Rosalinho

I'm pretty sure this kind of list isn't exactly unique to the UK. If you look at the US charts it's probably all CoD, NHL and Madden. Give us Brits a break for our taste in games folks!

@Maxz You just nailed what I love about BoTW. The environmental storytelling, the sidequests and the sense of exploration and adventure are what I like the most in Zelda, while slogging through another forest/fire/water themed dungeon just to move the game along was something that I felt was getting tired. Obviously some sacrifices had to be made to get the open world concept to work but so many of the things people complain about are things I love the game for doing.

I've never heard of this game and I'm distinctly interested now.

@The_BAAD_Man I'm pretty sure it's just a small number of guitar samples pitched up and down, hence it doesn't sound much like someone actually rocking out.

@Lordplops Oh heck yes. I can't imagine how many people were exploring the Deku Tree at the same time on 25/12/1998. I remember Channel 4 was screening the Super Mario Bros. movie on the day and my parents kept asking me why I was still playing Ocarina instead of watching it. Yeah, I think I made the right choice.

1998 was the N64's best year. So many great games and still plenty of first flush titles that many of us got round to playing around then. What a year, what a console.

I got mine on Christmas Day 1997, after the price drop to £99.99 (my parents were happy) alongside Super Mario 64 and Lylat Wars (aka Star Fox 64). It had been out here since early 1997 and hadn't been a huge seller as the UK was solidly PlayStation country.

It didn't start very well as we turned on Mario 64 with the analogue stick tilted and had no idea why Mario wouldn't stop running in circles. But once we'd figured it out I played it all morning, absolutely blown away. The only console I'd played before was the NES. I don't think I need to spell out how mind-blowing the leap straight from NES to N64 was.

"Jumpman saves the Lady. You have to be over eighteen to see what he does to her next."

Tasteful.

Dumping Rare has proven to be one of the best financial decisions Nintendo ever made.

MK8 overtaking Gen I Pokemon in sales seems a given at this point, assuming Wii U and Switch sales are included. It might already have done so. It's pretty close to NES/Famicom/FDS sales of Super Mario Bros. as well. This is the kind of unstoppable titan we're dealing with.

My uncle who works at Square tells me they're working on a Smash Bros. clone where the whole roster consists of forgotten 90s mascots. Can't wait to beat up Gex with Cool Spot and Zool.

(Disclosure: I am trolling.)

Nintendo have requested US patents for gameplay mechanics for years. See https://patents.google.com/patent/US6139433A/en which is an expired patent for much of Super Mario 64's game mechanics (also interesting for the very early models of Peach's Castle included).

I'm not entirely sure why they do this, or how often it's been legally useful to them. Are there any patent lawyers here who understand this better?

It's incredible what the little grey brick that could is capable of in the hands of a skilled coder. The Game Boy's long lifespan meant a lot of developers pushed it pretty hard. I'll have to check out Race Drivin', I've never heard of it. Cheers @CartoonDan for the heads up.

I would say he lost me at NFTs, but he already lost me at Peter Molyneux.

He's revealing Mothra? Well, if anyone's going to fly in on a giant moth to present an award it's the Regginator.

Ah, the GCN controller design. Never bettered to this day. Comfortable, intuitive and almost perfectly laid out. Not surprised there's still so much demand for it.

Link, you were warned about eating too many of those Hylian Shrooms.

The vast majority of the public don't make purchasing decisions on consoles by carefully evaluating lists of tech specs, and they never have. Consoles live or die by having games people want to play and a marketable brand and image, and the Switch has nailed both. The PlayStation was still doing numbers at this point in its life as well for the same reasons, and so was the Game Boy.

I'm pretty confused by some of these comments. Breaking games usually isn't my thing, with some exceptions, and I don't speedrun, but I appreciate the artistry behind it.

In many cases it's not easy to draw the line between "exploiting" an "unintentional defect" in a game versus mastering the game mechanics. Did BoTW's developers deliberately intend players to be able to do some of the crazy things you can do in that game? Did the Super Mario 64 team ever envision the kind of liquid Mario motion you see done nowadays when they were playtesting? No, but they came up with flexible game mechanics that were fun for players to explore.

There are many ways to play games, some of which are fun for some people and not fun for others. Whatever. Play and let play.

There's a saying that's often repeated in software engineering (my job): "Plan to throw one away; you will, anyway." Meaning make a prototype and don't be surprised if you need to change everything about it. A lot of software, not just games, is now developed in this way.

Some people are surprised that Nintendo have this philosophy, but they always did. Games like Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 went through so many iterations over the course of their development that the end product looks almost nothing like the initial idea. (Yes, I know, I talk about the N64 too much, but those are both good examples.)

@Dr_Lugae is right on the money. The way Nintendo experiment cuts both ways. Sometimes it leads to experiments that fail disastrously. Sometimes it leads to us all shouting "FFS Nintendo just give us more of the same but better!" Sometimes it completely redefines the concept of what a video game can be.

@berg_ D'oh, of course it is. Sorry for that brainfart. Guess ROB64's been programmed with medical subroutines.

Speaking as someone who works as a programmer/computer scientist and has a real interest in compilation and decompilation, this is absolutely beautiful. From an academic standpoint the idea that we can get close to reading the original source code for one of the greatest games of all time is unbelievable. Looking at this I'm in awe of the skills of the original developers as well as the people who worked on the reverse engineering in terms of their understanding of the N64 hardware.

As for all the carping about what's ethical and what isn't in these comments: I'm fine with Nintendo protecting their copyrights and trademarks, because I know I would do the same if I were in charge of something so valuable. I'm also fine with fans testing Nintendo's patience from time to time if they're doing it out of love for their products and regard for their cultural significance, because it's the fans who made these properties so valuable.

There's always been a tension between the two, and always will be. The cosmic ballet goes on.

This is neat, but do the Star Fox team really sleep in one giant bedroom? Look at about 0:40. Can you imagine Peppy's snoring and Slippy complaining about how counting tadpoles wasn't helping him sleep? I can think of someone who would be headed to the launch bay quicker than you could say "Falco, where ya going?"

Also I'm deducting one medal for the inclusion of Krystal, but I'll put my flying fox stamp on this nonetheless.

But what was the street value?

Great article. This kind of coverage of aspects of video game history at risk of being forgotten is what I like to see from NL. More like this please folks! 👍

@quinnyboy58 Only half true. Females who are into games have existed in large numbers for as long as there have been video games. I was introduced to the NES by the girls across the street from me, and many girls I went to school with in the 90s played all the same games I did. You are right that magazines, marketing and executives at games firms behaved as if they thought there were hardly any girls or women who liked video games, but that was as untrue then as it is now.

@Clyde_Radcliffe I think the main reason people notice this kind of thing is that in this era Microsoft went for another level in edgy, mean-spirited marketing, especially targeting Nintendo. Anyone remember the tribute to the "Not-tendo LameCube" on the official Xbox website? That was just the tip of the iceberg...

As other people have said, this is probably just Spencer jumping on a hot button issue to make him seem down with the consumer. He's probably right, but these seem like empty words to me, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Regarding video game preservation, I'd have to play devil's advocate and point out that video games are much, much better preserved than many other types of old media. Many old books, movies and music recordings are not in fact well preserved; in fact, most Hollywood films made before 1950 are lost. Early video games haven't been lost on anything like the scale that early cinema or television has been.

Of course, there's the fact that this is more due to the efforts of fans and self-styled pirates than the copyright holders, which is a whole other subject. But it's certainly not unique to video games, as anyone familiar with the 1965 MGM vault fire or the BBC throwing out much of its heritage will tell you.

Gambling, NFTs, "join our Telegram" and edgelord chan speak?

How to make people not take your side against a Nintendo takedown in four easy steps.

There's no such thing as "blockchain gaming". Ubisoft are just trying to get gullible investors who are easily dazzled by buzzwords excited by something that they can't even properly describe themselves. More generally, blockchain is a problem, not a solution, and as for NFTs... fool, money, parted etc.

The Pikmin's Progress, by John B'Onion.

@victordamazio We seem to be talking about two different things. I was just having a laugh at the expense of a game whose main selling point seems to be something you can get free on Google Image Search. I wasn't attempting serious social commentary.

@victordamazio I don't understand, what "excuse"? Go somewhere else? What does that mean?

@CharlieGirl I guess out of a love of the source material and a desire to see what different things could be done with the same game engine, I suppose? Even as a kid I used to design my dream levels for the original Super Mario Bros. on paper.

One way of renewing a yellowed beyond redemption US SNES I guess. I recently tricked out my battered grey Joy-Cons with aftermarket clear shells and they look incredible (especially next to my clear Game Boy Classic).

"Unlock a new image with each stage cleared!"

If only there were faster and cheaper ways of obtaining badly drawn pornography!

For some reason, Odyssey just didn't do it for me despite me being as hyped for it as you'd expect. It's not a bad game in any sense, but I just couldn't shake the off-kilter feeling I had despite playing well into the post-game. I really tried, but parts of it just annoy me; the fact that the Power Moon missions feel like quantity over quality and make the game feel grindy, that the possession mechanic isn't as interesting as it should be, and some really jarring missteps in character design (those [expletive] Broodals) and worldbuilding (the Mushroom Kingdom being a tiny mushroom-shaped island just doesn't feel right somehow).

However, I did like the subtle nods to 30+ years of Mario lore, possibly the best Bowser section in the series, Pauline and Peach's characterisation and the fact that Pauline returned at all, and the willingness to play with slightly more realistic-looking environments which always works better than you would think in Mario's universe. But somehow it just wasn't my thing as a whole. Call me crazy.

I'm pretty sure the Great Rubber Glove Giveaway is fresh enough in Nintendo's corporate mind for them to have made the number of stick spins to win this something a human thumb could actually accomplish. I wouldn't worry too much.

I'll be honest, the Switch isn't my favourite Nintendo console in terms of the number of games that are among my all-time favourites. But seeing Nintendo back on top, where they belong, is well worth the nitpicks I have with the platform. The fusion of home console and handheld is a smart move and needed to happen. As much as Nintendo drive me up the wall sometimes, they are the spiritual centre of gaming and are responsible for the vast majority of the games I enjoy the most.

In relation to some other comments: "Nintendo is doomed/is about to go software-only/needs to have the most powerful hardware/will be bankrupted because of X new platform" has been an evergreen talking point since about 1990. If you're a younger fan, and don't understand why people are always saying this, just learn to roll with it.

I was there when the N64 was going to be the last Nintendo home console, when the Wii was going to be annihilated by the mighty PS3, when the Game Boy Advance clearly couldn't compete with the Nokia N-Gage, when smartphones were going to kill dedicated game hardware by 2013. The first rule in video game punditry should be "never underestimate the Big N." Here's to the next five years and beyond!

@RabidCanuck It's not exactly an unpopular opinion. Mario Party isn't everyone's thing, and it wasn't helped by the fact that there have been so many games in the series, many of them mediocre.

The thing with Mario Party though is that it's more about what goes on off-screen than the actual game mechanics. Get a group of four friends who are into it in a room, watch fortunes change, temporary alliances form and break, people stabbing one another in the back from turn to turn, and it's a vibe. That's always been what multiplayer gaming is about for me.

The rate things are going, I think "Switch Game Doesn't Leak Before Launch" would be more of a story.

Crime simulators have never been my thing. The reason Nintendo has always been the spiritual centre of gaming for me is that I'm not into this kind of game. It always grated with me back in the GameCube era Nintendo platforms were laughed at for not carrying many "mature" (sic) games filled with blood, gore, guns and naked ladies.

In hindsight I can appreciate the artistry and storytelling in GTA and how the series popularised a lot of concepts that have influenced video games for the better. But I can't see myself buying this. Old resentments die hard I guess.

I'm still waiting for Metroid 64.

This is the only core series Metroid game I've never played (I want to, but it's overpriced used at the moment due to Dread coming out). It seems every series has an entry from which people on the Internet try to get fandom cred by hating harder than everyone else, while other people join a rival gang which defends everything about the same game.

Both groups try to claim that they're "objectively" right. Both get emotional when other people disagree with them. It's pretty tedious really.

I'm getting big time UltraHLE flashbacks with this.

I think on balance I'm going to wait to see if they "do a Mario Golf" and come out with any DLC before taking the plunge on this. Wario's Battle Canyon would be my first choice, and in second place would be any other board from the original.

If that doesn't happen, no big deal; the original Mario Party is one of the main reasons I keep a battle-ready N64.

Did I mention the original is one of my favourite games ever?!

@Zag_Man N64 Magazine talked about it constantly back in '97-'98, and ran many side by side comparisons, so I became aware of it early on. Mags would usually screenshot the US/Japanese versions of games and I used to wonder "Why are the characters so tall?" I'm sure many people never noticed, it's just something you can't unsee once you're aware of it.

@F_Destroyer Not true, PAL versions of early first-party N64 games (Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 being notable examples) were almost always letterboxed, and most PAL conversions ran slower. You can find speed comparisons of games like Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars fairly easily on YouTube, both of which were full screen in PAL, but ran slower. Some games ran full screen full speed in all regions (e.g. some Rare titles) but it was far from universal.

Reading certain comments on this, I'm thinking about how quickly the people who are offended by the mere mention of the word "accessibility" would change their tune if they were hit by a car or pushed off a bridge and suffered life-changing injuries which stopped them from playing video games.

This is the right decision. Letterboxed, slowed down versions of games are a nostalgia trip I can do without, and I imagine anyone who remembers playing the original PAL versions feels the same way. Nice that the 50Hz versions will still be available for those who prefer them or want multilingual support though.

Finally, a Western box where Kirby isn't angry. At long last the puff is able to be his authentic self outside Japan. It's about time.

I was intrigued by this game, not having played a Pokemon game since Red and Blue other than Let's Go Pikachu a couple of years back. Kind of disappointing that it isn't going to be Breath of the Pokemon, as that would have been a firm buy for me, but it's not necessarily a deal-breaker.

Maybe I'm better off staying away from Pokemon, as everyone who is heavily into it seems to be filled with murderous rage all the time. Seems a bit unhealthy.

This sounds annoying and sloppy design, but the conspiracy theories claiming it's there to make your fingers hurt so much you want to buy digital are just... come on guys, really?

I'm pretty sure they're trolling, but it is kind of funny as satire on "collectors' editions" and the increasingly ridiculous amounts and types of tat these releases include. Even though LRG are a major contributor to that trend themselves, of course...