In 1996 I walked into the electronics aisle with my Dad and saw Super Mario 64 on display. It would be like if they invented 3D holograms of video game characters that could run around your house, climbing on your furniture and having battles on the kitchen countertops. That’s what Mario 64 felt like to me when it came out.
I got my N64 for my birthday in 1998. It was my daily driver until 2003 when I upgraded to a Gamecube.
I think
chibby has my childhood N64 now. However I have at least 6 N64s I found from thrift stores before the street price ballooned to like $100 per N64.
My biggest regret is that one time I found that special N64 with a Pikachu sculpted into the side of it at Goodwill, then got bored of it and sold it on eBay for pocket money. This was the early 2000’s when you could find awesome retro gaming stuff at thrift stores and flea markets without even trying.
I still play N64, but it’s mostly to re-experience Zelda Ocarina of Time or 007 Goldeneye every few years. It’s not something I play to go out of my comfort zone.
Lately I beat Pokemon Snap for the first time in over two decades. That was really neat.
Yes. In the late 2010’s I stocked up on sought-after N64 carts before the prices got any crazier. Due to some guys on Racketboy cutting me a deal, I own (but have not yet played) Mystical Ninja Goemon, Tactics Ogre, Paper Mario, and some others.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Armorines
I don’t know enough about computer architecture to weigh in on that.
Back in the day I thought the facial animation in Turok 3 was amazing for an N64 game. If you were lucky enough to even have spoken dialog in the first place, N64 characters’ faces were generally static texture maps. They would wave their hands around like action figures as their spoken dialog played out loud. You had to imagine that their lips were actually moving. So, seeing that in Turok 3 was kind of like next gen graphics without buying new hardware.
Likely 007 Goldeneye.
Yes, split screen multiplayer was a huge part of N64. We would play these:
- 007 Goldeneye
- 007 The World is Not Enough
- Quake II
- Turok Rage Wars
- Battletanx Global Assault
In the late 90’s I didn’t think N64 had any weaknesses. In the 2000’s the N64’s blurry textures and lego-like 3D models were showing their age. These days I guess the N64’s most outdated feature is the low framerate. 20 fps gaming just isn't a thing anymore.
As a young N64 owner back in the day, I sometimes wished that certain Playstation games could get N64 versions, such as Lego Rock Raiders, Digimon World, and Star Wars Jedi Power Battles. However I thought the Playstation’s raw, unfiltered texture maps looked unsightly compared to the N64’s blended ones.
As an adult now, I think Playstation does a great job at a wide variety of things. However, the N64 does a spectacular job at a narrower range of things. So, Playstation was probably a better choice for a broad audience, whereas N64 was better for a more specific audience.
No, all of my favorite N64 games are very mainstream. This was actually a blessing in disguise back in the day, since I stuck mostly to 1st party (Nintendo) and 2nd party (Rareware) titles during the N64’s commercial lifespan. So, there were no “bad games” for me during that time.
Armorines - my worst N64 game of all time - was from around 2002 when I wanted a Gamecube but couldn’t afford one yet and would buy whatever was cheap in the pre-owned bin from EB Games to try to get more use out of my aging N64. Anyway, I don't count that as "during the N64's commercial lifespan".
My N64 white whale used to be Sin and Punishment, but I think it got translated to English in the Wii virtual console release. I'm not super knowledgable about weird Japan-only N64 games. When it comes to stuff like that I'm more into Sega Saturn.