Cube

World Driver Championship NA release: 15th June 1999 PAL release: November 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Boss Game Studios Publisher: Midway N64 Magazine Score: 91% In my previous reviews of the more serious kind of racing games, I said that they’ve aged far less gracefully than arcade racers. This seems to be one of of those examples, as I couldn’t get into it at all – or even finish a race higher than 7th place. World Driver Championship got some very high reviews when it came out, so it was well regarded. World Driver Championship’s graphics are really nice for the N64. When played in higher resolutions you can see how they do this (with heavy use of level of detail models), but this would be well disguised when played on an actual console. The game also offers a high-res letterbox mode, although this does provide very big black bars. The high res mode is impressive for not using an expansion pack, but it does make you wonder how it could have improved by having optional Expansion Pak support. The handling is the main thing I had an issue with here, with cars sliding about rather than actually tuning. N64 Magazine says that you need to get used to this method of driving, but I just couldn’t get the hang of it. To make matters worse, the CPU racers will just plough right into you, and whenever you’re in the pack, you bounce around like a dodgem car. While they feel overly aggressive, I feel like it’s more that they just aren’t programmed to react to your car. The championship mode does have some interesting ideas. You pick a racing team and you’ll have access to their cars. You can stick with them to access their better cars, or swap to another team – although some teams hate each other so much that you’ll won’t be able to join one if you joined the other. With these teams, you’ll compete in cups across the rather nice tracks (10 different locations, but some different routes in each). While I couldn’t get into it at all, I can definitely see why some people would have loved this, and the ideas to make the championship mode more interesting are good ideas. Fine Remake or remaster? It could be included in a collection of Midway racers – it would be a lot of variety in one package. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get World Driver Championship

I've played FF7 remake and not the original. It's like watching a sequel where you feel like you'd understand a lot more if you had seen the previous part.

Zool: Legend of the Beast Tamer JP release: 11th June 1999 NA release: N/A PAL release: N/A Developer: Pandora Box Publisher: Imagineer Original Name: Zool: Majū Tsukai Densetsu N64 Magazine Score: N/A Not related in any wat to the Chupa Chups platformer, Zool: Legend of the Beast Tamer is a Pokémon-like game involving taming and battling monsters. It’s much more story focused than similar games, as instead of someone that gets given a monster on their 10th birthday, you instead play a mysterious boy with a flute, living in an orphanage. Only certain people have the ability to properly tame monsters, and you end up taming one right as a couple of shady characters are looking for one for their boss (who captures them and uses them for things like fighting tournaments). After rescuing Bob (my name for the first monster) and returning home, you can then explore the town and speak to residents. The town maps are more like menus, you select a house and speak to the people inside – with a lot of repeated NPCs. Eventually, you’ll help a farmer protect his crop from another monster, getting the attention of the bad guys, who kidnap Bob – but when you go to rescue him, the boss is interested in seeing what you’ll do and how far you’ll get escaping the house. For dungeons, the game takes a more 3D view as you wander round rooms finding looked doors, then looking for keys (which are inside item bags). A lot of rooms in this first dungeon seem fairly useless and every few steps, you’ll be thrust into a random encounter. Battles in Zool are very simple, your monsters will do their own thing and you can use your flute to give simple commands: attack, defend, special (this seems to generate attack power) and flee. You have a limited amount of flute “power”, but even giving four monsters instructions isn’t a huge problem. For the most part, though, you can leave them to their own choices, making battles feel a bit detached. I do like that they’ve gone for a different style that isn’t quite turn based. After escaping, it’s time to leave the orphanage and explore the wilder world, looking into your past. Here you get to explore a vast overworld and I had no idea where to go. Even in Japan, this was quite an obscure game, so there’s no guides or anything online. There is a video walkthrough, but as you need to talk to specific people and go to certain areas, I’d just be following their actions, so I figured this was enough to get a taste of the game. Zool does seem like it’s aiming at a younger audience than Pokémon, and for that it seems to do a decent job. The battling is perhaps a bit too simple (young kids could handle the complexities of Pokémon just fine), but I would be curious to try a translated version as Google Lens struggled with the text for this one. ? Remake or remaster? An English translation would be interesting to judge the game properly. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Zool: Legend of the Beast Tamer

Mario Golf JP release: 11th June 1999 NA release: 26th July 1999 PAL release: 14th September 1999 Developer: Camelot Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 90% These days, you expect wild and wacky things form Mario’s sports titles, but it wasn’t always like that. In Nintendo’s early days, Mario appeared in sports games that weren’t named after him, with Mario’s Tennis on the Virtual Boy being the first "Mario" sports title, which was mostly ignored. Mario's sporting adventures properly started with Mario Golf, appearing on both N64 and Game Boy Color. But Mario Golf isn’t a wild and wacky golf game – there’s no crazy powers or abilities, no silly clubs or balls. It’s just golf….but really good golf. In the previous 3 golf games on the N64 (none of which were available in all regions), each one only had a singular golf course each. Mario Golf, on the other hand, has six full 18 hole courses, starting with fairly regular golf course designs (with Mario-style background elements) to more unrealistic courses with big cliffs, lots of islands and some themed after characters. They’re all nicely detailed in 3D and many manage to look visually interesting as well. To unlock the courses, you’ll need to earn points by gaining XP, winning tournaments, beating other characters and generally doing anything in the game. Interestingly, winning a tournament is enough to get the next course on its own, so it’s nice to have an alternative method to get them. The main golfing mechanics take a “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” approach, using the tried and tested system Nintendo used in NES Golf. Press the A button and the bar will move, press A at the right point for power, where the bar will move back and press A to get as close to where you started for better accuracy. You do have to account for different terrain types and the wind, as well as your character’s own abilities. That is my main complaint about Mario Golf – characters hit different distances, and many drift to the side when swinging. I found the game to be easier to stick to the “straight” characters – which meant using a couple of characters made specifically for Mario Golf. With no way to improve stats of characters, I would much prefer to have all characters be equal, but have different sets of clubs make the difference. On top of multiple ways to play golf – tournaments, head-to-head, speed golf – there are a few additional modes, such as the extremely difficult ring mode where you have to hit the ball through rings, and also some minigolf courses for putting. I found that judging distances while putting was very difficult, not just in minigolf but in the regular mode as well. There’s an immense amount of stuff to do in Mario Golf, but even with this, some great courses and some solid gameplay, it’s not the best Mario Golf game released in 1999. The Game Boy Colour version of Mario Golf featured a great RPG mode and a way to improve your character’s stats (which, incidentally, you can import into the N64 game). Great Remake or remaster? A remake that combined the courses and features of both the N64 and GBC Mario Golf games would be amazing. Official ways to get the game. There is no way to buy a new copy of Mario Golf, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak. Re-releases 2008: Wii Virtual Console 2015: Wii U Virtual Console 2022: Nintendo Switch Online (Subscription Only)

Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers NA release: 9th June 1999 PAL release: July 1999 JP release: 13th August 1999 Developer: TNS, Infinite Ventures Publisher: Kemco N64 Magazine Score: 43% The Shadowgate series is rather strange. While they all have a strong focus on puzzles, they like to be different styles. The original was a point and click adventure that was heavy on text, with a small window to show what you were seeing. The sequel, Beyond Shadowgate on the TurboGrafx CD was in a style much closer to Monkey Island. There’s also a VR game that’s much more action orientated. A remake of Shadowgate kept the original style, just in higher detail, while a new version of Beyond Shadowgate is being developed in the 8-bit style of the remaster, using original design documents but ignoring the TurboGrafx version. Shadowgate 64 is still a point & click style adventure, but with a fully explorable 3D environment and controls similar to first person shooter games. You play as a halfling in a fantasy land, as your caravan gets attacked and you get thrown into a prison, where it’s up to you to figure out a way out before being given a grand task. The lore in all the books you can find is great, many of which you’ll need to read for the puzzles, but the environment itself is rather drab, mainly consisting of small, generic rooms. It’s a shame as a bit of colour and some grander looking places would have massively helped the atmosphere. The puzzles are rather mixed. The biggest problem is a complete lack of HUD. While this looks nice, it also means that nothing is ever highlighted, so one major difficulty is simply finding objects. In once of the many instances I looked up a guide, it turned out that there was a key behind a pillar. Even knowing that, it was difficult to find, as it just looked like part of the floor texture – and I’m seeing it much clearer than anyone would have done when the game came out. There are times you also need to be very precise with your aiming, as you may be slightly off and get a “nothing important is here” kind of message and dismiss the object as background scenery. On top of that, there are a ton of objects that are never used. Other puzzles are trial and error, and a lot of objects are nowhere near where they’re actually used. Some stuff you collect early on isn’t used until the very end of the game. Thankfully, there seems to be no point in the game where you’re completely screwed, you can always explore previous places to find what items you need (although sometimes it’s just a case of grabbing everything and trying it. There’s also a really annoying maze sections with lots of buttons, and having to walk back the way you came because it suddenly goes somewhere different. There are things to like about Shadowgate, and it seems like it would be a good game for fans of the point & click adventures where you just have to find every object on every thing you can interact with (although the lack of HUD means you have to try everything, as you don’t know what you can interact with), but it really needed a bit more to help with the atmosphere of the game, to make it feel more alive. Fine Remake or remaster? A remastered version would be make the game nicer to play, increasing walking speed, adding more detail and colour and some HUD and hints. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers

Fighting Force 64 NA release: 1st June 1999 PAL release: December 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Core Publisher: Crave N64 Magazine Score: 26% Some bad games are broken messes that have some interesting elements or features, other bad games are just badly designed and immensely boring, which I think is much worst. Fighting Force is one of those. Fighting Force was initially pitched to Sega as Streets of Rage 4, but Sega declined as they had their own plans for the franchise (which fell apart and Street of Rage 4 didn’t happen until 25 years after 3). The developers, Core Design (best known for Tomb Raider) took the concept and turned it into a new game, Fighting Force. An N64 version was planned and cancelled, but Crave then got publishing rights to finish it off. At the start of Fighting Force, you’ll be on a street but realise that it’s really just a small box. You’ll use a small amount of basic moves to beat up enemies. These enemies will run towards you and punch, kick or block (and very, very occasionally, throw something at you from off camera). After you defeat them, more will appear. You’ll then get to move onto the next “room”, do the same and then it’s the end of the level. And with that, you’ve experienced the vast majority of the game. Fighting games like this are often repetitive by nature, but they do things to help with it. One is a good amount of starting moves, which this lacks, and another is enemy variety. Though Fighting Force, you’ll encounter enemies that look different, but they all use the same very basic moves, with the only difference being their health bar and how often they block. There is one level that does have some enemy types, which consist of an enemy with an eclectic fist. These act the same as normal, except their punches knock you down (and are perfectly timed with how long your character takes to stand up, so you can be stuck in a cycle for a while). The other one is some lab experiment, which is a metal-looking man and their health regenerates. There are some bosses, most are just an enemy with a longer health bar. One has more unique attack and you can’t get close to him. Instead, you have to pick up barrels and throw them at him, which is a nightmare with the terrible camera and how much he moves. And if he shoots you, you’ll drop the barrel, and sometimes they’ll glitch out after this so you can’t pick them up again. The levels themselves are just really dull, each consisting of 1-3 square rooms. The game doesn’t flow like classic racing games, and the music is more like background elevator music than anything to make you feel like fighting. This game is short (you can replay for different routes) and yet feels like an immense slog. There’s no smooth and enjoyable fighting of 2D fighting games, just slow, clunky tedium. When the enemies at the start and at the end are the same, you’ve experienced everything within 5 minutes. Worst Remake or remaster? There’s nothing interesting about this one. Official ways to get the game. Ports of the Fighting Force games are due to be released in 2025, with minimal improvements.

A selection of three Famicom games, now translated into English. It will be released on the Switch eShop on the 6th September, and there will be a physical version for PS5. The games are: The Wing of Madoola: Help fierce warrior Lucia retrieve the powerful Wing of Madoola from the evil King Darutos. Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido: As fireworks maker Kantaro, prevent evil merchants from turning his creations into weapons! Ripple Island: Play as Kail, a young boy dreaming of a better life, who answers King Dotella’s call for help against the nefarious Emperor Gerogale It's always nice to see games getting re-released, especially with translations.

I'll look into catching up on the main site (although I've moved sorting it to private messages). Super Real Mahjong VS JP release: May 1999 (Arcade) PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Visco, Seta Publisher: Seta N64 Magazine Score: N/A A mahjong game for the Aleck 64 arcade system. This is part of a series that started in 1987 and is still getting the occasional release – including a recent compilation on Switch of most of the numbered titles (so not including this one). As this was an arcade cabinet, it used a long line of lettered keys to select tiles, instead of using a D-pad, so it’s quite quick to use. That said, I have no idea what the rules are for this two-player variant of mahjong, plus calling out specific combinations is done via buttons rather than being automatic, so you can’t just try to get sets until the game notices that you’ve won. Still, for people that know mahjong, it’s probably a good thing. However, this isn’t just regular mahjong, it’s strip mahjong. Your opponents are all anime girls (who were popular enough to get their own anime show) and if you win, you get an animation of them stripping for you. This arcade system certainly had plenty of nudity. ? Remake or remaster? As said, there’s a collection of most games. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Super Real Mahjong VS. The VS game might be based on P5, which is in the Switch compilation, but I don’t know for sure – either way, it’s mahjong with some anime boobs.

I feel like a daily post would clog up the site with too much stuff about an old console (any slower would take forever), and I'm not entirely sure about the use of screenshots from emulated or fan made versions for a more "official" kind of post. Although I've just considered the possibility of doing a weekly post with seven games to solve one of those problems. Probably a bit late to do it for this (unless I backdate, depends how easy it is to copy things over), but I could definitely look into doing weekly main site articles for GameCube games.

Superman: The New Superman Adventures NA release: 28th May 1999 PAL release: 23rd July 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Titus Publisher: Titus N64 Magazine Score: 14% Superman: The New Superman Adventures (or The New Superman Aventures, according to the back of the US box) is commonly referred to as just Superman 64, and is one of the worst games of all time, according to everything I’ve ever read about the game – all because of broken flying and flying through rings. The developers, Titus, were dealt a rotten hand. After they got the license, Warner Bros became a nuisance to deal with. The developer’s plans for the game were constantly overturned, including the main idea of an open world that Superman would protect, allowing for him to damage buildings, which would affect the city. The developers were told that Superman couldn’t hurt anyone or damage anything, so the virtual world idea had to be made, and so much time was waiting for approval that there was little time to develop. Everyone talks about the rings and the flying controls, so I’ll begin with that. And, frankly, I think most people trying out the game are trying to make it seem worse. If you hold down the accelerate button, you’ll travel too fast to turn well, but with regular taps, I found flying to work rather well, and I actually began enjoying the ring stages once I got used to it. Press the R button and you’ll very quickly stop and if you press up/down while not moving forward, you’ll move directly up or down. I actually think they did a decent job of capturing Superman’s movement – it’s just a shame the flying isn’t used for much more than the rings. N64 magazine said that that there was no way to stop flying, and I have no idea what they’re talking about. The big problems with the ring levels are how many there are (with some taking upwards of 6-7 minutes) and how checkpoints work in the game. After each ring segment is a short action sequence – stop cars, beat up baddies, destroy robots, stop tornadoes – but it starts immediately, and the timer (which can be as short as 20 seconds) starts counting down as soon as the text appears. This wouldn’t be too bad if you just restarted form there – but you have to go back to the previous ring segment and do that again (save states really help). Sadly, the immense amount of fog really makes the world empty, so there’s not much to look at. It’s a shame because there is a single open world, and some of the building designs do look quite interesting – the game is based on Superman: The Animated Series so uses that style – but you can’t see them from further than 5 metres away. Still, the rings and objectives are only half of the game, the rest are actual levels, with a set of challenges in between each one. The controls for Superman on-foot are rather slow and clunky, with tank-based controls to make it more of a pain. The first level is quite simple, but you do have to return to the start after getting a key for no good reason. The boss fight in this level is probably the toughest in the game, and you have to rescue some workers from an underwater tunnel. The Lexcorp level is one where just just keep going forward, pushing buttons and getting keycards. The enemies in the game are either “dark shadows” (presumably a restriction so Superman isn’t hitting people that look too human). There are some rooms with nice reflections and others that look dreadful. Then its off to a warehouse to rescue Lois Lane. I spent ages flying around because I coudn’t find where to use a keycard – turns out it was hidden in an alcove, hidden by the black fog that indoor areas have. After you rescue Lois Lane, she walks around a corner and gets captured – and this happens multiple times until you can finally escort her. She starts off running and then slows down when enemies start appearing – and if you get too far away, one will spawn next to her. If either one of you die, the game’s checkpoint system rears its ugly head again and you have to start from the very beginning of the level. The Daily Planet’s underground car park is by far the worst level. It’s a colossal maze (much harder than the “Solve My Maze” rings) and so much of it look the same, so it’s incredibly easy to get lost. I found myself spending most of the time flying around the same corridors again and again, and it definitely didn’t help when I picked up a tank and was thrust out of the game’s map into another section. You have to find Jimmy, grab a keycard (which isn’t there if you look before finding Jimmy), go back to Jimmy and then find a bomb. Then it’s off to find Darkseid. Incidentally, I got so lost on the way to Darkseid that I approached him from behind and used laser eyes to take him down before he could do anything. Star Labs, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward in terms of structure. You need to find a scientist, stop water from rising and trap Parasite in a forcefield (a Superman villain I am unfamiliar with, but seemingly Superman can’t harm him). There’s a long corridor that’s makes going back and forth a pain, but this level is alright. After some more rings, Lex traps Superman in a subway tunnel. This is a very long tunnel, with a lot of enemies. Turns out you can ignore most enemies as the objective is to fly all the way to the end of the tunnel where an explosion will trap Superman. So you have to fly all the way to the start where another explosion will happen. You then have to fly to a station (which is near the other end of the tunnel) and beat up some enemies to escape. Although this level has one intriguing oddity. On the way back to the station after the second explosion, Superman will encounter an old man who says he knows the way out, and says you can freeze him to protect him when needed. It’s a big pain to protect him and he walks extremely slow (you can push him from behind). When you get to the station, a cutscene will happen and – as the camera has moved away from the man, an enemy will spawn and attack him while you can’t do anything. Using save states I managed to time it so I could rescue him, and he just casually walks through the “Exit” doors (that Superman can’t use). When he gets round the corner, an enemy spawns and kills him. I can only guess that this was the original method of finishing the level, then the developers thought it was to annoying, changed it but forgot to remove him. The final level is on Brainiac’s ship. This game does the annoying thing where it locks the final level away from lower difficulties (luckily, there’s a skip level cheat to skip to it). The objective is to collect a load of data discs These discs are oddly extremely highly detailed and look higher detailed than most 2D objects in 3D N64 games (or, indeed, any of the graphics in this game). Getting around the level isn’t too bad, although the discs only appear on at a time, some open doors and other doors require you pushing buttons, so progressing is just flying where you previously were. After breaking the virtual world and pushing some ice cubes of your friends across a lightning generator, then finding some bombs to blow up the ship. The end of the level is a window that literally says “the end”. You then get a cutscene saying that you escaped the virtual world, but Lex is still out there in the real world. And that’s Superman 64. It’s definitely a bad game, but it really doesn’t deserve its reputation as the worst game ever. The flying is pretty good once you get used to it, and it really isn’t as buggy as I was expecting. The checkpoint system is atrocious, but then it was a pretty normal thing for games back then. Superman 64 has some interesting elements, it attempts to do what it can with the license, even with severe restrictions. I honestly prefer a game that’s a little bit wonky to one that’s just flat out boring. In the end, I found myself both enjoying the game because I was laughing at it, and at times genuinely having fun with the game. And isn’t enjoyment all that matters in the end? Fun Remake or remaster? It will never happen, but a remaster with fog removed and things smoothed out would actually be interesting to see. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Superman: The New Adventures

Last Legion UX JP release: 28th May 1999 PAL release: N/A NA release: N/A Developer: Yuke’s Publisher: Hudson N64 Magazine Score: 60% The world was formed 4,500 years ago and was split into the continents of Earth, Fire, Wind and Water (no Heart). To help create peace, large mechs caused Legions were made. Unfortunately, nobody realised that these powerful creations could also be used for war, and one faction wanted to take over the world. They do this by going back in time 4,500 years (which turns out to not be when the world was formed) to find Power Stones. It’s up to one lone Legion pilot to follow them back to stop them. The setup of Last Legion UX is similar to most fighting games, with a few bits of text in between them: it’s a series of 1 on 1 fights. The arenas in this are quite nice 3D arenas, but the concept is still the same. The mechs themselves look a bit strange – they don’t look that much bigger than a human (and don’t feel large), but supposedly there’s enough room for multiple people inside them. The HUD has a handy radar which shows you the location, distance and height of your opponent, and the game definitely needs it. Moving and jumping around feels really stiff and clunky, yet at the same time it’s immensely easy to avoid attacks, as attacking is even clunkier. It makes the entire game feel very stiff and slow, and the fights are overly long and tedious. I really did not have much fun with this in the slightest, and the game feels like it wants to be made for twice as many buttons and sticks as the N64 controller (or any controller) offers. Fine Remake or remaster? This doesn’t really offer anything unique. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Last Legion UX.

I do feel like the lack of fanfare, high price (compared to many other indie games) and how it's been so long will result in poor sales, just like the Braid remake.

She doesn't even have particularly high levels of testosterone. Her previous "disqualification" is for reasons she doesn't know herself: the governing body refused to share details with her. Or, more specifically, the Russian (and ally of Putin) that was in charge chose to do so. As far as she knows herself, she's a cis woman. So all this harassment and abuse thrown against her is an example as to how these people treat cis women who don't look how they think women should look.

Star Wars Episode 1: Racer NA release: 18th May 1999 EU release: 4th June 1999 JP release: 21st July 1999 Developer: LucasArts Publisher: LucasArts N64 Magazine Score: 88% Star Wars: Episode 1 was a massive success, despite being viewed as a poor film. The podracing scene was well liked, with some great designs and amazing sounds. Really, LucasArts could have just rushed something cheap and easy – just copy another future racer, use various Star Wars locations we’ve already seen – and made a ton of money with a podracing video game, but they actually went to a ton of effort with it, and it shows in the final product. For this playthrough, I played the remastered version for modern consoles. It’s the same game, it just runs smoother. The developers of Episode 1: Racer clearly analysed every aspect of the film sequence to work out some mechanics that would suit the game, which also has the bonus effect of helping the game feel unique. You need to charge up your boost by holding forward, then press the boost button, which lasts until you let go of the accelerator, hit something or your engine overheats and bursts into flames. As you take damage, your steering will be affected (due to one engine going slower), so you’ll need to repair, which slows down your podracer, although you can time this just after a boost or during a jump, so planning when to repair is important. I do think it might be faster in some instances to crash and respawn than to repair severely damaged engines, though. The handling is incredibly smooth in the game, navigating small sections feels amazing, especially with the sense of speed the game provides. Crashes felt like my own mistakes and every slight tilt of the analogue stick is important. With the exception of Tatooine, each planet in the game is brand new, but each one captures the feel of the Star Wars universe extremely well. Each planet has multiple tracks that share portions, but the unique sections feel distinct enough that it works really well. There is one track in particular that is extremely difficult – Abyss. This features a long, narrow section with turns and if you miss, you end up on a lower part of the track. If this happens, you’ve lost as that route is so much slower. I never managed it as Anakin, but choosing another racer (there’s a lot in the game) and slowing down a bit and I was able to sort it. The game is also nice and friendly in that you pick individual races to do, rather than having to do a tournament in one go. My biggest issue with Episode 1: Racer are the vehicle upgrades, as the system doesn’t feel fully complete. You can but new parts from Watto or damaged parts from the junkyard. As you race, these get more damaged, but a pit droid will fix one part. You can have a total of four pit droids, so if you buy more than four types of parts, they’ll get damaged and your stats will decrease. Which means you can’t really improve in more than four categories. Repairs (and damage) also only happen in races you haven’t come first in. On top of that, you can only earn money once per race, so if you want to buy the best parts once you’ve finished the game, you need to plan ahead by buying junk parts, racing to fix them and selling them as you go through the game – it’s a strange system. But it’s only a minor issue, and upgrading in four areas (I did turning, acceleration, speed and cooling) is more than enough, so once you realise that, it doesn’t hamper the experience. Episode 1: Racer is an immense amount of fun and it’s a shame that Star Wars games have never been able to capture the feel of this in future podracing games (Racer Revenge) and minigames (Star Wars Kinect). Fave Remake or remaster? The remaster makes the game run a lot nicer and in higher resolution, but it would be nice to have options to resolve the issues with parts. Still, this game deserved a proper sequel – take the same gameplay, add some new nicely designed tracks and don’t try to mess it up too much. Official ways to get the game. The remaster is available on Switch, PS4/5 and Xbox One/Series. The original PC version is available on GoG and Steam, however this can crash a lot on modern operating systems and does not support widescreen, higher resolutions or modern controllers.

While I understand that companies have to cut and staff lost (although this seems especially greedy) Blocking access to every single article previously written for their website is pretty extreme, with zero time for any staff to grab their own backups of their work to get jobs elsewhere.

Hot Wheels Turbo Racing EU release: 11th May 1999 NA release: 31st August 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Stormfront Publisher: EA N64 Magazine Score: 61% Not long after Micro Machines comes another toy car racing game in the form of Hot Wheels. The games themselves, however, are completely different, with Hot Wheels getting a more 3D behind the car perspective and being heavily focused on stunts. Each track in the game has a lot of jumps, and while in the air your car spins wildly as you turn the analogue stick (and you can hold R to also to barrel rolls). Better stunts will give you more boost, which will let you go faster. The handling feels pretty great, and you can to a lot of spins in a single jump (it reminded me a bit of Excite Truck). There are also items you can pick up for additional boosts and effects. Instead of going for the “racing around you home angle” that Micro Machines (and the latest Hot Wheels game) do, it instead has Hot Wheels track segments in various American-inspired locations. It comes across like you’re playing inside the environments created for the old commercials for the toys. There aren’t many tracks, but they do have alternate routes and shortcuts – some of them simply skipping loops in the track. There is one standout track called Helicrash which has a really nice section where you go up a steep ramp, and have to come back down to get to another route. Hot Wheels Turbo Racing is a lot of fun to begin with, but without many tracks, it does wear off fairly quickly. It’s a nice little distraction, but as a full game it would be quite disappointing. Fun (I've decided to add a casual rating system) Remake or remaster? Perhaps some tracks inspired by these ones in the new game? Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Hot Wheels Turbo Racing

Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest NA release: 10th May 1999 JP release: N/A PAL release: N/A Developer: Angel Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: N/A This is the second Ken Griffey Jr. game form Angel Studios and Nintendo. While Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr. wasn’t very good, it at least had some unique aspects, with a more arcade-like gameplay that was extremely quick. Slugfest, however, is just a boring, average baseball game with the same tropes already established – including the perfect CPU players. I really don’t have anything to say with this one, as it’s the most average and boring baseball game so far. It would be so much better if this was a game about actual slugs having a party. Remake or remaster? There are better baseball games to focus on. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest

The "should" was more because I don't know that much about the features of the mainline games.

Pokémon Stadium JP release: 30th April 1999 NA release: 6th March 2000 PAL release: 23rd March 2000 (AU), 7th April 2000 (EU) Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 90% One of my strangest gaming choices as a kid was picking Pokémon Stadium. I enjoyed the show, but I wasn’t a fan of the Game Boy games. The problem with Stadium is that it’s mainly a companion piece for Red, Blue and Yellow, so your experience is hampered by not having them. For this playthrough, I did try using a save file I found online, but it didn’t have that many high level Pokémon (although it did have a surfing Raichu). One thing I did enjoy was the minigames. There are only nine (with a few duds), but you can have a lot of fun with friends. The Lickitung one especially is great, where you have to eat the most sushi. For the tournaments, you can borrow rental Pokémon from the game – choosing any of the first 149 Pokémon (Mewtwo and Mew can be unlocked, too). However, these aren’t as powerful as the ones trained by yourself, and you can’t modify their abilities. The battles themselves feature 3D models of all the Pokémon, and they’re all wonderfully animated, along with their moves (although the Pokémon don’t directly hit each other). It was a great way to see the Pokémon you trained on your TV, especially so if you and a friend both have the Game Boy games, as it provides an easy way to select your team. Stadium also allowes you to play the Game Boy games directly on your TV, too. I do find it odd that Nintendo never released a “Game Boy Player” to work with the Transfer Pak. As a companion piece to Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow, Stadium is a wonderful bit of software. Without the Game Boy game, however, and the game is much more difficult due to the rental Pokémon not being as good. Remake or remaster? With the Pokémon games now being on Switch, the features of this should be part of the main games. Official Ways to get the game There is no way to buy a new copy of Pokémon Stadium, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak. It should also be noted that it has no Game Boy compatibility, so you’re stuck with the rental Pokémon.

A Bug’s Life NA release: 30th April 1999 PAL release: March 2000 JP release: N/A Developer: Traveller’s Tales Publisher: Activision N64 Magazine Score: 31% When making a game based on the film, it’s important to not undermine the message of the film. A Bug’s Life is a lovely Pixar film ends when one ant inspires the rest to stand up for themselves as a team. In the N64 game (a shoddy port of the PS1 version), Flik is a one-man army, a mass murdering machine that could have easily wiped out the grasshoppers on his own. A Bug’s Life is a platformer with one interesting mechanic: you collect and upgrade plants, and can use these transform seeds into different types. For the most part, these are used to get to higher areas. Another type can spit out powerups or become a berry-shooting turret, with the last allowing you to upgrade your berries (your main weapon). The mechanic isn’t used as much as it should, and I would have gone for upgrading items for Flik to use (after all, he was an inventor). The game consists of platforming across a bunch of extremely dull levels. The colours are incredibly muted and it doesn’t resemble the Pixar film in any way. The browns and greys make it looks more like Antz. Levels are also littered with enemies. Every kind of bug will attack Flik, and Flik will destroy them with berries that autotarget enemies. Enemies will also constantly respawn unless you have the highest level of berry, which kills them for good. Wiping out all bugs in the level is one of the bonus goals of each level (alongside collecting all the grain and finding the letters F, L, I and K). A Bug’s Life is a very poor platformer that seems like it was made by people who got a few screenshots of the film to base the game off. If you replaced Flik and the one notable level (Flik riding on a dandelion seed, which is annoying in the game), then people probably wouldn’t be able to tell that it was originally based on A Bug’s Life. Note: I initially played this out of order, as multiple websites listed the European release as the 1st Jan 1999. However, N64 Magazine reviewed the NTSC version in August 1999 and the PAL version in March 2000, so I don’t think this date is correct. Remake or remaster? This game doesn’t deserve special treatment. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play A Bug’s Life.

G1 Stable JP release: 28th April 1999 PAL: release: N/A NA release: N/A Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Original Name: Jikkyō GI Stable N64 Magazine Score: N/A Unfortunately, G1 Stable is a Japanese-only game which is just too complicated for me to understand how it fully works. It’s a management simulation game where you’re put in charge of a stable looking after G1 horses. Group 1 is a prestigious series of Japanese horse races, so you have to make sure all the horses are fit and ready for the big races. Managing money doesn’t seem to be a part of G1 Stable. Instead, horse owners will get you to look after their horses while also inviting you to buying events and auctions to buy a new horse on their behalf, although they never seemed to give me enough money to buy a horse. Presumably, the amount of money will increase as your reputation goes up. However, despite trying all the menu options, trying to work out based on Google translate, looking at the only (and very basic) translation guide, there was one thing in particular I could not figure out how to do: enter a horse into a race. Nobody seemed to mind so much, although my assistant manager found it odd that none of the horses had won a race in our first year. It all seems very detailed, with lots of different types of training, many different track types and different employees you may attract or lose, but the vast amount of technical stuff makes it extremely difficult to understand exactly what was going on. The visual style is quite nice, and little details like your assistant wearing different clothing throughout the year shows that a good amount of attention has gone into it. Remake or Remaster? This is a very Japanese kind of game, so I can’t really say. It did get a sequel on PlayStation 2. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play G1 Stable

Bottom of the 9th NA release: 14th April 1999 PAL: release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami N64 Magazine Score: 44% Bottom of the 9th feels like an early third party N64 game. It looks and feels incredibly basic. The N64 has had an ungodly amount of baseball games by this point, yet Bottom of the 9th feels like it should have been the very first one. Even then, it would have been “it’s poor, but it’s the only choice at the moment” and nothing special. What’s even stranger is that Konami have the Power Pros series, so why is this do poorly made? The only thing it does have that other baseball games don’t have (other than the Japan-only ones) is the scenario mode, which lets you play with specific teams in the middle of matches. But with the typical cheating CPU that catches every ball you hit and gets home runs easily, you’re going to lose anyway. The options menu did have a “Slaughter” toggle, but that doesn’t seem to let you kill other players, so that was another disappointment. Remake or Remaster? There are better baseball games to focus on. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play Bottom of the Ninth

Onegai Monsters JP release: 9th April 1999 PAL: release: N/A NA release: N/A Developer: Bottom Up Publisher: Bottom Up N64 Magazine Score: N/A In the world of Onegai Monsters, when kids turn 10 years old, they can become a monster trainer. They collect their first monster from their local professor. These monsters are part of different elemental types, and will fight each other in turn-based battles before gaining enough experience to evolve into a new form. The concept sounds interesting and I’m surprised nobody else has tried to do something similar. Onegai Monsters has a fairly impressive overworld map, and it looks like there is a lot to explore – unfortunately, you don’t get to do this at all, as you can’t leave your starting village. Instead, you send your monsters out to explore for you and watch them move around the map, only having input when a battle starts. While I had a lot of translation issues with the game, I know that this is something that is true. So if all your monsters are out, all you do is wait (especially when they sleep) – although luckily there is a fast forward feature. The battle seems interesting, although far too complicated for Google Translate to handle the job. While for the most part it seems similar to Pokémon, however you can move forwards and backwards, which likely has some meaning and tactics to it, although there is an “auto” button to let the computer decide what your monster does. Defeating a monster will also add it to your catalogue, so you can try and discover all 500 monsters. The ones I encountered seemed quite decent. But, unfortunately, there’s a lot of text. I was unable to figure out how to get more eggs to hatch new monsters. I bought stuff from the shop I got my first one from, and I sent my blob called Bob out on adventures, yet never got an egg. There are other aspects, like matching food colour to element type to have even better stats. It’s an interesting looking game, but I’d need a translated version to be able to understand more. Remake or Remaster? The concept of sending monsters out seems more suited to a mobile or idle version of this. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play Onegai Monsters

NBA In The Zone ’99 NA release: 8th April 1999 PAL: release: 3rd June 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami N64 Magazine Score: 52% Compared to the previous NBA In the Zone, this feels slightly smoother in terms of running around with players, which is useful as passing is pointless and running close to the net and scoring is the best tactic. Any shot from further away will always result in a miss…at least for players you control. The CPU, however, will score three pointers with relative ease, making it very frustrating. The players still look naff, and there’s not that much enjoyment to get out of this one. Remake or Remaster? There are better basketball games to focus on. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play NBA In The Zone ’99

All-Star Baseball 2000 NA release: 8th April 1999 PAL: release: 1st May 1999 JP release: N/A Developer: Iguana Publisher: Acclaim N64 Magazine Score: 80% With the many N64 baseball games, I now have a routine: start a game, try batting, fail, start again, repeat a few times until I hit the ball, watch the CPU catch it every time, try pitching, CPU hits nowhere near my places, fills the bases then gets a home run, then check out extra modes and cheats. So I was surprised with All-Star Baseball 2000 when I could actually hit the ball reasonably well, and it wasn’t caught instantly. I actually had some fun with it. The pitching also worked quite well, you line up your target and can move slightly when you throw to try and catch them off guard. Fielding also has some targets, but you’re rarely in control of the player you expect to be. while pitching, I also somehow kept throwing the ball to my other players and had to mash buttons to pass it back to the pitcher. This is the most enjoyable of the baseball games so far. Remake or Remaster? I’m not familiar enough with newer baseball games. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play All-Star Baseball 2001.