Cube

I personally dislike lives systems in games, I like replaying parts on my own terms rather than having an arbitrary amount of attempts before redoing earlier parts. I think Super Mario 64 is an early example of a truly pointless lives system. When you lose a life, you get booted out of the level and lose all your progress. It's quite a severe punishment, but it works for the game. If you lose all your lives, the punishment is just trivial: you get booted out of the game and have to walk through the hub to the level. It's a big example of the "waste your time" side of things as that's all there it, you don't have to redo any difficult sections, it's just walking (there are a very small number or exceptions). One interesting example is Sonic Unleashed. If you hit a checkpoint and lose a life, you start at the checkpoint. Lose all lives, you start at the beginning of the level. The problem is the whole system is easily trivialised as it's immensely easy to build up your lives by collecting them in the hub worlds. The are a few sections where the game puts easy lives before difficult sections (including one right after a checkpoint that's impossible miss). So the system just feels pointless, like many games where you can redo an earlier level to build up lives. That's the HD version, though. On the Wii, things get smarter: your lives aren't shared across the game, but rather just within each level. You start each level with three lives, so you just can't grind easy lives. Instead, you can complete optional stuff to up your starting lives. It's a really good system for lives in video games.

Top Gear Overdrive NA release: 23rd November 1998 PAL release: 25th November 1998 JP release: 19th March 1999 Developer: Snowblind Publisher: Kemco N64 Magazine Score: 79% The Top Gear series of racing games is a bit like Need For Speed in terms of how it can cover a variety of different racing game styles. While Top Gear Rally was a more simulation-based racing game, this is more on the arcade side of things – and unfortunately that includes having you starting in last place with all the other racers already racing. The racing itself is quite smooth, especially once you earn cash to upgrade your car. There’s a good sense of speed, but the cars also feels a bit too light an fragile, with your car flying over a turn or exploding when grazing a wall. Parts of some objects can be destroyed, but other things can be smashed through and it isn’t always clear. There’s a good variety of cars, including some fun silly designs to unlock, and they’re all really nicely detailed, including also having a basic interior with see-through windows. The tracks also look nice, with detailed “skybox” backgrounds and a good amount of detail – plus zero pop-in. It’s unfortunate, then, that this has a similar problem to a lot of other racing games on the N64: the number of tracks, with five main ones and one bonus track. Overdrive does take the same “seasons” approach as Top Gear Rally, where you play through a few courses to complete a “season”, then play through variants (mainly different weather) before reaching the “new” course of that season – eventually adding mirrored versions into the mix. Top Gear Overdrive is a good racing game, but there’s nothing particularly special or spectacular about it. Remake or remaster? As mentioned previously, a Top Gear collection would be nice. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get Top Gear Overdrive

Fox Sports College Hoops ’99 NA release: 23rd November 1998 JP release: N/A PAL release: N/A Developer: Z-Axis Publisher: Fox Sports N64 Magazine Score: 25% Instead of opting for the fully professional basketball teams, Fox Sports instead went to the various colleges and universities to include their teams (but the players are all fictional). I personally find college sports being watched nationwide to be a bit of an odd thing, but it’s very popular in America. College Hoops starts out with some extremely epic menu music, which is far too good for the game. Once you get past the menu and into the game, the only good part of the game – that music – is completely over and all you’re left with is the mess. The game itself is hideous, each player looks out of proportion in a different way and you have an ugly wall of a crowd to look at. The gameplay doesn’t fare much better as it’s slow and unresponsive. Defending barely works and anything I tried resulted in a foul, I had much better luck by simply not taking control of any of the defending players. You can hold the Z button to bring up button prompts to throw the ball to specific players, but when none of them get into good positions, the ability is wasted. I really struggled to get the ball through the hoop, with it bouncing so often or the opposing players forming a brick wall, so I could completely trashed. College Hoops is definitely one of the worst sports games on the N64 so far. Remake or remaster? This adds nothing to the genre. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get Fox Sports College Hoops

I called out my local Tory MP candidate on social media and he blocked me instead of responding (it was a claim that we'll be saving money on energy this year due to lower rates when trustworthy people have stated that it's going up even more in the winter). One day into the campaign is a new record. In Wales, the Tory strategy seems to be moaning about devolved stuff that has nothing to do with the election. They're not even trying to state how they plan on improving anything. The only thing they can offer is removing options for 18 years olds, making it much worse for poorer teenagers. It's almost as if they don't plan on winning this election but they know it will take longer than one term to sort out their mess. So their moaning about Labour is more preparation for the next so they can claim "we told you so". I'm not a fan of how Labour have changed in the past few years, though, but at the moment they seem to be the only option. Especially in Wales, the other parties have some significant policies that I can't vote for.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time JP release: 21th November 1998 NA release: 23rd November 1998 PAL release: 11th December 1998 Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 98% Often heralded as one of the greatest games of all time, I really don’t need to go into great detail as to what makes Ocarina of Time so amazing, as it provided one of the first epic adventures in 3D in a way that felt real. For this, I played a fan made PC port of the game that is a very faithful recreation. I used a few enhancements, such as camera control and the ability to assign items to the D-pad, plus a texture pack which added detail but still kept the feel of the N64 original. The game starts out in Kokiri Forest, which serves as a tutorial hub that manages to not feel like a tutorial. This is a small playground that lets you play with aspects of the game’s control and targeting systems, the context sensitive A-button, but all the lessons are completely optional and are for the player to find. This kind of discovery was a great feeling as a kid, and the starting area is designed in such a way that if you know what you’re doing, you can very quickly grab your sword and shield and get on with the game. I feel like Kokiri Forest is overlooked for how well it introduces Ocarina of Time, as a lot of the stuff is now just second nature in video games, but Ocarina had to teach everything from scratch. Even simple things like pots respawning to collect more rupees is taught by the rarity of rupees and the need to buy the Deku Shield, and the little pond areas introduce how jumping is done in the game. Dungeons are a big part of Ocarina of Time, and the game eases you into them with the Deku Tree, while also showing off the verticality possible thanks to the N64’s power. There are a few little tricks like trapping you in the slingshot room until you use it. Unfortunately, Navi does decide to butt in by explaining specific actions like moving blocks and diving, running the freedom of the starting village, but as you the action for interacting with a block changes based on if you’re still and moving, I can see people missing one of the actions and getting stuck. The game directs you upwards to perform a big jump to get to the lower areas of the tree, and uses deku sticks to activate torches and remove obstacles, showing the kind of ways that you can interact with in the game. After the Deku Tree, we get a significant gap until the next dungeon as the game opens up to a large expansive world, a technique still used in games today. You’ll be directed towards the castle by a really annoying owl (with confusing did you not hear me or did you not not hear me? yes or no questions), but the size of Hyrule Field is specifically designed that (without knowing the way and rolling to move faster) night will fall, a way to introduce how time works in the game, and how it moves in certain areas. Castle Town is filled with NPCs to talk to and side quests that are hinted at for you to start later on – although first is the obligatory stealth section, but with a fixed camera to make it easier (was Ocarina of Time the start of the forced stealth section trend?), where you’ll meet Zelda as you learn the quest of the game. Once the “main” quest starts, you need to start figuring out things yourself, with the first big hurdle figuring out what to actually do in Goron City, which is likely where a lot of kids got stuck for a while, as the solution lies in revisiting somewhere across the map. Dodongo’s Cavern waits to introduce its name until you reach the main central room. Here you can see a lot of paths, both on the current level and upstairs, but this guides you far less than the deku tree as you have to figure out how to navigate the dungeon yourself. It also presents an added danger as your deku shield can be destroyed by fire enemies – you are no longer in a kid’s world, and this dungeon does a great job at portraying that. After this, you have access to even more of the world, as you’re directed to Zora’s Domain. You also get introduced to magic beans, which let you plant in patches of soft dirt – they’ll take years to grow, so this is the first in-game hint as to what will happen later on. Zora’s Domain also teaches you about bottles (although if you do side missions, you can get some before here), which are used to collect certain items for later on, as well as letting you carry a fairy to revive Link. You also need to go to Lake Hylia, where you can find the wonderful fishing minigame. After solving the puzzle to get inside Lord Jabu-Jabu, you enter the next dungeon with pulsating walls and dangerous electric jellyfish. This one is very difficult to navigate first time round, and you have to use Ruto to activate switches as she accompanies you for part of this dungeon – a concept revisited in Wind Waker. I like the style of this dungeon, but it’s definitely my least favourite. With all three spiritual stones in hand, you head to the Temple of Time – grabbing the Ocarina of Time from the fleeing Princess Zelda along the way as Link gets hold of the Master Sword, only to wake up after 7 years in slumber. He’s now an adult, and the world outside is much darker, with a destroyed Hyrule Market overrun by Zombies. A mysterious new character, Shiek, is on hand to guide Link towards the temples he needs to visit to awaken the sages of the land. You get directed to Kakariko Village, where you need to use clues given by NPCs to find one of the coolest objects in the game – the hookshot. The Forest Temple is the first dungeon as an adult, and has some very unnerving music (the music is amazing across the entire game) and some really neat ideas of manipulating the dungeon itself – something else that would be revisited in more detail in future Zelda games. Here you get the adult equivalent of the slingshot, the bow and arrow. It’s a very unnerving dungeon, and ends with a practice for the final boss of the game. You can do the temples in different orders, although some optional areas may be locked off – the map for the fire temple, for example, needs the bow. The fire temple also needs a special tunic that you need to get first (although people have completed the dungeon without it), here you get the Megaton Hammer, which is used to activate rusty switches and smash harder rocks, before fighting a fire-breathing dragon. I like to use the Giant’s Knife here, which is a powerful sword that can only last a few hits (a permanent one is a reward for one of the longer side quests of the game). The Water Temple has a really bad reputation, and I can see why. It’s not as outrageously hard as its reputation, but it does a few things differently. The biggest difference is how it treats small keys. Usually they’re on the way to close to the locked door they’re needed for, but the Water Temple is a bit more open ended, with keys hidden all over the place. One in particular (under the central room) is very easy to miss. You also need to change the water level a lot, so exploring it can be a faff. Lastly, the iron boots needed to be constantly equipped and removed, and could only be done so from the pause menu (luckily the version I played, like the 3DS version, lets you assign it to an item button). Eventually, you’ll be unable to progress as adult Link and will have to return to the past as child Link – something alluded to by the man in the Windmill complaining about someone playing a song on the ocarina in the past (and then teaching you the song, which you will then teach him in the past). The game ups the horror vibes a lot and, if you wait until this point to go back in time and head to the well, you’ll also feel much more vulnerable due to not having access to a lot of your items. This is to get the Lens of Truth, needed for the Shadow Temple (technically you can do it without, but you need to know the game extremely well). With lots of creepy vibes and invisible enemies and objects, the Shadow Temple really freaked me out as a kid – to the point that I backed out after getting the hover boots and did the Spirit Temple, and I even stopped playing the game, only returning after completing Majora’s Mask years later. It seems really tame now as I know what to expect, but the unknown really was too much for me back then. This temple – and the next – are much more linear, although with really fun bosses. The Spirit Temple is fascinating as it needs to be completed in two parts – one half as a kid and the other as an adult. You get a really nice shield which is used to reflect light and certain attacks and, like a few other items from the adult dungeons, it’s a shame it doesn’t have much use elsewhere in the game. After this, you then have access to the final dungeon, which consists of mini challenges loosely based on the various temples, before you take on Ganondorf. Of course, there are still side quests to complete. The hunt for heart pieces is the most significant kind of collectible, but the trading and mask side quests are also great. Hidden throughout the land are also 100 Gold Skulltulas, many of which only appear at night. The rewards for the first 50 are pretty good: bigger wallets, a heart piece and a special stone that rumbles when you’re near a secret. The final 50 only grants you 200 rupees which, while you can collect it multiple times, is completely pointless at that point in the game as you’ll spend most of the game with a full wallet anyway. A gold coloured tunic would have been a better option (perhaps it can have protection for fire and water so you don’t need to change tunics). The lack of things to use money for is probably one of the bigger weaknesses of the game. The dungeons and overworld have bonus puzzles, most leading to money or the Gold Skulltulas. It feels like a waste when the reward you get is completely pointless, but that’s only a minor issue. Ocarina of Time is still a wonderful game. The world does feel a bit small by today’s standards, but for its time, it was phenomenal, and in many ways, Ocarina of Time showed how 3D adventures could and should be done. It’s an important piece of video game history that is still great to play today. Remake or remaster? Something similar to what the fan PC port offers would be lovely for Ocarina of Time, combined with some of the enhancements of the 3DS version. Official Ways to get the game There is no way to buy a new copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak.

I only really want a few small bits form this (mainly the Ocarina figures and equipment). I hope there will be some smaller sets.

Magical Tetris Challenge JP release: 20th November 1998 NA release: 14th January 1999 PAL release: September 1999 Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom (JP/NA), Activision (PAL) N64 Magazine Score: 51% One week after the previous Tetris game comes another officially licensed Tetris game – this one starring Mickey Mouse, even though the title surprisingly lacks any mention of either Mikey or Disney. This isn’t just a regular Tetris game (although standard Tetris is an option), but takes on more of a Puyo Puyo format as you battle an opponent. As you clear lines, you’ll send “bad blocks” to opponent, which can be countered by them quickly clearing a line, going back and forth until left alone for long enough. These will then cause non-standard Tetris pieces to appear, consisting of more than 4 blocks. These are awkward to place, with some being large squares, to mess you up. However, it’s not all bad. Filling up your power bar will erase everything above a certain line, while doing well will reward you with a straight 5 block piece, which can be used to score a “Pentris” by clearing 5 lines at once. It’s a hectic back and forth, but one I quite enjoy. You get to play the story from the view of Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy, with Tetris used to resolve disputes. These are done on “Tetris machines” which fit into the classic Mikey aesthetic surprisingly well, with nice animation on the top and characters operating the controls. On top of regular Tetris, you can also play “Upside Tetris” (which is one of the letter “Types” in other Tetris games) where blocks will appear at the bottom as you play. I can definitely see why some people wouldn’t be keen on this version of Tetris, due to all the awkward blocks, but I personally like it a lot. Remake or remaster? The Magical Tetris mode would be nice to see in a newer version of Tetris. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Magical Tetris Challenge

It was a fairly poor AI upscale with some bad lighting added, so it probably didn't cost much to make. I had a look at both as I'm planning a playthough of GameCube games and I'm opting to play the GameCube version due to nicer looking graphics. Anyway, it looks like the next two remakes will be Zero and Code Veronica. https://www.ign.com/articles/resident-evil-zero-and-code-veronica-remakes-reportedly-in-the-works-at-capcom

Extreme G 2 NA release: 17th November 1998 PAL release: 4th December 1998 JP release: 10th September 1999 Developer: Probe Publisher: Acclaim N64 Magazine Score: 85% Racing sequels typically take the same formula, refine it and have a bunch of new tracks, but XG2 feels a lot further apart from its predecessor than I expected. While I can easily see people preferring this, the differences are not ones I like. The biggest ones are due to the tracks. The originals were colourful, but also fairly simple, allowing you to remain full speed throughout most of the game. In XG2, they’re very dull in colour and work against the speed of the game, requiring a lot more care to navigate. Contrasting the lack of colour are the extremely out of place billboard for Diesel and Storm – with Storm even getting a permanent place as the lap timer on the HUD. They really don’t gel with the style of the game, and there are far too many of them. There is a a good umber of levels this time, and there are different variants that take different routes – annoyingly, though, the barriers blocking the routes used in the different versions are incredibly gaudy and, like the billboards, detract from the tracks. The game is still a lot of fun, with an immense sense of speed when the game lets you, yet it feels a bit more clunky from the original and there’s just something that feels missing that I can’t quite figure out. The preference of the first or second game is entirely down to each person, though, as some of the things I disliked will be reasons that others enjoyed this one more. Remake or remaster? A remastered Extreme G collection would be nice. Official ways to get the game. Extreme G 2 is available on Steam, however, this is a re-release of the old PC version, with minute support for modern systems. Controllers don’t work well with it, and this version of the game lacks any kind of analogue movement. It also has a different soundtrack.

Glover NA release: 16th November 1998 PAL release: 24th November 1998 JP release: N/A Developer: Interactive Studios Publisher: Hasbro N64 Magazine Score: 83% I have quite fond memories of Glover from when I was a kid, but upon trying to replay it, I discovered that I barely saw anything in the game – just the initial level. I wasn’t prepared for just how difficult this game is, and not entirely for the right reasons. In Glover, you play a wizard’s glove as he tries to restore the magic crystals that were protecting the kingdom, turning them into balls to protect them. You have to get a crystal to the end of each world, trying not to lose or break it along the way. Glover has a lot of charm going for it. The controls are unique and fiddly, as you bounce the ball to gain height, throwing and slapping it to move it around the level. On top of this, you can transform the ball though a few different types for different attributes. If the game’s levels worked in conjunction with Glover’s moveset, it could be a great game. Instead, once you get past the stating level, the game tries to work against you as much as possible, filled with bottomless pits, awkward platforming, unclear ways to progress and just a general sense that the game wants you to suffer. This is made even worse by the game’s camera, which throws you off narrow platforms by suddenly moving to try and give you a better view. I ended up using a level select cheat to see as much of the game as I could, and all levels from the second onwards are like this. On top of getting to the end of the level, there are also collectibles to find to unlock some bonus levels, such as a Frogger clone which controls horribly. A lot of these are found on branching paths, so if you’re just trying to find the exit, you can end up wasting your time on the wrong route. The concept of the Glover is great, and there’s a lot of charm to the simple world of the game. Unfortunately, the platforming feels imprecise and the level design hinders the experience rather than compliments it. It’s a great memory, but one of those best left as memory. Remake or remaster? Glover needs a bit more. He needs a new attempt at the game, taking the concept and building something completely new from it. Such a game was very far into development before being cancelled, but I’ll be looking at that in a lot more detail separately. Official ways to get the game. Glover is available on Steam, however this Piko Interactive port gives you the option of playing the inferior PlayStation version in a badly configured emulator, or an incredibly broken PC port. Definitely avoid this version. There's also an official emulation of the N64 version on Evercade, although without any analogue control. Finally, Glover is one of four ROMs that are officially sold on the EverDrive64 X7 at StoneAgeGamer.

Tetris 64 JP release: 13th November 1998 NA release: N/A PAL release: N/A Developer: Amtex Publisher: Seta N64 Magazine Score: 42% Tetris 64 is Tetris on the Nintendo 64. The main mode is basic Tetris. No bells or whistles, just a slideshow on in the background and acceptable background music. The thing is, everyone already had Tetris on the Game Boy, which was portable so much easier to just play a round and it had the amazing classic Tetris music. There are a few options in the regular mode, such as one where rows of bricks come up from the bottom as time goes on, so it does a decent job, but it has a few more, one silly and one rather interesting. The silly one is Giga Tetris, where you have to place a mixture of giant tetrominos (one “block” is the same as a regular 2×2 tetromino). The variation is not particularly good, and it doesn’t feel like you can do that much planning. The interesting mode is unfortunately one that I can’t play as it requires an additional piece of the hardware. You know the infamous Wii Vitality Sensor that never released? And how people said that it could be used for horror games or something like Tetris? Well, the latter already happened on the N64, using the Bio Sensor that plugged into the N64 controller and clipped onto your ear to read your heartrate. Despite how interesting this sounds, N64 Magazine stated that they didn’t notice much different in this mode. The Bio Sensor wasn’t included with the game, yet it was the only game it was compatible with. Remake or remaster? There are better Tetris games. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Tetris 64.

Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding NA release: 11th November 1998 JP release: 18th December 1998 PAL release: 12th March 1999 Developer: Boss Game Studios Publisher: Midway (NA), Kemco (JP, PAL) N64 Magazine Score: 60% The first emulator I booted Twisted Edge in didn’t have the sound working. After moving to one that worked better, I regretted it due to the game’s utterly dreadful music. I even checked YouTube videos just to make sure what I was hearing wasn’t an emulator issue, but it sounded just as terrible. Twisted Edge is a snowboarding racing game similar to 1080° Snowboarding, but massively lacking the kind of polish that Nintendo put on their games. The biggest weakness of Twisted Edge are the tracks. They all look too close to each other and mostly feel the same. There are a few short sections that are noticeable, such as a bridge and the inside of a pipe, but at the end of the game I would have guessed that there were only three tracks (with some slightly longer versions), but it turned out I raced on seven. The tracks are also very boring, mostly wide open and not much to interact with. The inside of the pipe I mentioned? Whenever you see one of those, your first instinct is to do all loop, but the side is essentially a flat wall and you’ll fall over if you get too close. Your recovery speed is also the main difficulty of the game. Fall over and it takes ages to reach top speed (which still feels slow). This also counts if an opponent touches you. When the main movement is quite dull, having to restart due to one mistake (or even an opponent flying into the back of you) is just frustrating. The best part of the game so far is the game’s announcer saying the odd move names like “tuna salad” or “stale fish air”. Remake or remaster? There’s nothing interesting enough in this game to re-do. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding

But it has so many other important N64 characters: Wario, Lakitu, Kirby, Virus, Charizard, GoldenEye Guy and Zelda.

Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA NA release: 11th November 1998 PAL release: 4th February 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Atari Games Publisher: Midway N64 Magazine Score: 73% Rush 2 is better than the first game in every single way. The handling is now great, letting you turn at last minute amongst the twists and turns, the levels are more expansive with a ton of shortcuts to find, and it feels like a full video game rather than a full conversion. The tracks feels fairly simple to begin with but as you explore them in the games best mode – practice – you’ll discover a massive amount of connected shortcuts, with multiple paths – not all of them helpful. Exploring the levels and figuring out which routes help you is a big part of the game, and the encourages this even more by hiding a ton of keys (and other collectibles) across the expansive maps. Just driving around is a ton of fun, and the “reset” when you crash is much more suited for this mode – in the original, it tried to put you back “on track”, sometimes warping you across half the map – while this resets you close to where you exploded. There are a bunch of tracks set across the USA, but the best ones are the ones not based on American locations. My favourite is the Midway level, which is set in a giant office building filled with computers and filled with various arcade machines of other Midway games, which also have billboards throughout the game along with adverts for magazines, like EGM and Nintendo Power (no deals were made for Europe, though, so the PAL version still has the US magazines). There are also three stunt tracks. Two of these are suitable for racing on, while the third is a large skate park-like arena for you to have fun in. Rush 2 takes things that felt like bolted-on experiments in the first game and brings them into focus. It’s a really fun racing game and one where just cruising around the levels is extremely enjoyable. Remake or remaster? A remaster of the Rush games would be great. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA

Arari bought the Intellivision name and the IPs. The company (which is changing its name) was developing games and a console. Composer (if he actually composed anything himself, most of his soundtracks seem to have been made by others with him taking credit) Tommy Tallarico purchased the brand initially to make a console called the Amico, with its development full of shady stuff and investment scams. It was supposed to be released around 6 years ago, with its internals being a mid-range 2014 Android phone. They also took out a load of loans and are in massive debt, with no product to show for it.

NFL Quarterback Club 99 NA release: 10th November 1998 PAL release: December 1998 JP release: N/A Developer: Iguana Publisher: Acclaim N64 Magazine Score: 90% While this is another American football game, I was pleasantly surprised about this one. I still don’t fully understand (or like) the sport, but I managed to have some fun with this. It felt like I had more control over the players and the game and players didn’t just flop down at the slightest touch, meaning I could actually breakthrough and score a touchdown (although a touchdown always looks anticlimactic, but that’s the sport’s fault). This seems to have been achieved without sacrificing the realistic nature of the game. There are more tactics than previous games (you choose starting position and then movement) and it’s still all the real teams and stadiums. It also has some nice little touches, like a half time show. I wasn’t expecting to get enjoyment out of a game like this, so this must be doing something right to be able to do so when I still don’t fully know the rules of the game. Remake or remaster? Sports games have evolved since this. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get NFL Quarterback Club 99

Knife Edge: Nose Gunner NA release: 10th November 1998 JP release: 27th November 1998 PAL release: November 1998 Developer: Kemco Publisher: Kemco N64 Magazine Score: 42% Knife Edge: Nose Gunner (or just “Knife Edge” in Europe) is a lightgun shooter game that doesn’t come with a lightgun – the N64 itself never had a lightgun, either. A large part of the enjoyment of lightgun games is the manual aiming and firing, so this loses a lot from just moving a cursor and holding down fire. Spectacle is another big part of them, and this also misses there. The locations are rather bland and lifeless, with very little colour. The camera whizzes around the map, jerking around randomly with unnatural movements, and you have very little time to shoot anything. There are six short levels, although the game does provide replay value by offering you the option to select a different route at the start of each level. The game is so incredibly dull that you’ll have no desire to actually do this, but at least it’s an option. You’ll encounter some bosses, which do require you aim for certain parts, but this is mainly solved by wiggling the stick wildly while shooting and seeing what part of the boss flashes. That’s as advanced as the tactics get in the game. There is a dodge option, but the camera just slides slightly to the side so you have no idea if it’s actually done anything. If this was in the arcades with a proper lightgun, it might provide some entertainment, but would still be a very boring lightgun game. Remake or remaster? Nothing special needs doing with this game. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Knife Edge: Nose Gunner

One great website for retro UK gaming magazines: https://www.outofprintarchive.com/ They're digitally backing up a ton of magazines. They have "preliminary" versions that are the initial scans, but then they're also touching up to match the original colours better (which is a lot of work) to make better versions.

Wipeout 64 NA release: 4th November 1998 PAL release: 5th February 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Psygnosis Publisher: Midway N64 Magazine Score: 88% It’s always a shame when you know a game is good quality but you just can’t seem to gel with it. I enjoyed playing F-Zero X for the first time, even though I played F-Zero GX first, so I was hoping the same would be true with Wipeout 64, as I had played Wipeout 2048 on Vita. Sadly, I really could not get the hang of this game at all. What I think is throwing me off is the camera. It’s not in line with your vehicle, it seems to be instead stuck to the track or something. Your racer is often towards the side of the screen, appearing at an angle. It looks fancy in screenshots, but I think it’s messing with my ability to judge turns. You also seem to “hit” the sides before it seems like you should be doing. Instead of just having a series of races, there are challenges in multiple categories: racing, time trial and killing enemies. When you’ve completed all these, you then unlock a “super combo” mode where you have to win races while killing enough opponents. It’s a good idea for extending the singleplayer, especially with only 7 tracks, I just wish I found the gameplay itself to be fun. Remake or remaster? A Wipeout remastered collection really should be done with the PS1 games, Wipeout 64 and the PS2 and PSP games. Even if they end up renaming Wipeout 64 as Wipeout 2098 or something. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Wipeout 64

I don't think I've ever read Edge, it always looked to clinical to me. I mainly for N64 and NGC magazine (I have them all on my phone, bar a couple of missing issues of NGC), before unsubscribing from NGamer at some point (I stuck with it for a while after my Wii and DS were stolen, but not having a Nintendo console disconnected me from it). I also dabbled in a bit of Cube and Revolution, as they had good discs with their mags (videos/action replay type stuff).

NBA Live 99 NA release: 4th November 1998 PAL release: December 1998 JP release: N/A Developer: EA Canada, NuFX Publisher: EA Sports N64 Magazine Score: 64% As EA’s first basketball game on the N64, this isn’t the disaster that FIFA 64 was, but it also doesn’t come close to FIFA 98, resulting in a game that’s just passable. The menu for this one is quite odd, starting you off with choosing an exhibition match and the options are off to the side. You can change rules settings (including letting you tackle opponents) and there’s a very limited create a player option. The game feels very clunky. There’s some interesting ideas with the controls – such as holding R to activate a mode where you can pass to a player of your choice with the C-buttons, but passing and shooting don’t feel smooth. It’s not atrocious, it just doesn’t feel very good. The graphics are similar. The court itself looks very nice, but the players are hideous with broken-looking limbs and extremely boxy. With NBA Courtside around, this can just be ignored. Remake or remaster? Sports games had already evolved when this game was released. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get NBA Live 99

O.D.T.: Escape… Or Die Trying NA release: N/A PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: FDI Publisher: Psygnosis N64 Magazine Score: N/A ODT was an action game that released on PlayStation and PC. An N64 version was in development, but was cancelled. N64 gave a little blurb saying that it was due to Psygnosis having financial issues (not long after, they were absorbed into Sony), although N64 magazine stated “Not much of a loss as far as ODT’s concerned. Shame about F1, though”. When a ROM was eventually found, the most surprising thing was that the N64 version was finished, and there were even specific NTSC and PAL versions of the game. However, the poor reception on PlayStation and PC combined with the cost of making cartridges probably influenced the decision to not release it. ODT is a game clearly inspired by Tomb Raider, but set in a futuristic Jules Verne sci-fi mashup (your ship is called the Nautiflyus, which is just stupid). However, it completely lacks any charm, clever level design or fun that the Tomb Raider games had. Instead, it settles for clunky, low and tedious. The controls would have been bad when it came out (as reviews on other platforms point out), and feel even worse now. Movement has you turning left and right with the analogue stick, holding a c button to slowly sidestep. The camera does not play nice at all, always at an odd angle behind you, to the point where you can’t see holes or gaps (in the image below, the “floor” has massive gaps) with no way to manipulate it. In some rooms, the camera becomes fixes and the movement feels completely wrong. The shooting is also just bad. Your gun (you do obtain different kinds of ammo that act differently) sort of homes in on enemies, but not very well and the manual aiming is atrocious. The game also starts off with bat-like enemies that are the most difficult to hit. There is a magic system in the game that does work well – hold R and press a C-button to use the assigned spell. It’s a while before you properly unlock one, so you’re already fed up before you get to use the spell system. You can also level up your characters and guns, but it’s not very interesting when the gameplay isn’t enjoyable. The level designs also don’t help. They’re maze-like and mostly made up of small box rooms. You wander around, killing enemies, come to a locked door, backtrack, find a key, go back to the locked door and repeat far too many times. It does sometimes mix it up by having a switch instead of a key. While good games lock the entrances to areas, this game just locks the end, letting you progress through multiple long winding paths before letting you know you went the wrong way 20 minutes ago. The levels also have platforming sections. With the poor camera and the terrible jumping (sometimes your main character jumps too short) they’re bad enough, but the game then adds crumbling platforms and moving platforms, which the controls aren’t equipped to begin with. To make matters worse, you can get through a gruelling platform section only to encounter a locked door, and you need to go all the way back. ODT certainly had ideas of ambition. There are multiple characters to play as (including unlockable ones), the magic and upgrade systems are potentially good ideas and the world could be interesting if it wasn’t so ugly. They tried to to far too much with the controls that they ended up sacrificing the main movement of the game. Sadly, ODT is a game with promise that just ended up squandering it inside far too much tedium. (Note: the developer was shortly shut down and absorbed into Sony) Should it be finished? It was! N64 owners certainly didn’t miss out on anything by this version being cancelled, but it is interesting to see the finished port. Official ways to get the game. The PC and PlayStation versions are available on Steam, however, I do not recommend these at all. This is from PIKO Interactive. The PC version is just a re-release of the original, no resolution/widescreen options. The game crashes a lot and the music flat out doesn’t work. The PlayStation version is set up poorly in an emulator (the Steam reviews even suggest using the ROM in a different emulator). PIKO have said that their license includes the unfinished N64 version but, like Glover and 40 Winks, don’t expect much other than an overly expensive release with Limited Run games.

WCW/nWo Revenge NA release: 26th October 1998 PAL release: 30th November 1998 JP release: N/A Developer: Asmik Ace, AKI Publisher: THQ N64 Magazine Score: 75% There isn’t a lot to say about this wrestling game, it’s WCW/nWo World Tour again, this time sped up a little bit. After WWF War Zone, the graphics of Revenge now look extremely dated, and the create-a-wrestler options are severely limited, consisting of picking an existing wrestler, renaming them and changing their outfit. If you like the wrestlers of this game (and there are a lot), then it does a good job, but not much has been done to change the game since World Tour. Remake or remaster? This game doesn’t need any special treatment. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get WCW/nWo Revenge

Detective Club 64 JP release: 23rd October 1998 PAL release: N/A NA release: N/A Developer: Pandora Box Publisher: Imagineer Original Name: Kira to Kaiketsu! 64 Tanteidan N64 Magazine Score: 60% While the name may sound similar to Famicom Detective Club, this isn’t related to it in any way. This is a virtual board game from Imagineer, themed around kids solving a mystery in a spooky mansion. It came out shortly before Mario Party, however it has no minigames. There are three game types in Detective Club 64: Theft, Lost Item and Bomb Hunt. They all involve searching around a mansion, but are slightly different. In Theft, you have to find three items and get to the front door, bomb hunt you need to disable bombs and hand them in while lost item you need to find items and return them to the correct people. You take turns rolling the dice and moving. You can chose which direction to go in. The main space you’ll be looking for is the magnifying glass, which lets you pick objects in the room to search. These either contain cards to be used as abilities, or the special objects you need to win the game. Some special objects have duplicates, while one of them will only have one copy. Other spaces make you gain or lose health and money, buy items and some alter your stats. NPCs will also be walking around, some you can talk to for clues, while others will trigger a battle, as will landing on the same space as another player. The battle is a kind of “rock, paper, scissors” where certain abilities work against others. The loser is stunned and will miss the next turn. The system isn’t awful but, like with the rest of the game, is entirely down to blind luck. Other than slightly different modes, the game doesn’t have any variety. Even the different mansions are just made up of the same randomly-selected rooms. It’s a very bare-bones release and isn’t even fun in the first place. The deceit part is just window dressing, with the game being more like a very slow version of Neil Buchanan’s Finders Keepers. Remake or remaster? This game doesn’t need any special treatment. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Detective Club 64

Space Station Silicon Valley NA release: 21st October 1998 PAL release: November 1998 JP release: N/A Developer: DMA Design Publisher: Take-Two N64 Magazine Score: 91% Space Station Silicon Valley is a mission-based puzzle platformer where you reanimate the corpses of dead animals (don’t worry, they’re all robots). It was developed by DMA design (makers of Lemmings, GTA and Body Harvest) and is an immense amount of fun. The game did ship with a bug that meant that you couldn’t pick up one of the collectables, but I played a version that had been patched by fans that fixes the issue. You play as Evo, a robot that loses its body as he and his hero-for-hire partner crash into a mysterious station that’s on a course for Earth. Evo ends up as just a chip, but discovers that he can take over the bodies of deceased animal robots. In each level, you must complete multiple objectives, usually done by killing the animals, taking over their bodies and using their various abilities to complete what you need. It all sounds horrific and disturbing when trying to explain it, but the game manages to be incredibly charming throughout this, with happy music that is played through the station speakers (which you can destroy to shut them up). Discovering how each animal moves and how to use them is one of the main things I love about Space Station Silicon Valley. They all have different kinds of movement – some are like a typical platformer, others are like cars and some can only move when jumping – and the powers have various uses that aren’t just needed to solve the puzzles of the level, but to find all the collectables. This concept was also a large part of Super Mario Odyssey, so my like for this is probably why I loved that, too. Each level has 15 power cells hidden in it to find, some are in plain view, others are hidden extremely well. A few of them can be quite frustrating to get to, such as some high up ones requiring using a vulture’s awful flight to get there. The game’s dreadful camera also doesn’t help matters, as you can never get a good look around and the cameral often likes looking downwards. The other kind of collectable is a hidden trophy in each level, which is found by doing a secret objective. Sometimes these are obvious, such as the second level having a racetrack, and often killing everything will yield results, while others are very tricky, such as listing to penguins make sound and recreating it on a keyboard (being tone-deaf, I looked that one up). Still, even with these annoying ones, it was a joy to collect everything. I’m not 100% completing every N64 game, but this one was one where I wanted to do so. At the end of each of the four regions, you’ll encounter a level where you find a piece of Evo’s original body. These are quite different to the main gameplay, featuring different events. For example the second area ends with a Jetski-like race called Walrace 64 where you have to win a race as a robotic walrus boat. Once all these are done, the final mission is defending Earth against invading robots, but unfortunately is probably the weakest level of the game. Still, that slight downer is just the end of a wonderful experience. While the difficulty is more of a rollercoaster than a curve, you do get used to some of the techniques the game uses, and the wild and wacky robot animals are always an absolute joy to discover – each time you see a new one, you’re eager to kill it and give it a spin. Space Space Station Silicon valley is a wonderful platformer and one I think more people should try out. Remake or remaster? A remaster would be great for this. Have it adapted into widescreen, give it a new camera and fix a few things here or there. A few bonus levels would be nice, too. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Space Station Silicon Valley