Tetsuo_808

@FlashBoomerang I've never once heard of that 'bug' in my entire life. So, not really.

A hugely enjoyable and insightful article Perfect Dark's legacy is of one of the most feature-rich and technically impressive games ever made. It may not have sold in numbers which their other series did but, it remains Rare's finest hour, without doubt.

All you need is the Backloggery.com. It's helped me organise and work through my unplayed and unfinished games no end.

@Matroska I disagree on all counts. It's perfectly common for character sets to be separated for visual purposes, as this plaque would be. The first symbol looks very much like kanji, possibly for じん. The third group looks certain to be katakana, with フ and イ highly possible. The bottom groups I'm less sure of. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's a mix of gibberish, Japanese, and English. I just find it very odd someone would spend so much time deciphering it when not a single character appears to be legible English in the first place. I guess only Nintendo knows, if the texture exists somewhere.

The whole endeavour seems wildly off the mark, even to the untrained eye. Because it's always seemed quite obvious, to me at least, that the texture in question is of Japanese text.

Where on earth is Super Monkey Ball?! Call the whole thing off.

The review misses the mark on some key points, for me.

Crucially, there's little mention of Jet Force's deep, yet varied shooting gameplay (hectic, tatical, close and long range, then the shuriken's) and the way the game continuously mixes these up between rooms, with plentiful nods towards Galaxian/Galaga. There's also the extra styles thrown in such as on-rails, 2D/3D racing sections, just because Rare could.

Secondly, zero comment on the graphics? Some of the best use of textures on the N64; rich use of colours everywhere, with realtime lighting effects; and enourmous, often stunning, level designs.

This was Rare on top of their game, on top of the world in 1999, and it's a continual shame that the intricate and immersive gameplay of JFG is lazily overlooked in favour of control issues (yes, it takes a while to get used to?) and the fact it (gasps!) presents a challenge if you want to see the end (it isn't going to hold your hand, and you will have to master and cleanse the levels).

9 for me

Hm. I don't know about elsewhere, but the cost of this certainly was passed onto the consumer as the game retailed at £60. I guess we now have the real reason as to why Rare/Nintendo initially refused to sell the game as a standalone pack too!

Every Ocarina of Time player knows and loves this room. Always a great place to rinse for rupees!

It's a fair observation from Miyamoto - F-Zero X was essentially perfect, and GX/AX simply added some gloss and frivolity. It's difficult to see how from a gameplay point of view it could be improved. But hey, what does he know? SEQUELS and more SEQUELS are what we all crave, right?

Whilst I do think Nintendo have a lot to prove with Wii U, there's few (if any) in the industry who consistently talks as much off-the-mark drivel as Molyneux. His record over the past few decades should be an exoneration of any apprehension towards the system, if nothing else.

This is a perfect game. Maybe the most important game of the 21st century?

Tssk, this title has bait all over it and I see many takers. But to counter the "yeah, it is boring" people (not what Miyamoto was ultimately saying, incidentally) I'd like to say SM64 is a work of genius, and it's interesting to understand why Nintendo took decisions like this.

If you look at beta footage of Mario 64 you'll understand quite clearly what Miyamoto-san is talking about. Mario's movement was changed late in development to a slower, more floaty feel - much to the benefit of the final game.

@James "Use of a real orchestra for the first time in the series..." I'm sure Twilight Princess had already set the precedent in this regard?

Nice review. I've had my doubts about this one based on what's been shown of it over the past few years, but I'm now more positive. It looks as though Nintendo are one step ahead of us all, as usual.

Melee gets a lot of praise as it sold an awful lot of copies, and for lots of people it was their first entry to the series. But the N64 original is still the vastly superior game for me. It's gameplay was so tightly balanced I played it with friends for hours, days even.

In Melee, by contrast, the controls became far too loose and unsatisfying, the stages and characters lost all of their clever balance, and in general the emphasis instead became on throwing around hundreds of extra characters, game modes (particularly the 1-player game, which was never the emphasis anyway) and tiresome unlockable content. That just didn't cut it, and for me it's a pale shadow of the N64 game.

I've loved reading this. Jet Force Gemini is a very special game, the amount of care and effort that went into it was clear to see. The gameplay was mixed but always compulsive, and the addition of 80's arcade-style shooting action in a 3D world was inspired.

One thing I would have liked to know more about was the stunning music. It had this beautiful, powerful orchestral soundtrack which was sutle at times and then would explode into life at others. The whole game was at this time (along with Perfect Dark just around the corner) Rare at the top of their game.

And I have to totally disagree with Guybrush_Threepwood's generalisation - JFG is easily one of the best looking games on the N64, and it still looks fantastic today.