Back to the N64

[SuperBrother]

This will probably make me very unpopular, but I was playing Golden Eye last night and it looks bloody atrocious... Frame rate seems to be all over the place and any enemies that are far away seem to meld into the backgrounds, thus making them impossible to see. It still plays really well, but it's looking awfully dated by today's standards...

All non ram enhanced games look bloody awful nowadays TBH, the famous N64 vaseline-o-vision!

[Valken]

I love it as well, in fact, I'm humming the theme tune right now lol

The tune for that game to this day reminds me of a lullaby version of Raspberry Beret by Prince!

Yoshi's Story was an alright game but it was so **** compared to Yoshi's Island that it got bashed to bits.

There is more to it than most people realise.

[charlesr]

Speaking of ram enhanced games, did anyone ever try F1GPII with the ram pack? It was soooo bloody smooth everywhere. With the steering wheel it was very very good.

[xtremeboat]

The RGB mod sounds awesome but I'm only gonna be playing on a 14 inch TV so it's not that big a deal, and I don't wanna spend loads on it. I'm definately getting a US NTSC machine this time because I've just remembered how huge the borders were in some games (Wave Race 64 anyone??!). Just wondering if any PAL games didn't get a US release cos I'd love to pick up ISS98 again and I'd hate it to be PAL only. Cheers

[taurusnipple]

They're hardly unplayable.

****ing is in my book, ESPECIALLY Turok 2.

[GoodMorningSpider]

Perfect Dark is 100x the game Goldeneye is; In every factor apart from nostalgia.

Ooh, I'm going to have to take issue with you there*. If the whole of the single-player mode had lived up to the first five or so levels you'd be right, but it quickly ran out of ideas and degenerated into a horrible 'run down some bland corridors/shoot some bland aliens' experience. In fact, thinking about it everything went tits-up with the introduction of the aliens, which is a shame as the level in the tower-block with the helicopter is one of my all-time favourite gaming moments - I can remember playing that for the first time, cacking myself as I hid behind a desk just praying it wouldn't find me. And then I got shot to pieces.

That memory almost makes me want to agree with you, but then I remeber the 'run around an arctic wasteland looking for the president' level, the 'bland space hulk' level and the god-awful final level. Most of the others failed to even leave a lasting impression.

So it really was a case of 'what could have been' when it came to the single player.



*not on the mult-player though, that really is 100 times better than GoldenEye's.

[Leon Retro]

My favourite N64 game is without doubt Waverace NTSC.

Its a game that delivered in all departments. The graphics for the time were absolutely astonishing and beautiful too. In fact I prefer the low-res 64 version to the PCesque GC ****e edition. The sound was also top-notch, the start-up always stirs my emotions. Control and gameplay were spot-on too. So overall its a sublime classic game that makes me weep for the days when I played it all day with a big smile on my face.

[DaiSuki]

I just wanted to make another post voting "Yea" for Yoshi's Island. How many of you ever finished it collecting only watermelons and busting the baddies properly? None? Thought so.

It was an intriguing game in that you sort of made your own difficulty level as you played. Being almost dead, having so much fruit lying around, but being sufficiently disciplined not to just eat the apple to get your energy back. Not easy.

It was as much a highscore game as a platformer; it was bloody fantastic. Looked smart, wonderful animation, and the music was fantastic. I love the little grunt he does when he tries to jump higher.

A lovely little machine, and no mistakin'

[Brats]

You mean Yoshi's Story. And as a score challenge it was still pretty rubbish. I got 30 watermelons on some levels but couldn't be bothered with the rest.

[bowser123]

Exactly Dai. That's exactly what Yoshi was about, collecting all 30 pieces of watermelon, even resisting normal fruit which will cure you when you're nearly dead. This was where you earned the high scores and where the real difficulty and depth of the game became apparent.
It's one of my favourite games, the egg throwing with the stick was spot on. Little Poochy was class too, I liked the elephants with the stop signs on the 1st level also. And the love hearts and insane music, the scores table where the points were being added up that screamed "De de de de, YOSHI!!!!" (that was Story and not Island, wasn't it?)
The bosses although incredibly easy were very stylish. Like the candy cloud that Yoshi licked to pieces after travelling there on a dragon.

One of the main points in this thread was how all the games played fantastically but look dated. Well Yoshi, alongside Mischief Makers and Paper mario don't suffer from this. Probably because they aren't using the N64 Fog-O-Blur (everything looks slightly out of focus) maybe.

Anyhow.Enjoy

[gingerj]

I personally think the n64 is one of the most over-rated retro consoles. Bar a few titles, the rest have aged so badly. Graphically they are poo and certaintly gameplay wise many have been blown out of the water all together in there genres. I can't see why people go on about it so much.

[Ady]

A lot of old PS1 games don't look any mbetter now either, tbh.

[xtremeboat]

I personally think the n64 is one of the most over-rated retro consoles. Bar a few titles, the rest have aged so badly. Graphically they are poo and certaintly gameplay wise many have been blown out of the water all together in there genres. I can't see why people go on about it so much.

Nobody's saying that a lot of the games haven't been superseded by more recent stuff. Of course the games won't look good in comparision to many games now, but it's still a great console. Mario64 and Goldeneye had such an impact on the gaming world that they can't be ignored. There's also personal memories that make it appeal to me - I remember me and my brother being wowed by the graphics on the machine and having hours of fun in multiplayer. It was probably my most anticipated Christmas present ever!

[Valken]

Aged... maybe...

But I still find it hard to think of games I enjoyed more than Mario 64, Blast Corps and Waverace. And these are games I STILL play.

[Concept]

I personally think the n64 is one of the most over-rated retro consoles. Bar a few titles, the rest have aged so badly. Graphically they are poo and certaintly gameplay wise many have been blown out of the water all together in there genres. I can't see why people go on about it so much.

I agree with you mostly on terms of the graphics. Most N64 games haven't dated well at all.

But the best of the best have.

I think Super Mario 64 still looks as fresh now as the day it was released. The game's simple use of primary colours and polygon geometry gave it a very distinctive aesthetic, and many of the more thought out N64 games seem to echo this trait.

Wave Race 64 (NTSC version) also has a wonderfully stylised appearance that has bags of atmosphere.