We are finally at the start of a new generation of games, with the Wii U already being here and the PS4 and Xbox One on the way by years end. There is a lot of talk about legacy in the air, and with that in mind I have been thinking about what were my favourite games of this generation, and the impact that previous consoles I owned had on my tastes in games. With that in mind I thought I would write a little about them, starting with the first console I ever owned; the Nintendo 64. I got the N64 for Christmas 1997, and enjoyed a few dozen games on it over my time with it.
These a the 10 games that have the strongest standing in my memories of my first home console, and that I think of most fondly all this time later, as well as play from timt to time:
10: Mortal Kombat Trilogy
My love of fighting games kicked off on the N64, and while I loved many, particularly Killer Instinct Gold and Mace the Dark Age, but Mortal Kombat Trilogy stood head and shoulders above them for me. It was not only my favourite fighting game on the system, it was the first game I ever actually owned, and started my continued love of the Mortal Kombat series to this day.
A great selection of characters, easy to pull off but hard to master move-sets, and some good-hearted violence really brought this game into my imagination. The fantastic physicality of the character models and the environments, the speed of the fighting and the damn good soundtrack all make Mortal Kombat Trilogy a special fighting game that was actually better than its successors for many years.
I still remember taking down Motaro and Shao Kahn to this day, and defeating the double team before facing those bosses remains one of the toughest challenges in my personal gaming achievements. It was always great to get some friends over for a few matches, beating each other till the characters exploded into bones and mulch.
9: Banjo-Kazooie
Rare created some outstanding games on the N64, and Banjo-Kazooie was one of their finest. Bringing together consummate 3d platforming with genuine charm, Banjo-Kazooie was was a must play experience. It has colour and vibrancy, actual humour with a smartly written script, and a strong amount of variety in its gameplay to keep things interesting for its duration.
Plenty of worlds with different settings, power-ups and unlockable moves, challenging boss fights, the ability to fart out eggs as a projectile attack, and even fly across what felt like vast levels at the time were all contributors to making Banjo-Kazooie a magical experience for me.
Taking on Gruntilda to save your young sister, meeting Mumbo Jumbo, and of course the running commentary of the squawking Kazooie are all things that stick in my head from this outstanding platformer, and easily the second best on the N64, which leads me to the one game that is probably a superior platformer.
8: Super Mario 64
Mario's Nintendo 64 debut was one of the most impactful games in history, and one of the best platformers I have played to this day. It had elegant and responsive controls that were a lot of fun to use. The levels were as varied as those of Banjo-Kazooie's, and also filled with colour and life.
The level design was among Nintendo's best in its history, not surpassed in my view until Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. Great boss fights that felt like an achievement to overcome thanks to their scale, a great musical score and sense of pacing throughout, and a constant steam of fun unlockables made Super Mario 64 a fantastic experience on the N64.
7: Pokemon Stadium
I loved Pokemon when I was a kid, from the tv show and card game to the video games on the Game Boy Colour. When Pokem Stadium came out it blew away my expectations and became a massive time sink; finally I could see Pokemon battling it out in full scale battles on my tv screen.
The single player competitons of Stadium were good, but the mini-game collection was fantastic to play with friends, from the Lickitung eating contests to the Sandshrew digging races, they were just sublime.
However, what was best about Stadium was that you could not only play the Game Boy games via Stadium, but you could also transfer your handheld creatures into Stadium and battle against friends or the computer. It was an incredible experience for me, and cemented Pokemon Stadium as my favourite non-handheld Pokemon game ever since.
6: Lylat Wars
Lylat Wars, or Star Fox 64 in the U.S., was a game like no other for me. It was easy to pick up and play for a short period, but it also had a fun little storyline that felt great to experience time and again as a kid.
Divergent level paths depending on in-game action added huge replayability, and the use of both aerial and land sections really mixed things up. The multiplayer was not half bad against a friend and the bosses are just incredible; I will never forget the lava-mantis!
Lylat Wars also has some of the incredible ideas for its levels, including a battle on a snow world against Star Wolf and his minions, and an Independence day like battle against scores of enemy ships and a mothership. I hope this franchised is revived at some point by Nintendo.
5: Diddy Kong Racing
Forget Mario Kart 64, Diddy Kong Racing was where the real karting action was on the Nintendo 64. Great selection of characters, incredible variety in the track settings, hilarious and tactical pick-ups that are used to screw over rivals, and a state of the art single player story with bosses and trophy races all make Diddy Kong Racing one of my favourite games of all time.
Playing this is 4 player with friends, lashing around tracks in either cars, planes or boats, and shooting each other with missiles or oil spills are just some of what make Diddy Kong Racing spectacular. This was an example of the height of Rare's talent at level design, easily a match for anything that Nintendo itself could produce at the time.
4: GoldenEye 007
The game that shaped my expectations for shooting game's multiplayer offerings, and the single best work of Rare was GoldenEye 007. This was the first game were I shot an enemy in the balls and they reacted by actually holding their crotch.
A great singleplayer experience that actually took advantage of its license, GoldenEye was phenomenal thanks to its intelligent AI opponents, deep selection of weapons and gadgets, changing mission objectives based on difficulties and even inclusion of limited boss encounters. As I said at the top, GoldenEye was best when experienced in multiplayer deathmatches with friends. The amount of summer holiday evenings I spent shooting my neighbours in the toilet cubicles or locking each other in the cells of the Siberian facility were shocking, and I would change none of it.
3: Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
GoldenEye was not the only great shooter that the N64 had; there was also Turok 2 from Iguana and Acclaim. Turok 2 Seeds of Evil was a game of rampant ambition, with great visuals for its time, among the most interesting selection of weapons I have seen in any shooter to the present, and a plethora of enemies to face. From Dinosoids to Flesh Eaters, Blind Ones to Sentient insects and zombies, Seeds of Evil was damn impressive.
Enemies limbs would actually blow off their bodies when you shot them with a suitable weapon, the levels were huge and sprawling, with enough variety in the actual gameplay to keep things interesting even if the aesthetic was not radically changing after every stage, Turok 2 was a dark and brilliant experience. The cerebral bore, a gun that homed in and ripped out the juices of an enemies brain, remains my favourite weapon in gaming to this day. The story was also ambitious, playing off different factions against each other and really enriching the lore of the Turok setting. It was also the last Turok game that I really liked, following on from its fantastic predecessor which I want to mention.
2: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Just like its sequel, Dinosaur Hunter had incredible variety in its weapons and level settings. Tree-top villages and ancient temple ruins to deserts and cybernetic fortresses, the first Turok game was no slacker when it came to scale. The enemies were also fantastic, from the chilling cave-dwelling Leapers to the mighty Purlin, and that is without considering the boss fights; especially the cyborg Tyrannosaurus Rex!
Dinosaur Hunter also had a huge amount of hidden areas and items spread throughout its worlds, prompting me to actually sit down and draw maps to mark where I found them. There are literally 3 games that I have done that for, and Turok Dinosaur Hunter is one of them. Acclaim and Iguana crafted a classic with this title, and I think it deserves a bit more recognition than it receives.
1: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Yea it is the predictable number one for N64 favourites, but Ocarina of Time had a huge impact on me when I played it. I completely realised landscape to travel across was boggling at the time, but it also contained some incredibly memorable moments, moist poignant of which was the first time you ride across Hyrule Field with Epona; pure magic. The boss fights are also damn impressive, and the entire way the game actually plays is just plain fun and easy to get into, which in conjunction with the colourful and attractive visuals was an easy sell to the 8 year old me.
Ocarina of Time had lavish design in its Temples and dungeon sections, a beautiful soundtrack and a strength of character and identity that is extremely hard to capture in any medium, not just games. It is easily the pinnacle of the Legend Of Zelda series for me, Majora's mask felt like a shadow of Ocarina, and the other Zelda games that followed the N64 never attained the same level of excellence in my view.
So these are my favourite games from my first console, the N64. I will talk about the PS1 next, which I got the year after the N64 and got to experience a whole new selection of games and series that I didn't even know existed before hand.
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