Back to the N64

[E. Randy Dupre]

Concept> Now I come to think about it, yeah, you're right about the controllers. The play range on the analogue can get farked through salty stiffness. I'd forgotten about that, current-gen controllers aging badly for pretty much the opposite reason.

Mario 64 will never look old, simply because of the one-colour textures used throughout. The same goes for other games on the machine that did something more or less unique - Paper Mario springs to mind.

[Tom Salter]

I still prefer the original Wave Race's graphics over the slightly hyperactive water of the sequel. And I loved them pools in Mario 64, they looked amazing.

[dataDave]

Once you see the N64 in RGB there is absolutely no turning back, I bought a modded NTSC console from this forum the day I joined for about ?25 or something criminal like that.

Mario 64 is so damn clean and vibrant - it demanded a full 120 star play the moment I plugged it in.

Also, the high res copyright info at the beginning of PD is damn sharp 128bit style - as is the diary on Majora. They must be 640x480 or something close.

The pads do wear out, I've gone through 4 on Perfect Dark alone. You really do need a neat analogue for that game, especially at the very beginning of PA Attack Ship.

The deffinately should do some fresh re-issues though, in some new colours with perhaps a revision on the analogue.

[Bassman]

How difficult are they to mod?

[Saurian]

Not difficult if you have experience in soldering and attaching wires to pins of a chip - it's not microscopic work like a PS2 or something.

You remove the machine's casing, detach the motherboard from the casing and remove the heatsink.

Locate the chip shown and lift the R, G and B pins off the motherboard using a something like a needle to lift them up after heating with your iron + de-solder wick.

Attach a length of Kynar wire to each pin, label and feed them through a hole on the board to the reverse side making sure they are in no way going to get squashed when re-assembled.

Solder your Kynar RGB lines each to their appropriate pin of the AV port.



A lot of guides for the SNES and N64 mod state the signal must be boosted - it doesnt. Just lift the pins off the motherboard on both machines, remove the caps from your RGB cable - and you are in business.

[Tom Salter]

Right you bastards, it's time for me to go to the old wanted forum for one of these babys.

[dataDave]

Just think how different it would be if Nintendo had skipped the N64 and brought out a moddified N64 a year before the DC...

A delay of a further 2 years would have crippled Nintendo man. People were screaming for the N64 at the end of summer '95. Imagine how many more fans would have jumped on other bandwagons by that time.

I do agree in part, Nintendo can be a little hasty at the best of times though. They should have delayed some of the later N64 releases for Gamecube release day madness. Imagine how many more Gamecubes launch day Perfect Dark would have sold.

[ezg]

Mmm...... will have to take a look at my Hong Kong N64 tonight, from my vague recollection of F Zero X I think it's still in fuzzy vision.

I think I may have to send you a pm tonight Saurian to see whether it can be modded

[Ady]

I do agree in part, Nintendo can be a little hasty at the best of times though. They should have delayed some of the later N64 releases for Gamecube release day madness. Imagine how many more Gamecubes launch day Perfect Dark would have sold.

Thing is, Rare had already jumped into bed with Micrsoft by that point...

[MD]

Well Nintendo had become the violent alcoholic by this point, violently slapping Rare around with average sales. Microsoft would have seen like the rich sugar daddy by this point.

[Brats]

Unlike the Famicom and Super Famicom (and even Gamecube) there are a fair lack of hidden treasures and a lot of blurry, half hearted games.

I think that's a fair comment and the result of Nintendo's 'Quality not Quantity' policy at the time. Not that there were many quality games, but those that were became very well known because of the lack of games generally, so as a result there aren't that many 'hidden gems'.

Having said that, the gems that were shone very brightly. Imo Nintendo were at their peak during the N64. I know a lot of people at the time were giving them a slagging like they are now, but they hardly produced a duff game (Yoshi's Story aside). I'm with Saur that Starfox 64 is still the best on rails shooter; F Zero X is still up there; the two Zelda's are the best in the series; Waverace, 1080 and Excitebike are still the best jetski, snowboarding and motocross games available imo; Pilotwings is sublime and Mario 64 = 'nuff said.

The three Treasure games were all tops (and the N64 version of Bangaioh is a bit of a hidden treasure and different enough from the DC version to warrant a purchase), Rare were on top form and DMA (ergo Rockstar North) produced Body Harvest and Silicon Valley .

On the otherhand, some developers never got to grips with it. Konami produced tons of ****e and Namco just produced their standard baseball games until someone ported Ridge Racer at the very end. The Americans didn't seem to have a clue with the best effort being....erm....War Gods?

So the N64. Mainly dross, but when it came up with a good game, they were bloody amazing.

[GoodMorningSpider]

On the otherhand, some developers never got to grips with it. Konami produced tons of ****e and Namco just produced their standard baseball games until someone ported Ridge Racer at the very end. The Americans didn't seem to have a clue with the best effort being....erm....War Gods?

To be fair to Konami, they did produce the best football game of the time on the N64 in the ISS series - that only lost it's way with the move to the next generation. I spent many happy hours playing ISS '98 in particular.

As to American games - ummm, well San Francisco Rush 2049 was a good little arcade racer that often gets overlooked. Forsaken was okaaay, if not specacular. And I know some people who still swear by various Turok games, which baffles me tbh. But yeah, it's pretty weak when compared to the Japanese releases.

But then isn't that true of so many consoles?

[Tom Salter]

As to American games - ummm, well San Francisco Rush 2049 was a good little arcade racer that often gets overlooked.

Definately, that game was fantastic. So many hidden places to go and things to do, even if the racing itself wasn't that great.

[GoodMorningSpider]

Definately, that game was fantastic. So many hidden places to go and things to do, even if the racing itself wasn't that great.

The multiplayer battle mode was also fantastic, and was one of the few games to dislodge Perfect Dark from the cartridge slot in the latter days of my 64's life.

[Brats]

True, I overlooked ISS and Rush and and the first Turok game was okay for it's time (vastly superceded by todays standards though).

On the otherhand, the yanks have done some marvellous stuff on the consoles this generation!