Cube

Worms Armageddon PAL release: 11th December 1999 NA release: 23rd March 2000 JP release: N/A Developer: Team17, Infogrames Publisher: Infogrames N64 Magazine Score: 85 The PC version of Worms Armageddon is a game that Team17 have never been able to live up to. Many Worms games have come and gone since, yet Armageddon still lives on, with the last official major patch released in 2020, and a complete overhaul is being worked on (albeit very slowly). The PC version is easily the best version of the game, with better graphics, far more weapons, more levels, and a ton of additional support (both official and fan) over the years. Yet, despite all that, my preference still lies with the N64 version. A lot of it is nostalgia – it’s probably my most played N64 game as a kid – but I think there’s another important reason: the controller, which I’ll explain in a bit. Worms is a game of strategy with a bit of luck thrown in. There are teams of worms (usually four) across the map, and you take turns to move around and use one weapon to attack your opponents. The genius is that the weapons also blow up the landscape, so the space available to the worms gets smaller and smaller as the game’s going on, with worms falling into the water dying instantly. The weapons are brilliantly made, some require precise aiming and taking into account the wind, some amusing, and others seemingly pointless but perfect for the right situations (like prod). These weapons aren’t just satisfying to use when you get them right, they’re also great when things go wrong. Which brings me to the controller. The PC version has much better controls using a keyboard, being more accurate and having lots of shortcuts to access weapons quickly. When playing online, it’s certainly helpful. But, to me, Worms is best as a local multiplayer game, something that makes it a wonderful experience when you do mess up, and a controller is simply much easier to pass around than a keyboard and mouse. Worms Armageddon lets you use one controller for four players (although you can use more if you want). While you can try mapping a controller to keyboard inputs for the PC version (despite many updates, it still doesn’t offer controller support), it’s not quite the same as the properly crafted controls for N64. Outside of the brilliant multiplayer, which offers specially designed levels and randomly generated levels, there’s also a bunch of singleplayer missions and training modes, some of which are a ton of fun, such as the Ninja Rope training. The Ninja Rope is an immensely fun item (which doesn’t count as using a weapon) to get around levels, with lots of risky tricks you can try and perform. I had a ton of fun with the Ninja Rope training, taking it in turn to play it with friends. Worms Armageddon is a great game, and the N64 version is still worth playing for its ease of multiplayer. Fave Remake or remaster? A lot of work has already been done for the PC version, but it still needs controller support. A remaster has also been released for home consoles. Official Ways to get the game The remaster is available on Switch, Xbox and PlayStation.

If they can add some difficult to find stuff (like the F-Zero GX story mode cutscene music) then this would be quite neat.

Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. NA release: 9th December 1999 PAL release: 17th December 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Acclaim London Publisher: Acclaim N64 Magazine Score: 76% When Starship Troopers became a big hit, Acclaim wanted to cash in on its success. Instead of trying to work out a licensing deal, they looked at their comic catalogue and realised one of them was a sci-fi marine comic. The comic didn’t contain bug-like aliens, so they invented new ones for the game. Running on the same engine (and controls) as Turok 2, it seemed like a recipe for success. But Acclaim didn’t seem to pay attention to why Starship Troopers was successful: personality. The film took some very dry source material and made it into something special. Armorines, on the other hand, is utterly devoid of personality. The bugs in Armorines aren’t scary. They don’t react to gunshots like enemies in Turok and they don’t act in any smart kind of way. As a result, killing them isn’t satisfying, which is a major issue in an FPS game. There are different types, but it generally means that bigger ones need more shots to go down. The weapons don’t help matters, either, as there’s nothing quite as fun as the weapons in the Turok games. Selecting weapons is also unintuitive. You hold A and move the control stick in a direction – the same as the great weapons wheel previously used in Turok games. Except there’s no weapons wheel. You press different directions to cycle to different groups of weapons, meaning you have to memorise the direction and order of the weapons. Not that it matters much, as you’re going to be using the default weapon – a shotgun if you pick the male character, or the much more useful machine gun if you pick the female character – most of the time anyway. While the default gun certainly has advantages, such as having infinite ammo (as opposed to very limited ammo for other guns) and being good enough to handle most enemies, their main use isn’t for killing enemies. It’s for the ability to see. Many areas of Armorines are extremely dark. Again, this doesn’t make the game scary, it just makes it hard to see. You can get IR goggles to see enemies clearer, but they don’t help a lot in navigating the confusing levels. So, most of the time you’ll be firing your gun just to have a light source, because your futuristic super special power armour doesn’t have a torch. This is the main reason why the machine gun is better than the shotgun. It’s a shame, as Armorines had a very solid foundation and inspiration – the gameplay of Turok 2 was great, and the satire nature of Starship Troopers could potentially have worked well for a video game. Unfortunately, many aspects – such as the weapons, enemy AI, their reaction to being shot, and any personality – are downgrades, and it ends up being a game that is functionally fine, but is really dull. Fine Remake or remaster? Despite its flaws, it would be nice to see this running on Nightdive’s Turok 2 engine. The darkness could be fixed, and more satisfying enemy AI and reactions could be added – they could even add a bit of personality with some new cutscenes and dialogue. I doubt that it would sell enough to make doing that profitable, but there’s a solid foundation to work from. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M.

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness NA release: 8th December 1999 JP release: 25th December 1999 PAL release: 3rd March 2000 Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami N64 Magazine Score: 75% Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness is a bit of an odd game. It’s sort of a new game, but also isn’t. In a way, this is an attempt at re-doing Castlevania 64, listening to feedback from that release, and addressing it without creating a full sequel. The levels feel a lot more simplified, less routes to get lost in, and it’s generally a more linear experience. There are also save points everywhere, and the game lets you move the camera, albeit using the D-pad, which is a bit awkward on the N64 controller. But there is a ton of new stuff as well. At the start, you can only select a new character called Cornell, although there is a variant of the Konami code (only discovered in April 2024) to unlock all characters. His story is set 8 years before the first Castlevania 64. Once you complete his story, you can play the original two campaigns, Carrie and Reinhardt, who have re-worked versions of their original campaigns, along with another new character called Harry, who has a shorter game that you need to complete in fewer than 7 in-game days. Because the original game cut me off before the end of the game, due to playing on easy (which, thankfully, no longer stops you from playing the full game), I really didn’t realise how many levels at the end of the game focused much more on platforming, and Cornell’s journey even more so. The second half of his game feels completely different from the first, and the game’s wonky jumping and grabbing edges is one of the issues that hasn’t been addressed. The first game focused on combat and puzzles, while the first time playing this will be mainly platform-based. If you’re going to play a version of Castlevania 64, it may as well be this one. Fun Remake or remaster? A remaster that improves upon this and also gives the option of playing Carrie and Reinhardt’s original levels would be nice. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness.

The large problem with Tooie is that it's bigger while having less stuff, making it feel empty. The main cause of this is reducing the number of notes per level from 100 to 17.

Custom Robo JP release: 8th December 1999 PAL release: N/A NA release: N/A Developer: Noise Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 83% Every now and then, a game I would have never expected to like will surprise me, making me very glad that I’m doing these playthroughs. I always dismissed Custom Robo as the kind of JRPG that I don’t like, and magazines that reviewed it made a lot of comparisons to Pokémon. However, I ended up loving Custom Robo, and would absolutely love for Pokémon to try this style of combat. Custom Robo was only released in Japan, as well as its sequel and the GBA game – it wasn’t until the fourth game, on GameCube, that the series made its way elsewhere (and only the most recent game on DS was released in Europe). Luckily, there’s a decent fan translation to play the game in English. The main story is mostly what you’d expect – walking around a 2D environment, speaking to other people to battle. However, Custom Robo’s story is very linear, with no side quests or exploration, so each playthrough will be fairly similar. The story is a simple story about a young boy who gets a Custom Robo – a tiny robot designed to take part in friendly battles – competing in tournaments within his town (which handily is home to the main Custom Robo tournament). There are some additional stories, and the characters you meet along the way are interesting, so there’s a lot of charm here. The main greatness of Custom Robo, however, is the battles. In Custom Robo, you control your tiny robot in holographic arenas. The robos are fast and nimble, and you automatically face your opponent at all times, which means you can focus on manoeuvring and dodging. Your abilities include your gun, your “pods” which launch a kind of homing missile, and a bomb that you automatically aim where your opponent is (although you can manually adjust it to account for them moving). You also have a high jump, and can perform a few dodges in mid-air, there’s a lot of options at your disposal, but with extremely simple controls. The arenas themselves are also important. Hiding behind obstacles and popping out or jumping up to shoot, getting high ground, circling around moving obstacles or dangerous areas to impact your opponent. The arenas start off simple and get more imaginative as you go on – with the best being the “unofficial” ones your encounter along your journey. Another interesting element is that when robos recover from being knocked down, they have a brief invincibility period where they can fire – preventing anyone from being permanently trapped in the combo, and letting them go on the offensive. What I especially love about Custom Robo is the lack of levelling up or grinding. Every robo’s health is 1000HP, with different body types (which you unfortunately don’t get to use in the main story) having their own abilities. What you do collect as you go on, however, is different weapons. But there’s no “best” weapon. Your main gun, for example, fires in different ways. There’s a powerful magnum that does a ton of damage, but fires in a straight line and is quite slow. There are some homing weapons that aren’t as strong and aren’t useful if you need to defend yourself as they take a while to hit. My favourite weapon wasn’t particularly strong, but fired in an arc and could hit over walls. The bombs and pods are equally varied, with some relentless but slow pods, or fast ones that require a quick dodge to avoid. Some weapons also hit next to an opponent, with you planning on them dodging or moving around. Because of all this, everything feels balanced in a wonderful way, and you’ll encounter opponents that will force you to rethink your strategy. In a single battle, one combination may have an advantage, but there will be other combos that will in turn have an advantage over it. However, it’s never hopeless, sometimes you have to rethink your strategy and use what you’ve picked in a different way. As an example, I favoured a weapon where I could do a short hop near a wall, and hit an opponent behind another wall. Then, I encountered an opponent that had bombs and pods that exploded above my head, which I kept jumping into. I had to go for a more hit-and-run approach to win the fight. It’s nice that you can outright see the advantages, instead of it just being numbers. The setup for each match is also worth mentioning. When you carry them around, your Custom Robo is in a little cube. At the start of each match, you aim a little cannon to try and land in a section of the arena you want, while also reacting to where your opponent is landing on. Your robo, in cube form, is then fired out. Each side has an icon to show the orientation of your robo, with a face signifying the top, and feet showing the bottom. You have a bit of control over your robo to try and land right side up, as this means your robo will be able to start quicker – with robos landing on their head starting stuck in the ground, and having to wiggle to make a start. The combat in Custom Robo was something that I never got tired of doing. It avoids everything I personally dislike about combat in a lot of JRPGs, and I really like how customisation works in it. In the story mode, you get drip fed these parts as you progress, letting you experiment a bit on your journey, and at the start of each battle, you can pick your setup and try it out before starting the fight. There are some other modes, though, such as a challenge mode and free battle (which supports multiplayer). These let you pick different robot bodies for even more possible combinations. I do wish the story itself was a bit more free form, but that’s only a mild issue with how much I enjoyed playing the game. Fave Remake or remaster? It still plays extremely well. A collection of the five Custom Robo games with official translations for the first three would be amazing. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to play Custom Robo

Xena: Warrior Princess: The Talisman of Fate NA release: 7th December 1999 PAL release: 28th February 2000 JP release: N/A Developer: Saffire Publisher: Titus N64 Magazine Score: 81% In 1999, two Xena games were released. The PlayStation got a hack-n-slash adventure, while the N64 got a fighting game. The plot of this game is easily what you’d expect: there’s a powerful object, and random characters have to compete for it. This means that Xena (or your character of choice) will have to slice her way through friends in order to win the object. One small touch with the characters is that when Xena faces Gabrielle, Gabrielle is renamed as “Hope” (who is Gabrielle’s half-demon evil daughter that magically aged and looks exactly like Gabrielle), but none of Xena’s other friends get the same treatment. It’s also strange that this also happens when playing as Gabrielle – you’ll just be renamed when you fight Xena. The Talisman of Fate is a fairly simple fighting game. This isn’t a bad thing, though, and manages to turn this game into something quite enjoyable. Instead of trying to be a deep fighting game, it instead focuses on speed and excitement, giving you jump and duck buttons for more movement options. It does mean that button mashing works quite well, but it works really well for a tie-in game that will likely have a more casual audience. The game’s biggest weakness is lack of modes, although still not as lacking as some N64 fighting games. One thing that they did attempt to do was create a 4-player mode, but changing target (pressing A) is a bit clunky. It’s a nice try, even if it doesn’t fully work. Xena is a decent fighting game, which makes it one of the better fighting games on N64. Fun Remake or Remaster? How about a collection of Xena (and Hercules) games? Nothing special, just a re-release of the games. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Xena: Warrior Princess: The Talisman of Fate

The issues for the XBLA version are immensely minor. It has better loading and smoother controls, especially the camera. Until a better port is made (either officially or unofficially), it remains the best way to play to play both games.

Top Gear Rally 2 NA release: 3rd December 1999 JP release: 4th February 2000 PAL release: 28th February 2000 Developer: Saffire Publisher: Kemco N64 Magazine Score: 90% While I’ve spoken about Saffire games before, their earlier N64 games had all been ports, making this their first fully developed N64 game (with their second coming out a week after this). While it’s called Top Gear Rally 2, it bears no similarities to the original game, this being much closer to a rally sim than the original arcade-style game. Top Gear Rally 2 features a damage system where bad driving will completely wreck your car. I was so bad at the game, that I couldn’t even finish a single race due to damage, but I think I’m more at fault than the game there. The handling has a lot of customisation and feels quite good, although the car is oddly “magnetic” in that it sticks to the ground, making it jerk around in an odd way on bumpy sections. Something that really bugged me was the tracks, as there was something really off about them – a strange sense of déjà vu, as I seemingly kept encountering the same obstacles again and again, sometimes the same sections repeated in the same race. As I looked it up after playing, it turns out my feeling was right: there are no properly designed tracks in the game. There are four different “themes” and, for each race, the game stitches various parts together. Specific combinations of these parts act as “tracks” in the game, while you unlock a “random track generator” after completing the game. The training mode is, strangely, the best mode in the game. Here, you’re set into lots of driving challenges while avoiding cones. It’s definitely more compelling than the random tracks. Top Gear Rally 2 is a good rally game, but would have been even better with specifically designed tracks, and having the random tracks be a bonus, like in F-Zer Fine Remake or Remaster? A collection of the various Top Gear games would be quite nice. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Top Gear Rally 2

Puyo Puyo~n Party JP release: 3rd December 1999 NA release: N/A PAL release: N/A Developer: Compile Publisher: Compile N64 Magazine Score: N/A Also known as Puyo Puyo 4 (I can only guess that the ~n is partly due to Japanese superstitions about the number 4), this brings the core gameplay back to Puyo Puyo 2, and adds in character-specific special abilities. Unfortunately, unlike Puyo Puyo Sun, this one does not have colourblind options, so, like in Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean machine, I made a ton of mistakes. The party part of the name refers to some 4-player modes, which make the beans smaller and even more difficult to distinguish. These include a 4-way battle and a hot potato mode, where there’s a bomb that gets passed around by performing chains, with you aiming to not be the one with the bomb when the time ends. ? Remake or remaster? A collection and official localisation of the earlier Puyo Puyo games would be nice. Official ways to get the game. While there are newer Puyo Puyo games, this particular version is not available anywhere.

I still listen to the full version of Herald of Darkness form Alan Wake II on a regular basis.

Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! JP release: 3rd December 1999 NA release: 29th May 2000 PAL release: N/A Developer: Hudson Publisher: Hudson (JP), Vatical (NA) N64 Magazine Score: 52% While Bomberman Hero was distantly different to Bomberman 64, being developed as a separate project entirely, Bomberman 64: The Second Attack is a direct sequel. What’s surprising, then, is that this possibly has less in common with Bomberman 64 than Bomberman Hero, making it much more like the classic Bomberman gameplay. One key thing that helps bring back the feeling of the originals is that the bombs once again explode in their distinctive “plus” shape, making it much easier to judge the shape and distance of how they’re exploding. The camera is also stationary (no stuff annoyingly hidden out of view), with a top-down perspective. As you defeat bosses, you’ll also gain more types of bombs which have different effects. Ice bombs will freeze enemies, while wind bombs can be used to help Bomberman cross paths. These are used for both combat and puzzles. Joining Bomberman on his journey is Pommy, a small, round creature. He can stun enemies and can be used for puzzles. Unfortunately, unless you have a second controller, he does what he wants, so the few times you need him to stand on switches for puzzles, it’s a massive pain to get him to remain on them long enough. The puzzles overall aren’t too bad, with some stretching across multiple rooms. What turns them into a massive chore, however, is how enemies respawn as you re-enter rooms, and many doors get locked again until you dispose of them all. It’s a decent game with some interesting worlds and characters, although I never got to the end of the game due to how the kick works – I had to create a path of ice platforms in lava, but couldn’t get the distance right, any kick would leave a gap. I also hadn’t found a throw power in the level, and really didn’t want to trawl the level (due to respawning enemies), hoping one would spawn somewhere. This ability and part really needed some fine-tuning. Still, this is a big improvement over the first, and gives Bomberman his identity back. Fun Remake or remaster? It should still be in a Bomberman collection. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Bomberman 64: The Second Attack

New trailer announcing platforms. It will be on PC, Xbox Series, PS5 and....Nintendo. With some googly eyes resting on the Nintendo logo. This seems to be what multiplatform games have been told to do by Nintendo for announcing titles coming to the next console. Edit: On their Discord, they specifically say "Nintendo (More on that as soon as we can!)"

I don't know how I manged to miss Bear McCreary's album The Singularity, as its my favourite composer creating a load of rock/metal songs. It's a 25 track album (including an intro and some spoken word track, including one with Lee Pace, The Piemaker) with a bunch of different artists contributing. It's also got a sci-fi and nordic vibe about it and some experimental stuff, so it's pretty much my music tastes all combined. A few of my early favourites: The first main song, has Serj Tankian (System of a Down) providing the locals. One of the songs sung by the composer's brother, Brendan McCreary. He's pretty good at pulling off different styles. I really like the energy and sound of this, seems like it would fit in with a Shadow the Hedgehog game (even the lyrics work). Scottish Gaelic Slam Poetry Metal (with Bagpipes) about the erasure of the Scottish language. Performed by Billy Boyd (Pipin). It's a great album. I'm going to get the graphic novel that was released alongside it.

Space Invaders NA release: 30th November 1999 PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Z-Axis Publisher: Activision N64 Magazine Score: 73% Like Paperboy, this is another sequel to a classic game that annoyingly just uses the original name – although in this case it’s only outside of Japan, where it was called Space Invaders X (on other platforms, the N64 version wasn’t released there). This Space Invaders has a lot of features not present in the original, while still keeping the core gameplay very similar to the original. One large difference is special abilities for both enemies and you. Different enemy types, which have distinctive but hard to remember designs, will react in different ways – some shoot quicker, others dive bomb you when they die. More are introduced as you make your way through the game. You also have special abilities. Hit four enemies in a row and you’ll power up for a bonus shot (which is picked at random), which causes effects like the missile moving sideways after hitting one invader, lasers that take out whole rows, and a “kamikaze” attack which sends your tank flying upwards to smash through enemies (before safely landing on the ground). As you reach each new planet, a new power is introduced, which you’re most likely to get each time you charge up your special attack. On each planet you’ll play through 10 rounds, each with a new layout of enemies and shields. After 5 rounds, you’ll play a bonus minigame of shooting down UFOs for points and power ups – including vital shields to stop you exploding in one hit. The different special abilities of both you and the enemies do help keep things interesting. After the 10 rounds, you’ll reach a boss fight. The bosses contain the most variety. Some require spamming your slow missiles as fast as possible, others require careful aiming, and others needing frantic dodging. I also love how the final boss (unless you play on higher difficulty levels for a few bonus planets) is the strange alien monster from the artwork of the original game. This version of Space Invaders is a solid variation on the original game. Fun Remake or remaster? This hasn’t been included in any Space Invaders collections, and it really should. Perhaps rename it to Space Invaders X for clarity, though. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get this version of Space Invaders.

Nuclear Strike 64 NA release: 30th November 1999 PAL release: 3rd March 2000 JP release: N/A Developer: EA, Pacific Coast Power & Light Publisher: THQ N64 Magazine Score: 82% The [BLANK] Strike series of isometric helicopter shooters was a big part of my early childhood, playing games like Desert Strike and Jungle Strike on my Mega Drive. They were great to play around with for a while, but I don’t remember having long sessions with them – more something to turn on every now and then. With Urban Strike, the series made the leap to 3D on the Saturn and PlayStation, with Nuclear Strike being released on PlayStation a year later. It took a few more years for the game to be ported to the N64, with clear graphics, but the game not taking advantage of the system, as there’s no analogue movement. One thing that is nice is that you can hop into different vehicles – such as a hover craft, tank, plane, and other helicopters. These play similar to the helicopter, but the slight differences make them feel like a nice change of pace, even if you are doing the same things. This is a great game to play a scenario a day, or something like that, but not great in long spurts. I did find that the graphics have aged poorly, due to the heavy reliance on textures. It makes the game feel like you’re playing with miniatures atop a blurry printout of a satellite photo. I can’t help but think that a simpler graphical style would have worked a lot better. Nuclear Strike is an enjoyable, albeit repetitive, game. Fun Remake or remaster? A new game in the series – as a lower budget digital game – would be great. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Nuclear Strike

NBA Jam 2000 NA release: 30th November 1999 PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Acclaim Publisher: Acclaim N64 Magazine Score: 80% Sports games evolved as the N64 got older, with more realistic looking players, better animation, smoother gameplay, and better visual effects. NBA Jam 2000 didn’t get the memo, and brings us a clunky game with gormless players that don’t look like they’re even standing on the court. On top of that, the first message that pops up when you start the game is a notice: this game requires two Controller Paks to save properly – and each mode uses the entire 123 pages of an official Controller Pak, so neither can be used for any other game. That is due to a proper “Jam” mode, which brings back the 2-vs-2 arcade style, similar to the older NBA Jam games. In the previous N64 NBA Jam game, it was just the regular game with different settings, now it’s more of its own thing (but still not a good excuse for the Controller Pak issue). Compared to NBA Showtime, which came out before this, this is antiquated in both looks and how it plays, being slow and clunky. Showtime didn’t get released in Europe, so I think N64 Magazine were much kinder to the game due to that. So while you have the “deal” of having two games in one, the “sim” mode is nowhere near as good as the NBA Courtside games, and the “Jam” mode is embarrassing next to NBA Showtime. And is it really a good deal once you add in the cost of two Controller Paks? Fine Remake or remaster? Better basketball games exist Official ways to get the game.? There’s no official way to get NBA Jam 2000

Elmo’s Number Journey NA release: 30th November 1999 PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Realtime Publisher: NewKidCo N64 Magazine Score: N/A With this, I wasn’t expecting any differences from Elmo’s Letter Adventure and, while the game is mostly the same, I was quite surprised by the actual differences. For starters, the environments are much more 3D, with some having ramps you can jump off (with Elmo sometimes performing an animation of a stunt). It doesn’t change how the game works, but it does make it feel slightly more involving. The aim of the game is still to collect lots of what you’re told (just numbers instead of letters), however, this time there are groups of items, and you’ll need to collect groups of the right number as well – so there’s actually some counting involved. This increases the difficulty to a level where it’s understandable that someone of the target age would be able to play a game like this. The bonus stages also include sums, with addition and subtraction. You have to throw the right number of balls into the mouth of a large clown head, which is a lot more advanced than finding the first letter of a word (with the characters saying what letter you’re looking for). Of course, it’s still incredibly basic, even for an edutainment title, with no settings to adjust the difficulty of the tasks (just how many you have to collect). It’s still immensely short, and there’s still no reason as to why these games were split up instead of being a single package. Poor Remake or remaster? Nothing needed for this. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Elmo’s Number Journey.

HSV Adventure Racing PAL release: 29th November 1999 (Australia only) NA release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Paradigm Publisher: EA N64 Magazine Score: 81% Unfortunately, this is not a sequel or new instalment in the Beetle Adventure Racing series, but rather an alternative version. EA had found success in modifying the available cars for different regions in the Need for Speed franchise, so they decided to have a go with this. In Australia, the Beetle doesn’t seem to have the same nostalgic value as in other countries, so they replaced the Beetles with cars from an Australian brand called Holden Special Vehicles. What’s fascinating is that this wasn’t done when the game first came out, but much later – so in Australia you could pick up Beetle Adventure Racing and HSV Adventure Racing. Outside of a different shape of car (the stats are all the same as the original) and a very enthusiastic Australian announcer, this is entirely the same game as Beetle Adventure Racing. Which means that it’s an incredibly fun game, there’s just no reason to choose this over the original. Still, the fact that it exists is still interesting, and it’s great having an excuse to play Beetle Adventure Racing again. Great Remake or remaster? I still think a remastered “Adventure Racing” (even with generic cars) would be great. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get HSV Adventure Racing

Namco Museum 64 NA release: 29th November 1999 PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Namco, GCC, Mass Media Publisher: Namco N64 Magazine Score: 70% At this point, Namco Museum was a series with multiple volumes on the PlayStation, each featuring six classic Namco arcade games. The six chosen for the N64 are a particularly strong selection, with some very popular games – not having a volume number is also an indication that this was intended to be the only collection. One thing that makes a compilation strong is what it does outside of the games. On PlayStation, the Namco Museum Volumes include a 3D museum to walk around, with plenty to look at and read about. It’s a great presentation that makes the package feel much more alive. On N64, you have a grey menu with the six games to pick from. That’s it. You can adjust a few settings within each game (with a little nice touch where you can see what DIP switches you’d need to set on the actual arcade), and nothing more. It’s extremely bare bones. So, the games, then. Pac-Man Pac-Man features a large frame which is a bit too busy and distracting, having far more colour than the game itself. I’m no Pac-man expert, but this feels like Pac-man, and seems like a good conversion. I don’t think I need to explain much more, as everyone knows Pac-man. Ms. Pac-Man The sequel to Pac-man, with some more varied maze layouts and cleaner graphics, so it’s just a slightly better Pac-man. This game is now missing from more modern Namco arcade collections due to rights issues, with the character being replaced in other Pac-man remakes. Galaga The placement of Galaga on the menu is strange, as it’s a sequel to Galaxian, but it’s placed first. This takes the first space shooter game and turns it into more of its own thing, with enemies that move a lot more, and some more distinctive patterns. The fire rate is also massively increased. Galaxian A shameless rip-off of Space Invaders. The biggest difference it has going for it is that some enemies will break formation and come at you on their own. Pole Position One of the original racing games, first complete a qualifying map, and then try racing. I always found that I kept overtaking people but still didn’t last long. Dig Dug Dig around to hunt for enemies, making them explode with your balloon pump weapon. You can also use rocks to take out enemies or, if you’re not careful, yourself. — If you only had an N64 and really, really wanted to play these arcade classics at home, then this was an acceptable option. However, this was an incredibly bare bones collection, especially when assets they could have used already existed in other Namco Museum collections. On top of that, it couldn’t even save high scores to the cartridge – you needed a Controller Pak. This was likely done for the same reason why so much stuff was missing: to fit the game on the cheapest cartridge possible. Poor Remake or remaster? There are much better collections of these games. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Namco Museum 64.

Turok: Rage Wars NA release: 23rd November 1999 PAL release: 26th December 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Acclaim Publisher: Acclaim N64 Magazine Score: 87% Taking a departure from the usual single-player focused Turok games, Rage Wars is focused entirely on multiplayer, with a large amount of deathmatch arenas and multiple game modes. And in this game, you can finally be the raptor and claw up your enemies. There’s also a giant bug creature that you can play as, swiping or using a long distance acid attack. In terms of singleplayer, there’s no proper campaign, however there is still an immense amount of stuff you can do, as long as you’re fine with fighting bots. Each character has their own set of scenarios to fight through, leading up to unlocking a new character (until you have them all). It’s a lot like Unreal Tournament. The bots are passable, but limited in options. Higher difficulty bots just have more guns and ammo, and they’ll ignore some stuff (like mines). The real meat of the game is the multiplayer, but there’s still a good amount of fun to have on your own. Rage Wars did end up being very lucky in a way: it was originally going to compete with Perfect Dark (which had a more sophisticated multiplayer, deathmatch scenarios, and a singleplayer campaign), so it ended up getting a Christmas period as the main multiplayer shooter. One other interesting thing about Rage Wars was that it initially released with a bug that made one of the models impossible to collect, however, a revision was released and Acclaim offered the opportunity to send the game back for a replacement. Fun Remake or remaster? Nightdive allowing their Turok engine to be used for a remaster would be nice. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Turok: Rage Wars

Donkey Kong 64 NA release: 22nd November 1999 PAL release: 6th December 1999 JP release: 10th December 1999 Developer: Rare Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 93% After doing a great job with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, Rare were given the job of bringing Donkey Kong into 3D. Instead of transforming the style of Donkey Kong Country into 3D, however, they instead went more into the style of Super Mario 64 and their own Banjo-Kazooie. This time, though, there are five playable characters, which is both one of the game’s strong points and the game’s weakest point. With five characters come a lot of abilities. Thankfully, all the Kongs control roughly the same, even with their differences, meaning you can move to a new Kong and not have to re-learn the basics. That said, how the basic jumps and attacks are performed by each Kong is different, so there is some variety in simply how they move. A few of the special abilities are also shared, each has their own gun and musical instrument that mostly work in the same way, while they have a crystal-powered ability that is unique: Lanky can run on his hands really fast, Diddy gets a Jetpack, Chunky becomes massive, Tiny becomes tiny and Donkey Kong becomes invincible. And that’s just one of their unique abilities. Where the main issue lies in, though, is how so many collectables (and there are a LOT of them) are colour-coded and can only be collected by the Kong they’re tied to, so you’ll see some bananas in the wrong colour and need to make your way to a tag barrel to swap. However, I do think this problem is overblown, and it isn’t such a colossal hassle as some make out – and I have to make extra trips due to being colourblind (I can’t see the difference between the stuff for DK/Chunky or Tiny/Lanky). I’ve collected everything (which isn’t required to see the end of the game) a couple of times, and the biggest issue is some of the barrel challenges, rather than the collectables. Some Golden Bananas – the game’s main collectable (although there are also regular bananas, banana medals, fairies, coins, blueprints, crowns, and keys) – are locked behind barrels containing minigames. What bananas these are seems a bit random – you’d think they’d mainly be easily accessible, but some are difficult to reach and then you have a minigame. I think the minigames are more of a hindrance than the collectables are, very few are much fun, and some can be extremely difficult. Some were also designed with the N64’s poor framerate in mind, and are almost impossible on the Wii U virtual console (and emulators) without repeatedly pausing. It’s my least favourite aspect of the game. The basic movement also feels off to me, and I find it more difficult to cross a thin path in DK64 than in games like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. The camera is also often a burden, but that was common in a lot of games of this era. Still, despite these problems, the game is still an immense amount of fun. The levels are complex, and take a while to properly explore for the first time, with a ton of stuff to see and do. Donkey Kong 64 will take a significant amount of time to beat for the first time – that’s if you can beat it. When I was kid, I did everything except beating the original DK arcade for the second time, so I collected 101% of the Golden Bananas, but never saw the wonderful final boss. Some levels also make use of lighting quite a lot, featuring dark areas lit up by torches, with fireballs flying over to temporarily light up the path. It seems like something basic now, but for the time it wasn’t common for lighting to be used in this way. Donkey Kong 64 is a wonderful game, just one with some frustrating flaws. There’s a ton of wonder and imagination with a lot to discover, but the frustration with the thin platforms and the minigames does hamper the experience. Great Remake or remaster? A good remaster would be outstanding. Refine the controls and camera, add some options to help with collectables (remove the specific Kong requirement or give the option to swap Kong anywhere like a popular ROMhack does), and rebalance the minigames to work with good framerates. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Donkey Kong 64 Re-releases 2015: Wii U Virtual Console

I wish the controller was better. A second stick analogue stick would be nice, with options to swap the sticks around and invert them, especially for FPS games. @Ike they do look good in 4K (although no idea how they'd look on this).

Yeah, unfortunately, a re-release seems unlikely, and I don't expect Sony/Ubisoft to ever do a remaster on PlayStation, either. An unofficial PC port, perhaps. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six NA release: 17th November 1999 PAL release: December 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Red Storm, Saffire Publisher: Red Storm N64 Magazine Score: 87% While there were some games based on Tom Clancy’s work before this, Rainbow Six was the first major* game that used his name as a brand name. Published by Red Storm Entertainment (who were bought out by UbiSoft a few years later), this adapted one of Tom Clancy’s novels into video game, starting a massive franchise spanning multiple genres (although mostly shooters). The first Rainbow Six is a tactical-based shooter for PC that was ported to other platforms. *The very first video game with the “Tom Clancy’s” name was Tom Clancy’s Politika, a digital version of a board game heavily inspired by Risk. I remember playing this as a kid, and never got past the first level, being confused by one large component of the game: the planning. Before each mission, you get a layout of the level, as well as enemy placement and hostage locations. You can set waypoints for you and your team so you can plan your mission, ideally so you and the other squad can enter difficult rooms from different sides at the same time. Although I could never accurately plan anything. The levels are quite small and compact, and it feels like the developers had higher ambitions than what the hardware could handle at the time – you can tell that they were going for some lovely looking areas, but the attempt to do so much detail just makes everything look blurry and ugly instead. The HUD fares better, with a really awesome map taking up a large corner of the screen (you can make it take up the full screen, or turn it off) that lets you see where enemies are. Ultimately, though, I found that on easier difficulties, I could ignore the planning and shoot everyone, with some very generous auto aim. A lot of the time I didn’t even need to shoot, as before I could react, my teammate had already killed the enemy. In one part of the game, I walked around a river for a bit before heading up to a bridge, all the enemies were dead with a hostage kneeling in the middle of them. I had no idea who killed them all. The most difficult parts of the game are when enemies are above or below you, as the auto targeting only works horizontally. In most levels, your objective is to rescue hostages, either by leading them to the extraction zone or taking out every enemy. On some of the more complicated levels (such as one that takes place in a theme park boat ride building), leading the hostages out of the area can be an issue due to them getting stuck on walls or objects, so I had to abandon my original plan and take out all the enemies instead. There are a few other missions where you have to download data instead, and one where you can’t be spotted at all. On the N64, Rainbow Six feels a bit unfinished. The story is really poorly presented, and it really does feel like they’ve left stuff out instead of adapting it to the N64. The PC version is probably the one to play. Fine Remake or remaster? A remaster or remake of the first few games combined would be nice. Official ways to get the game. The PC version is available on GoG and Ubisoft’s PC store.

I've seen people point out that some of the stranger bits of "lore" already existed on fan fiction websites. A few Pokémon designs being shared have also been fan designs. It's possible that a staff member made them in the first place, or that Game Freak were researching what others were coming up with, or the leakers are simply mixing in some fake stuff.