of yellow in consoles ( the only other yellow gaming item I have is my yellow dsiXL. Thank you Nintendo for being more adventurous with the colour options.

@nintygaming
Same here! I'm playing Majora's Mask and hate it too! Exept, im kinda new with zelda, so the only games ive played are twilight princess(wii), spirit tracks, and phantom hourglass. phantom hourglass was kinda mediocre, but OMG i couldnt stop playing the other two! The only reason I havent given OOT a try is because I dont have a 3DS and want to get the 3D version(playing songs on VC just isnt the same)!

@nintygaming: You do realize you can save your game in Majora's Mask right? All your items and such stay with you when you save the game. Anyway, I never did like that game much... Zelda on a time limit is just wrong. Maybe if the dungeons were not on a time limit I would have liked it a whole lot better.

@25 yasha: I know that Rare made DKC for the GBA, and Diddy Kong Racing and Viva Pinata for the DS, but I doubt that MS would have them port any N64 classics to the 3DS. If they remade Perfect Dark and Conker, the 3DS would be the greatest system ever.

Ah, the good old days. after a certain hour of the evening it always came back to 'slappers only'.
a 'slappers only' victory is a victory indeed.

When the N64 was new it was too kiddy for my lifestyle of PSX, loose women, and booze. I came around after experiencing four player Goldeneye, Mario Kart, and WCW/NWO Revenge, and the system has aged much better than the Playstation.

@thedarkness: They did do a remake of Conker for the Xbox, but they dumbed the game down and censored the swearing. Based on reviews, the original N64 version was far better. I hunted down Conker's Bad Fur Day N64 and thoroughly enjoyed it. While I stongly dislike blood/violence in video games, good old-fasioned raunchy potty humour is fine with me. Conker is one of those rare M-rated titles without the blood-gore-violence factor. It's like comparing a slash-n-gash horror movie to an raunchy comedy flick. Totally worth the admission price in my book.

I have an N64 that doesn't work, but I didn't get rid of it because there is too many memories.

then why dont u get a new one