Cube
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Is also disappointing that the round design houses a rather obvious square screen. With it being LCD, it may also be a bit too bright at night to keep the time on.
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NBA Courtside 2 Featuring Kobe Bryant
- NA release: 8th November 1999
- PAL release: N/A
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Left Field
- Publisher: Nintendo
- N64 Magazine Score: 87%
This is the best basketball game on the N64, and I don’t expect it to be beaten by any of the ones I’ve got left to play. Yet, despite that, there really isn’t a huge amount to say about it. This is a smoother, more refined version of the previous NBA Courtside, but doesn’t do that much new stuff.
There’s an easier control option which automates some of the stuff you can do, but the “pro” control method was already simple enough to be easily understood. One significant addition for some is the ability to create a player and go through a whole season with them.
It’s a great basketball game, and if you don’t have the original, this should be the one to try to get. Unfortunately, it was only released in North America
Great
QuoteNBA Courtside 2 plays a cracking game of basketball. You’re unlikely to come across anything else this polished and playable until whatever Left Field dream up for the second sequel on Dolphin, so it’s definitely worth importing. The reason it doesn’t store as highly as the first game is because it doesn’t quite have the same ‘wow’ factor, given that we’ve already seen a lot of it a couple of years ago. But with enough new features to warrant a repeat purchase and a star player named after a type of steak, Kobe Bryant’s second N64 outing represents the stats of the art in basketball games.
Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #44
Remake or remaster?
I’m not sure what current basketball games are like to compare this to.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get NBA Courtside 2
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Pro Mahjong Soldier 64: Mahjong Parlor Battle Challenge
- JP release: 5th November 1999
- PAL release: N/A
- NA release: N/A
- Developer: Culture Brain
- Publisher: Culture Brain
- Original Name: Pro Shinan Mahjong Tsuwamono 64: Jansō Battle ni Chōsen
- N64 Magazine Score: N/A
The translation of the title is a tricky one. Tsuwamono (ツワモノ) strictly translates to “soldier”, but from what I can tell, it’s also slang that, in this context, means something like a “strong or stubborn player”. Anyway, this is another Mahjong game on the N64, and the least interesting one so far. It’s the second one to feature 16 real players (this time including female players), and is just visually very dull.
In terms of playing, this is the most awkward one. When you can take a tile, there’s a very slight fade on the tile for a limited time, so it’s very easy to miss taking one. The modes are also limited, with the main one playing six matches and seeing how well you do. It’s the weakest Mahjong game on N64 so far, and there’s only one left to go.
Poor
Remake or remaster?
For digital versions of Mahjong, Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics is a good version.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get Pro Mahjong Soldier 64: Mahjong Parlor Battle Challenge
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Hanafuda 64: An Angel’s Promise
- JP release: 5th November 1999
- PAL release: N/A
- NA release: N/A
- Developer: Altron
- Publisher: Altron
- Original Name: 64 Hanafuda: Tenshi no Yakusoku
- N64 Magazine Score: N/A
Nintendo has a long history with Hanafuda – they produced cards long, long before video games existed. While it doesn’t directly link to this game, it’s still worth noting. I have my own deck of Nintendo Hanafuda cards, and they look lovely, even if I have no idea what to do with them. Hanafuda are a type of playing card used for multiple games, such a set-matching card game where you are trying to build “seasons” of four cards. I didn’t quite get the hang of it, and there are lots of visual aspects of the cards – the printed ones look stunning.
The main mode is a story mode. I didn’t get far due to my lack of skill at the game, but it involves a guy returning to a city based on a promise he made years ago. The first person he meets has a broken bike, so you fix it and she asks if you play Hanafuda. When you lose, you do get a little cutscene (she accuses you of going easy on her), which is nicer than just a game over. I presume that the story will eventually go into a romance direction, and it’s one of those where you have to win every time to progress.
Outside of story, you can play different types of Hanafuda against CPU opponents, with various options you can change for each type. It seems to be a very well made Hanafuda game, especially with the main story.
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Remake or remaster?
For digital versions of Hanafuda, Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics is a good version.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get Hanafuda 64: An Angel’s Promise
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Earthworm Jim 3D
- NA release: 4th November 1999
- PAL release: 17th December 1999
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: VIS
- Publisher: Rockstar (NA), Interplay (PAL)
- N64 Magazine Score: 68%
Earthworm Jim is known mainly for his two mediocre 2D platformers on the Mega Drive/SNES. These were both elevated due to their style and sense of humour, with lots of new stuff happening all the time. A completely new team handled his jump to 3D and brought about their own take on the franchise.
In Earthworm Jim 3D, the titular Jim is in a coma, so you play as a representation of himself within his own mind, trying to find his marbles and save himself. You’d expect all sorts of crazy stuff happening inside his mind.
Instead, we have a collection of uninspired levels: a few barns, a haunted house, a graveyard, an alien ship, and a beige death valley. The only one of any note is a level made from food, with lava baked beans – although even then, it’s not clear what most aspects of the level are supposed to be.
This goes on in the level design too, with immensely bland levels that are both large and empty. There’s nothing fun to see. The levels are linear and the objectives are straight forward, with having to occasionally backtrack across areas now devoid of enemies.
The platforming is equally tedious. Earthworm Jim is extremely slow, making the large, empty spaces take forever to get across. The jumping is extremely imprecise (and his hover move doesn’t even last a second) and it’s extremely difficult to judge where you are in relation to other objects. The terrible and unresponsive camera doesn’t help, either.
The only decent point of the gameplay is that there are some interesting weapons you can use.
The boss fights are especially bad. In these (they’re all the same), you race around on a pig that’s an absolute nightmare to control. Both you and your opponents are collecting marbles, and hitting your opponent will make them lose five of theirs (with the same happening to you when you get hit). The controls make it extremely frustrating to collect anything, let alone avoid the barrage of rockets fired at you. Even the final boss is the same thing.
Earthworm Jim 3D is a deeply unimaginative platformer that gets the controls and camera wrong, and brings nothing new to the table to try and make up with it. The incredibly annoying sound clips from Dan Castellaneta (half of them are just his Homer voice) certainly don’t help matters, either.
Worst
QuoteIt’s just sloppy, really. Also, death happens far more frequently than it should, due mainly to the unhelpful camera, and some random jumping. Pressing A makes you jump, and tapping A again will cause Jim to glide for a short while, courtesy of his helicopter-spin head. Unfortunately, this double-tap actin doesn’t always work, which isn’t too great when you need to get to the other side of a deadly sea of baked beans.
Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #35
Remake or remaster?
If they’re going to throw together a collection of Earthworm Jim games, then sure, but there’s nothing really worth playing here.
Official ways to get the game.
A buggy, glitchy PC port is available on GoG and Steam.
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Supercross 2000
- NA release: 31st October 1999
- PAL release: February 2000
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: MBL Research
- Publisher: EA Sports
- N64 Magazine Score: 76%
The Supercross series had been released on PlayStation for a while, with this being the first one to make its way to the N64. Even so, out of all the games I’ve played before (including multiple ports of PS1 games), this is the first one that distinctly feels like a PlayStation game. I’m not entirely sure what, but something about the graphics and controls just comes across as a PlayStation game.
Supercross 2000 is a bike racing game. There are lots of jumps for you to gently float upwards from, thanks to the really moon-like physics, and the track is more of a “tunnel” of invisible walls that glide you down the correct path. The game as a whole feels really slow and clunky, and like you don’t have much control – which isn’t helped by how you can’t drive off the course by mistake. There is one nice touch in that the mounds of dirt get damaged as you race, but the floaty physics negate that a lot.
The best tactic in Supercross 2000 is killing your opponents. The game massively favours you in collisions, so ramming into your opponents will send them flying with little impact on you. While the sport itself is on tight tracks to cause more collisions, I don’t think this is an accepted practise. Still, it’s the main thing that works in the game.
There’s a surprising number of tracks in the game, alongside a stunt mode where you perform tricks in an arena, but the clunkiness and floatiness of the game makes it really dull to play.
Fine
QuoteSo, yes, the game can be maddening at times. But with practice comes reward, and once you’ve got used to the complex turning system – a balance of acceleration, braking and juggling the clutch – and the fact that the bike and rider move as two entities rather than one, Supercross starts to come alive.
Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #39
Remake or remaster?
Nothing special for this game.
Official ways to get the game.?
There is no official way to get Supercross 2000
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Burnout Paradise
It arrived at the perfect time for me. I had plenty of spare time, and was interested in online gaming. On top of that, it was before Party Chat existed in consoles, so you had to chat with those in the lobbies. Paradise was the ultimate online game for me, focused on just having a fun time with friendly competition. The main feature online is challenges, with a set of 50 or so for each number of players (50 for 2 players, a different set of 50 for for 3 players, and so on up to 8 players). These were things the host turned on and people would have to perform specific moves (sometimes in a specific location on the map). There were also game modes, like marked man and stunt, that you could just turn on at any point, no interruption to gameplay.
Then free updates made it better, adding 10 timed challenges (with leaderboards) for each player count and a subtle but fun addition to challenges: it told you who performed the best in a challenge. Just for fun, which added to the "friendly rivalry" nature of the game. Many players were more than happy to help or participate in the games, and I made some good friends while playing it. I spent over 1,000 hours in the game and it's one of my favourite gaming experiences.
Now. The core gameplay is still enjoyable, but the online community is nowhere near the same. The online challenges are now far more of a pain to do, and I'm not a fan of online gaming anymore. The singleplayer is just a small part of the game.
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Resident Evil 2
- NA release: 31st October 1999
- JP release: 28th January 2000
- PAL release: 9th February 2000
- Developer: Angel, Capcom, Factor 5
- Publisher: Capcom (NA, JP), Virgin (PAL)
- N64 Magazine Score: 90%
Resident Evil 2 was originally a game with the PlayStation in mind. It came on two discs, with heavy usage of large textures and full motion video. So it’s a marvel that Angel Studios, with help from multiple Capcom teams and Factor 5 (who did wonders with the N64 and GameCube hardware), got the massive 2-CD PS1 game onto a single 64MB Nintendo 64 cartridge.
Of course, as a result of this, the Nintendo 64 version isn’t the ideal way to play Resident Evil 2. It does have a couple of exclusive things that weren’t included in later versions: extra written story files to find (which links to RE3, Code Veronica, and Zero) and a randomiser (which alters the location of objects), but for the most part, it’s heavily compressed port of the original.
That said, it’s still Resident Evil 2, and it’s still a really good version of the game. It’s a classic survival horror game, and I’m absolutely atrocious at it. I read up about the difficulties (as some games I’ve played remove a lot of content on easy), and saw comments about how it’s very easy on normal – yet playing on easy, I died a lot and struggled to find enough ammo.
There seems to be a lot of useless extra routes in the game. For example, the burning helicopter on the roof of the police building. You go on a long search and find a valve, using a load of ammo on zombies, then use the valve to put out a fire, getting…a box of handgun ammo, less than what I’d used up. I’m not sure if I missed anything else there, so I found it a bit odd.
But for what it does, it does it very well. The pre-rendered backgrounds look great, and the tank controls aren’t too bad due to the camera angles. The controls are nice and simple, with the analogue stick alone letting you swap between walking and running. There’s a lot of hunting for objects and finding where they go, and the story and characters are very interesting.
Resident Evil 2 is a really good game, but the N64 version is not one that you should choose to play. It’s fascinating, due to how much of a challenge it was to make it possible, so it’s an amazing game in terms of that, but you’re better off with the GameCube version.
Fun
QuoteBut not even hammy acting can dampen the thrill of Resident Evil 2’s many shocks and scares. Your enemies are genuinely frightening – zombies which make sudden lunges as you sprint past, cockroaches which envelop and kill you if you pause for a second, dogs which won’t run unless you do – and they’re topped off by some of the most hair-raising moments in gaming history.
Mark Green, N64 Magazine #36
Remake or remaster?
The game has had a complete remake and a few different versions of the original, but a new “Resident Evil 2 classic” combining features of different versions would be really nice. The GameCube version was considered to be the best accessible version, although there’s a newer Japan-only PC port that has mods for making it English.
Official ways to get the game.
The classic version of Resident Evil 2 is available on GoG, based on an older PC version. It lacks the additional stuff from the N64 version.
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Paperboy
- NA release: 31st October 1999
- PAL release: March 2000
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: High Voltage
- Publisher: Midway
- N64 Magazine Score: 62%
Sometimes, a poor choice in name can give the wrong impression, and can lead to your game being forgotten. On Wikipedia, the N64 Paperboy game is buried as a footnote for the original Paperboy. Even though it shares the same name, it’s a completely unique game, and the third main Paperboy game (the only ones we got after were mobile games). They really should have called this Paperboy 3 or Paperboy 3D (or, if they really needed to, Paperboy 64).
Paperboy is a silly and over-the-top paper delivery game. Your main task is delivering newspapers to certain houses, but that’s not all you do – throwing your newspapers at pretty much anything will get you points. People, animals, objects – committing assault and vandalism is very important. Some of these will not even get you points, but also bonus coins in order to unlock bonus modes. If you deliver all papers, you get given more houses (and time) for your next attempt.
The controls take a bit of getting used to. Holding R or Z will bring up a targeting arrow (starting in different directions), and then you can fine tune your aim. Once you’re used to it, it works really well. However, if you start off the game on easy, you’re in for a horrible experience, as you’re stuck to a thin “path” and can only move slightly to the side (like the original game), and can’t turn around.
But get to the later levels (or pick a harder difficulty), and you can now roam around the levels how you wish, and the game is much more enjoyable.
The game doesn’t really have much depth to it, though, and compared to other full priced N64 games, this really wasn’t a good option at the time of release. It’s still a fun little game, though, and feels like something that would have been great on the XBLA (that just got the original game).
Fun
QuoteBut when you look beyond the pointless extras and the funky new Ren & Stimpy graphics, it’s the same old Paperboy at heart. If you liked the arcade machine and don’t mind putting up with the fact that you’ll probably finish this in a couple of evenings, this is a reasonably competent, but extremely short-lived update.
Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #36
Remake or remaster?
A re-release would be quite nice.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get the N64 version of Paperboy.
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I would gladly buy this if Nintendo were sensible and made an offline version of it
Shame that this will suffer the same fate as the Satellaview games.
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Rayman 2: The Great Escape
- PAL release: 29th October 1999
- NA release: 6th November 1999
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Ubi Pictures
- Publisher: UbiSoft
- N64 Magazine Score: 73%
With how both Rayman 2 and Tonic Trouble were developed by UbiSoft and released so close to each other, it’s amazing how different they are in terms of quality. It seems like the Tonic Trouble team spoke about everything they had trouble with during development, and the Rayman team were able to fix all of that, not sharing anything they did with the Tonic Trouble team.
Rayman 2 resolves all the issues from Tonic Trouble regarding dull characters, messy incoherent graphics, random level design, bad controls, and poor camera for a thoroughly enjoyable platformer.
Rayman 2 is much more linear than some of the other 3D platformers on the N64, but I think that it works in its favour, it helps give Rayman 2 a more distinct feel, with tightly made levels and some incredibly fun platforming along the way. Of course, there are still collectables in the form of lums and cages, so there’s still a lot of side passages to find – some can even take you down an entire new route that’s as long as a lot of levels.
Rayman’s main attack surprised me at first, as he shoots out a ball of energy from his fist, instead of sending his fist flying. However, the more I played the game, the more it seemed right with the pacing of the game and combat. Rayman automatically locks on to enemies, and you can hold R to strafe. Jumping is extremely precise, and the game makes it clear where you’re going to land. The camera also works really well, getting into good places when needed, and allowing you to adjust it for most of the game.
Rayman 2 also has a lot of action sequences to mix things up, such as water-skiing, riding on strange rocket animals, a mission where you get infinite flying, and some chase sequences. These are all enjoyable and keep the game exciting, with new things to discover throughout. The levels are also nicely varied, with some more puzzle-orientated, some about fast puzzling, some focused more on combat, so the game keeps itself fresh.
Rayman 2 is still an extremely enjoyable game, with a lot to find and discover. Returning to levels for the final few lums is a bit annoying as you can’t quit the level once you find them all (you need to reach the end of the level), but it’s an overall great experience.
Fave
QuoteRayman 2 isn’t all that bad, then. But for every involving moment, there’s another screamingly difficult or hopelessly linear section hiding just around the corner. As one of the few platformers to get its controls and camera near Mario standards, it’s worth a look, but it’s a stark reminder that only a few people in the world are able to make platform games which are truly special. And they don’t come from France.
Mark Green, N64 Magazine #35
Remake or remaster?
Rayman 2 has a lot of different versions. The Dreamcast version is considered to be the best of the original versions, and adds a hub world, while the game also got a remake on PS2 with debate over if it’s better – some people say the much larger hub world was too large. That said, it’s strange that there’s no modern remastered release. It definitely needs one.
Official ways to get the game.
The PC version of Rayman 2 is available on GoG and the UbiSoft Store.
Re-releases
2000: Rayman 2: The Great Escape (Dreamcast / PlayStation)
2000: Rayman Revolution (PS2)
2005: Rayman DS (DS)
2011: Rayman 3D (3DS)
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NBA Live 2000
- NA release: 29th October 1999
- PAL release: December 1999
- EU release: N/A
- Developer: EA Canada
- Publisher: EA Sports
- N64 Magazine Score: 65%
Another average sports game. This one doesn’t do much to improve the gameplay of the previous year, and the CPU is far too perfect at the game, being amazing at both offence and defence while you struggle with both. It feels slow, clunky, and isn’t much fun to play.
The big selling point of NBA Live 2000 is the return of Michael Jordan to video games, with a 1-on-1 mode that you’ll have to complete in order to play as him. Something to appeal to people who are massive fans of Michael Jordan, but not something that makes the game better.
Poor
QuoteThe last time we saw him was in Space Jam, the game of the duff cartoon movie, and most hoop sims feature a mysterious shadow where Chicago’s number 23 should be. But is the inclusion of the man himself enough to propel this game above the ordinary? Sadly, it isn’t.
Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #38
Remake or remaster?
There’s better basketball games to focus on.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get NBA Live 2000
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Super Robot Wars 64
- JP release: 29th October 1999
- NA release: N/A
- EU release: N/A
- Developer: AI
- Publisher: Banpresto
- N64 Magazine Score: N/A
Super Robot Wars is a series of turn-based tactical games very similar to Advance Wars (or Famicom Wars, as it was originally called). It’s a kind of game that I’m awful at, even when I can read all the stats and options. As a result, I only got a few missions into this before I was completely overwhelmed by the enemy.
Each turn, you move and/or attack with each of your units, choosing one of your abilities to attack while enemies defend themselves (counterattacks seem to be picked at random). Some of your units – all big mechs – can transform between different forms, and some can only move or attack in a single turn, not both.
One thing I thought was a nice touch was the backgrounds. The foreground area has some nice 3D areas, and the 2D backdrop will change depending on the scenery close to you, so as you approach a city, you’ll see it in the background.
That’s really all I can say about this one. There’s a nice visual style for the genre, but it’s not one I’m good at or know what makes one of these games good.
?
Remake or remaster?
A collection of the series would be nice.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get Super Robot Wars 64
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Carmageddon 64
- PAL release: 22nd October 1999
- NA release: 26th July 2020
- JPL release: N/A
- Developer: Stainless Games, Software Creations
- Publisher: Sales Curve (PAL), Titus (NA)
- N64 Magazine Score: 8%
8% is the lowest review score N64 Magazine ever gave, and it went to Carmageddon 64. It’s a bit of a shame, as the concept could lead to a good game, but the N64 version itself has lots of its own particular issues. It’s based on Carmageddon 2, but with some significant changes to be allowed on the N64. Carmageddon is a vehicle slaughter game, where one of the aims is to run over pedestrians for points.
For the second game, the pedestrians were renamed “zombies”, but kept the same. They still looked like regular people, they released a lot of blood, and they flew for ages after you hit them, bouncing off the ground. For the N64, this all had to change. The “zombies” are now very obviously zombies, and now turn into a green mist when you hit them. It completely lacks the impact and shock value the original had, which was the defining element of the game. Dogs and traffic were also completely removed from the game.
You have three ways you can complete missions: destroy your three rival cars, kill enough zombies, or simply drive around the track and finish. The first two methods get tedious fast, and the third is ridiculously easy (as you don’t really have to worry about other racers). The handling is also atrocious and it never feels like you have control of a car, all of them feeling like an incredibly cheap RC car. This, along with the dodgy physics, are the main things that ruin what was left of the game.
It’s a shame, really, as there a lot of tracks to explore, and plenty of vehicles to unlock – you can even change the zombies to dinosaurs. However, even if everything worked well, it would get repetitive quickly. It needed different kind of missions rather than just doing the same thing over and over.
Worst
QuoteA shocking travesty. If you see Carmageddon 64 in the shops, take it off the shelves, rip up the box and throw the cart repeatedly against the wall until it breaks.
Tim Weaver, N64 Magazine #36
Remake or remaster?
I think the concept is worth trying again.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get the N64 version of Carmageddon 64, but Carmageddon 2 is on GoG and Steam.
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A retro style game based on the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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Noctiluca II: Murder Route
- JP release: 22nd October 1999
- NA release: N/A
- PAL release: N/A
- Developer: Athena
- Publisher: Athena
- Original Name: Yakochu II: Satsujin Koro
- N64 Magazine Score: N/A
I didn’t expect to be able to play much of Noctiluca II, as it’s a fairly simple choose your own adventure game with a lot of Japanese text. Google Lens did a decent job of translating the text, so I was able to discover multiple endings. There is an English translation of the game, but only in the form of a walkthrough on YouTube, so it doesn’t help that much with playing the game, unless you pick the same options – at which point you may as well just watch the video.
After an explosion on a passenger ship forces you into a lifeboat, you come across a mysterious ship, which you and the people sharing the lifeboat decide to board. Everything is dark, and it takes a while to find someone on board. Luckily, he’s the captain, unfortunately, he’s been poisoned and shortly dies. You’ll discover mysteries about this ship, the original ship, and the group of people on board.
The game is mostly comprised of static images and text, with the occasional sound effect and a couple of decent quality FMVs. Every now and then, you’ll be able to make a choice for your character, however, there’s not that many to make, and for some of them, the same action happens no matter what you put. On top of that, some of the actions may seem like nothing, but lead to a game over.
At a respite in the story, another character asked to play a card game. I felt like being polite and chose the option to play a game. It turns out that we’re both addicted to card games, along with a third person that joins us. We hear some odd stuff, but carry on (the choice to play was the last choice) until a recue team finds us. They inform us that, in the three days we’d been playing card games with no breaks, everyone else was murdered. Time to start again.
I did find out a lot more about what happened, who did it, and reasons why, and it’s quite an intriguing story. For the kind of game it is, it’s certainly an interesting novelty for the N64.
Fun
Remake or remaster?
The series would be a good basis for a game with better presentation – seeing the characters would be nice.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get Noctiluca II: Murder Route
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WWF WrestleMania 2000
- PAL release: 12th October 1999
- NA release: 18th November 1999
- JP release: 15th September 2000
- Developer: AKI
- Publisher: THQ (NA,PAL), Asmik Ace (JP)
- N64 Magazine Score: 90%
After doing well with the WCW vs nWo games, AKI and THQ managed to get the big wrestling license: WWF. Focusing on the big WrestleMania event, AKI brought over everything they learned from their previous games and improved upon it, making fights feel eventful without dragging on too long, and providing a decent amount of modes and features, including a basic create-a-wrestler.
The main wrestlers have their intros, as well as a little, very compressed FMV for them, and they all look fine from a distance. When the camera gets closer, however, the wrestlers look like they’re constructed from parts poorly stuck together, and the faces look like masks, especially so in the case of The Rock, who has his eyebrow raised expression permanently pasted on the front of his face.
WrestleMania features a decent singleplayer mode – with you picking a partner for tag matches to mix things up – and a good amount of modes for multiplayer. One mild annoyance is that the female wrestlers are all locked away at the start, and the only way to create a female wrestler is to unlock one and copy them. Overall though, this is where wrestling games started to improve a lot.
Fun
QuoteAttitude’s beat-’em-up style combos have been dropped in favour of a more simple tap of the action button and analogue pad, but this simplistic approach does provide hardcore fans with a more satisfying fight.
Oliver Hurley, N64 Magazine #36
Remake or remaster?
I’m not sure what current wrestling games are like.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get WWF WrestleMania 2000.
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There are some 64DD stickers. But I think that's all that's been spotted for that.
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South Park: Chef’s Luv Shack
- NA release: 12th October 1999
- PAL release: 31st October 1999
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Acclaim
- Publisher: Acclaim
- N64 Magazine Score: 83%
The second South Park game, this one is a quiz show with a handful of minigames. N64 Magazine loved it, yet it got panned elsewhere. One immediate problem with the game is that it allows you to play on your own, but has no CPU opponents. So you answer questions on your own, play minigames on your own, and win at the end because you’re the only person competing.
The questions are, for the most part, general trivia, with a bunch of subjects based on things mentioned in South Park. The problem is that this was still very early on in South Park, so there wasn’t a lot to choose from. This means a whole category of questions on things like Worcestershire sauce, even though it was involved in one episode and never mentioned again. Even better, one of those questions was wrong, as it claimed that “England” wasn’t where Worcestershire sauce was invented.
The minigames are a mixed bag. A couple are slightly fun, others are tedious. There’s one where you have to follow a bunch of directional presses that takes ages and is more a test of how long you purposefully mess up to end the game. And with only around 20, you’ll see repeats pretty quickly. It does a good job capturing the look of the show, but it’s not very funny – in the end, just a really basic quiz game.
Poor
QuoteBut, even with these problems chalked up, Luv Shack will still make a top grade Chrimbo pressie. It’s a triumph of simplicity and design, and offers a significantly different playing experience to Mario Party. In fact, it’s the perfect companion piece to Nintendo’s game and, as a bonus, has a fabulous South Park ‘feel’. As Cartman might say, this kicks ass.
Tim Weaver, N64 Magazine #36
Remake or remaster?
Jackbox gets the silly quiz show format down much better.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get South Park: Chef’s Luv Shack
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I guess that's one way to confirm that Dino Crisis is never getting a remaster or remake. Shame.
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LEGO Racers
- NA release: 12th October 1999
- PAL release: 1st December 1999
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: High Voltage
- Publisher: LEGO Media
- N64 Magazine Score: 70%
LEGO and racing is a combination that really works well together. The various LEGO themes (especially before they got into licensed stuff) provide a lot of different settings, and the customisable aspect helps give a bit of personality. In LEGO Racers, you can create your own driver, and also customise your car, starting with an available chassis and adding some bricks on top, unlocking more as you progress. The builder is a bit fiddly and limited, but does a good enough job.
For the racing, the courses are nice and colourful (although could do with more LEGO elements), featuring 13 tracks overall, with three mirrored cups, and one final race against Rocket Racer. The driving itself is a bit twitchy, but gets the job done, with coloured bricks for weapons (different colours are for certain items, like Diddy Kong Racing). The biggest issue with LEGO Racers is that each race has a runaway leader, and if you use all the various items and race normally, you’re likely going to be in a distant second place.
Really, the only way to succeed is with the white bricks. These attach to your items to power them up. But even with these, there’s only one that will actually help you: the green boost. When attached to three white bricks, you’ll get a wormhole boost that will warp you significantly ahead in the track. This is really the only way to win, so it’s generally best to ignore all the weapons and other racers, and just gather the white bricks and hope a green one has spawned.
It’s really a bit of a shame, as the game changes into more of learning which route have the white bricks and warping ahead, and the game turns from ridiculously difficult to immensely easy. The idea behind how the weapons work is a nice one, and should add an element of tactics on when you use the weapons, but the wormhole boost being so vital just reduces the tactics to only one valid method.
Fun
QuoteThe handling is twitchy and imprecise, so it’s annoyingly difficult to adjust your line to grab the right power-up, and the results of the three-lap races are usually determined at the start. If you mistime your turbo, it’s often impossible to catch the leader – you can race like Schumacher, but you’ll finish third or fourth, with the race winner almost a full lap ahead.
Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #36
Remake or remaster?
I think it’s time for a new LEGO Racer. As long as they include some retro LEGO themes and stay away from the licensed stuff. There's enough "multiverse" stuff at the moment.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get LEGO Racers.
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I don't like the lack of 2D animation. I'm not too fond of the 3D models.
Puzzles aren't going to feel as nice due to not being on the DS, either.
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I'm curious as to why they're skipping the Silicon Knights original.
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BattleTanx: Global Assault
- NA release: 12th October 1999
- PAL release: April 2000
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: The 3DO Company
- Publisher: The 3DO Company
- N64 Magazine Score: 81%
While the first Battletanx was only released in America, its sequel got a more global release. And by that, I mean it also came out in Europe. Just like the game itself which, despite the name, is only set in America, London, Paris, and Berlin. The first game has a surprisingly serious plot, while this just decides to throw in a villain with magical powers of mind control.
For the most part, it’s more of the same fast-paced tank action, although this one seems much faster and much jerkier. All the tanks feel like hovercars, which is suitable for the hovertank you can control, but not the many other tanks you can be. There are a lot of different tank classes, but the weaker ones aren’t much use on their own – it really feels like a system that would work better with big teams fighting each other, and not just four players.
The levels in this game feel more open, which would be nice, but the fog feels even worse as a result. In one mission, you have to destroy the Eiffel Tower, but you can barely see any of it. The levels are also more maze-like with a mixture of barriers you can and can’t destroy, and hidden tunnels you need to find and navigate, with the map not helping much.
From the singleplayer side of things, I didn’t like this as much as the first. The first felt like you were slowly building up your army as you worked your way across the USA. This is random events where sometimes getting a few hundred metres is a big task, but then you can just pop from Washington, DC to London in a post-apocalyptic world with no issues. The multiplayer, though, is much expanded with more modes and features, so is where the main enjoyment is.
Fun
QuoteSooo, then, there’s plenty to enjoy here, provided you’ve got some chums to share the fun with. As a single player game, Global Assault leaves little to be desired, offering only a lightweight Rage Wars-style sequence of fights, but 3DO have managed to fashion a multiplayer game that makes excellent use of the four controller ports on the front of your N64, and for that we applaud them.
Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #40
Remake or remaster?
A remaster that combines both games and adds online would be a lot of fun.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get Battletanx: Global Assault
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40 Winks - All N64 Games
in General Gaming Discussion
Posted
40 Winks
40 Winks is fascinating more for its cancellation than the game itself. I remember being really interested in it when reading about it in N64 Magazine, and I was excited when I read the review, even though it wasn’t an astounding one. Then the game never came. The PlayStation version came out first, and the initial sales were so low, that they cancelled production on the N64 version right before release.
As review copies were quite timely (I do wonder what happened to those cartridges), this led to something interesting about the box art for the PlayStation version. Instead of choosing a quote from a review of the PlayStation version, it had a quote from a preview of the N64 version: “Move Over Mario…” from Nintendo Official Magazine. Very clever (but obviously didn’t help).
40 Winks is a 3D platformer that, unlike quite a few on the N64, gets the basics right. Movement and jumping feel good, and the camera allows for a good degree of movement, while also doing a good job at showing where you’re going. It’s a very solid starting point, but unfortunately 40 Winks doesn’t do a lot with it, keeping things very simple throughout the game. That said, it does have a lot of charm.
You play as either Ruff or Tumble, as you have to save the dreamworld from the HoodWinks, who have captured all forty of the Winks and made Dreamland unsafe. You’ll need to get through the six worlds, each with its own hub and three levels, in order to make dreaming safe for everyone.
This is achieved through three main collectables. The 40 Winks are the main ones, but are generally on the route along the linear levels. Along the way, you’ll need to collect cogs to unlock doors, which are the main way of progressing through the levels. The hardest things to find are the Dreamkeys, with four hidden in each levels. These unlock the boss fight, which you need to beat to get to the next area.
The levels have some generic themes, but they’re also charming at the same time: spooky, underwater, alien, prehistoric, castle, and pirates. The levels are fairly straightforward, but keep things constrained, so platforming segments and enemies are all close together – no long walks across empty areas. So while the game is simple, it also isn’t frustrating, and is enjoyable the whole way through, there’s just nothing groundbreaking.
You have a few attacks at your disposal. There’s a basic punch, a roll attack, a ground pound, and a “scream” attack which sends some light slightly forward. This special scream attack uses ammo but is absolutely useless, which is surprising considering the game makes a big deal (and its own type of collectable ) about it.
Throughout the game you’ll find jack-in-the-boxes that give you time-limited costumes, such as a ninja, superhero, fairy, and caveman. These provide additional powers, and have switches with their icons on them. Quickly navigating levels to get to a switch or obstacle before your costume runs out is the main type of “puzzle” throughout the game.
The N64 version did have a few exclusive features. The biggest one being 2-player co-op, which lets you play the full main game with another person (which makes a lot of sense for a game about a brother and sister – the one you don’t pick just doesn’t appear in singleplayer). It works really well, but has the downside of massive black bars.
Another feature is anamorphic widescreen, although this is strangely only toggled via a cheat code. It works really well, and gives you a bit more of a view in co-op. The N64 version also supports the Expansion Pak for higher resolution and better lighting effects. It does lack a few small things, such as the opening FMV replaced with an in-game cinematic.
40 Winks isn’t really anything special outside of its cancellation, but it’s still a simple but enjoyable platformer, and doesn’t have major issues like a lot of platformers had at the time.
Fun
Remake or remaster?
A proper re-release based on the N64 version with the FMV from the PlayStation version would be nice, with widescreen as an actual option.
Official ways to get the game.
The N64 version is available with the purchase of an Everdrive from Stone Age Gamer. The game is also available on Steam, except that it’s just the PS1 version in a badly configured emulator, one that doesn’t have memory cards set up so you need to use save states. But that’s what you get from games being held hostage by Piko.