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    The successor to the SNES was Nintendo's entry in the fifth home console generation, as well as the company's first system designed specifically to handle polygonal 3D graphics.

    64 in 64: Episode 22

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    Mento

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    The Nintendo 64 is not a platform without problems. We've been doing this feature long enough to know that's wholly and manifestly the case. Even so, and even when presented with a game I know is going to blow chunks, there's some odd part of the conditioning I felt back when the system was new and being marketed like crazy—Nintendo perhaps realizing it had more of a fight on its hands than ever before to push back against the dominating PlayStation—that makes me believe that I'm going to find at least some small part of the game enjoyable, as pure and uncomplicated entertainment. Whatever cult brainwashing I happened upon while waiting patiently to get my hands on Super Mario 64 and Star Fox 64 that one Christmas so long ago now is still working its hooks in me, letting me know that in no uncertain terms that the N64 was always trying its best even if the meagre third-party offerings couldn't always live up to the first-party highlights. It only became evident over the years and console generations since that third-party support was always a secondary concern to the higher-ups at Ninty, and often only there to make the first-party stuff shine all the brighter: like inviting friends around to your house with the promise of snacks and good times to play a multiplayer game you knew you would kick their asses at. Even though I know deep down that most of the N64 library is trash, I can't escape that irrational feeling that there's some silver lining to be found in anything Nintendo stamped its seal of approval on. The remarkable, and perhaps sinister, power of a brand. But hey, I'm an '80s kid who was raised on toy commercials masquerading as entertainment, so I think my brain's just broken in a more wider-reaching sense.

    Talking of having my brain broken, boy howdy faith and begorrah the two games we're covering on this episode. The pre-selection felt almost like an obligation; like I've been talking up a certain beloved developer and a certain beloved genre so much that this particular game's absence would be far too conspicuous, even if I wasn't exactly looking forward to seeing it again. The randomizer right now seems to be on a fighter game kick, so to speak, and it's found another one that I didn't even know existed. It kinda dovetails nicely with what I said earlier about a youth inundated with '80s toy commercials too. What it perhaps doesn't jibe with quite as well is my desire to have a good time with this feature, but then they can't all be winners. In fact, very few seem to be.

    Dang, if is this intro getting too cyclical for my liking though; let's talk some 64 in 64 rules as a nice change of pace:

    • We're covering two N64 games every week. I've chosen the first, the second was chosen by a demon masquerading as a random choice selection app. Belphegor the Uncommonly Vindictive, specifically.
    • Each game is played for sixty-four minutes exactly. After each quarter of that time limit, I'll offer a progress report and a check-in on my current state of mind. Mostly it's an excuse to take a breather though. I'll sometimes wander off for a few hours to play Elden Ring before resuming the next sixteen minute block, but you didn't hear that from me.
    • Each game also receives, free of charge, my personal thoughts on whether or not it should be entered into the ramshackle Criterion Collection that is the Expansion Pack tier of the Switch Online subscription service, and whether or not it's actually likely to show up there based on its current legal status.
    • Those games already on the Switch Online service are like Elon Musk parody accounts on Twitter: absolutely forbidden, and for childish reasons. If I'm going to maintain this gossamer-thin veneer of putting this feature together for important research I don't really have the justification to rate games that have already passed Nintendo's little entrance exam.

    Before we start, we just have to check in on everyone's favorite part of 64 in 64, the Table of Older Shit:

    Episode 1Episode 2Episode 3Episode 4Episode 5
    Episode 6Episode 7Episode 8Episode 9Episode 10
    Episode 11Episode 12Episode 13Episode 14Episode 15
    Episode 16Episode 17Episode 18Episode 19Episode 20
    Episode 21Episode 22Episode 23Episode 24Episode 25

    Conker's Bad Fur Day (Pre-Selected)

    No Caption Provided
    • Rare / Rare (EU: THQ)
    • 2001-03-04 (NA), 2001-04-06 (EU)
    • 375th N64 Game Released

    History: Conker's Bad Fur Day sees the once innocent and cheerful squirrel from Diddy Kong Racing reach adulthood, and now all he thinks about are booze, boobs, and banknotes. After a bender at his local bar The Cock and Plucker, he groggily wakes up on a farm and must work his way back to his girlfriend Berri's place in a shaggy dog tale that has him contending with warfare, bank robberies, zombie invasions, and an opera-singing mountain of shit. Rare decided to drop their kid-friendly image for this particular 3D platformer as well as minimize the more collectible-heavy nature of their prior forays in the genre, instead presenting what is essentially a series of comedic vignettes about a foul-mouthed squirrel with very little patience for Rare's usual gaggle of anthropomorphic taskmasters doling out side-quests and mini-games.

    For those counting along at home, this is the seventh Rare game to be featured on 64 in 64. I think this is going to be our last Rare game for a while too, unless the randomizer gets other ideas. Conker's Bad Fur Day is both the final game Rare developed for the N64 (technically, anyway: their next new game was Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube in 2002, which was originally intended to be an N64 game called Dinosaur Planet) and the one I liked the least of all the Rare games I'd played prior to this feature. After this, the only games of theirs that still qualify (as in, not Banjo-Kazooie or GoldenEye 007; in both cases Nintendo's already beaten me to the punch) are the Disney-licensed kart racer Mickey's Speedway USA and their Killer Instinct Gold remaster, neither of which are priorities. Thanks to nostalgia I've grown a little warmer to the hopelessly edgy pop-punk era of the late '90s and early '00s (not that it helped Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. any in the last episode) but my enduring memories of this game was that it was trying way too hard and I suspect that'll still ring true today. I'll also admit to feeling some degree of petty resentment towards Rare for wanting to downplay the collectathon aspects of their games from this point on—a few years after this came Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, an otherwise fine game that really twisted the knife with its disparagement of that format. Just let us collect trash in peace, will ya?

    16 Minutes In

    Owing to being a late release in the system's lifespan, I'll give CBFD points for being the best looking of all the N64 Rare games. Of course, that sharp graphical fidelity has been put towards generating the grossest visual gags, so I'm not going to say it's an entirely positive development.
    Owing to being a late release in the system's lifespan, I'll give CBFD points for being the best looking of all the N64 Rare games. Of course, that sharp graphical fidelity has been put towards generating the grossest visual gags, so I'm not going to say it's an entirely positive development.

    I'd completely forgotten this game chooses to start with a parody of the A Clockwork Orange's ominous opening slow zoom out on Alex DeLarge and his fellow droogs. (Or maybe it'd be more accurate to say that I didn't recognize the reference the first time I played.) Somehow it fits perfectly with the vibe we're going for here, even if I suspect Nintendo—while uncharacteristically permissive for much of the content in this game—might've drawn the line at Conker bludgeoning Pipsy the Mouse to death with a giant phallic sculpture. Moving on, we have a series of introductory cutscenes where Conker chooses to blow off a date over the phone with an oblivious Berri, gets supremely drunk, ends up getting lost on the way home, and wakes up near an equally soused scarecrow named Birdy. Birdy teaches us all about context sensitive commands in a tutorial that probably didn't need to exist: to use a context sensitive command, all you need to do is stand on a button with a large B on it and press the B button. I guess going adults-only hasn't made the tutorials any less infantalizing.

    As a platformer, the game's mostly just fine. I don't recall if we get any platforming upgrades like you do in Banjo-Kazooie—I think it's mostly switching up the genre occasionally for parodies—but the game quickly re-introduces you to the crouching high-jump made famous by Super Mario 64 in case you somehow missed that one. There's some fun graphical flourishes so far, like how Conker is wearing floaties whenever he swims or how the water continues to drip from his bushy tail for a while once you're back on dry land. My goal today is to make it to you-know-poo, since I recall he shows up relatively early, but I'd be all set if I could leave this intro farm area at least.

    32 Minutes In

    Gregg the Grim Reaper despises cats for their multiple lives, and he's equally rancorous towards squirrels for bucking the same system. As long as we keep finding one-ups, we can avoid having to talk to him again.
    Gregg the Grim Reaper despises cats for their multiple lives, and he's equally rancorous towards squirrels for bucking the same system. As long as we keep finding one-ups, we can avoid having to talk to him again.

    Right, what is coming back to me is how this game takes every opportunity to turn standard video game mechanics into cutscenes where characters goof around with fourth-wall gags in order to re-introduce an already thoroughly well-established concept. For one, there's an elaborate check-in with the game's as-yet-unnamed feline antagonist which eventually leads his German-speaking scientist underling to angrily toss a piece of "anti-gravity chocolate" out of the window, which conveniently drops in front of Conker and announces the brand new notion of an in-game health system. (Turns out all chocolate floats here, because that's just what collectibles in Rare games do.) Then, after dying to some pugnacious Scouser ladybugs, we have a long cutscene with a very short Grim Reaper in order to explain how extra lives work (squirrels can apparently die as many times as they "feel they can get away with", which I believe was also the rule in Achewood). The game's propensity for jokey asides is a charming affectation in its own way, I guess, satirizing the genre as a whole in addition to making specific movie parodies like its Kubrickian in-media-res prologue.

    Thanks to some lackluster platforming I've not made a huge amount of forward progress, but then a lot of that can also be contributed to how many cutscenes there have been. Invoking the name of another movie-obsessed game developer, it's almost Kojima-esque how often the action will be interrupted with yet another tight five on ground-pounding or anything else that might afford Conker's Bad Fur Day the opportunity to not be a game for a while. To Conker's credit, they managed to fully voice-act this one instead of having them make repetitive animal noises throughout, so I suppose that added to the novelty factor at the time along with the ribald language and "adult themes". Or it would've, if the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 hadn't had VA for years via Red Book audio (not that the quality was always great, mind, but it was there).

    48 Minutes In

    The thing you always want to hear after an annoying fetch quest: 'do it again, please'. Wait, he's not even saying please.
    The thing you always want to hear after an annoying fetch quest: 'do it again, please'. Wait, he's not even saying please.

    Been troubleshooting a number of obstacles in this entry, including literally shooting at trouble with Conker's new catapult weapon. First was recovering a hive from a group of ne'er-do-well wasps by running downhill carrying it back to the Queen while the wasps were trying to divebomb me. After that, I acquired the catapult and cleared the hilly passage guarded by those Scouser bugs from earlier. That led to this little area full of sapient metal crates who have given me directions to clear out the nearby farting mouse seen above, whom requires me to find a corral of equally-sapient cheeses (I could cut out some redundancy here by saying practically everything is alive in a Rare game), chasing and knocking one out with my frying pan melee attack, and then feeding them to the mouse. Of course, the mouse decides I need to do this three times before it'll be fully satiated. I'm not sure what's worse between the sheer repetition, the fact I have to pass through a gauntlet of Thwomp-a-likes each time, or that I have to chase down each talking slice of cheese like it was MIPS from Super Mario 64 and then have it endlessly complain about its imminent demise as I carry it back. A lot of the humor of Conker's Bad Fur Day hangs on the fact that he is, indeed, having a bad day: however, that annoyance is far too frequently passed onto the player with roundabout objectives like these, which makes me wonder what the ultimate goal here was. To make us as irritated and hung-over as Conker? I can get to that state easily enough without buying a $60 game theoretically intended to be entertainment.

    Also, and I hesitate to say this because my wordplay tends to err towards lowest hanging fruit level at the best of times, but the platforming can be real squirrely. I realize this complaint could be levelled against a lot of Rare platformers, but Conker has this momentum to his movement that makes negotiating narrow paths an occasional pain in the neck. His little hover tail move, which I also rely on to avoid falling damage (which can be lethal from high enough up), seems to be rather capricious in how often it actually wants to activate when I press the appropriate button. Couple that with the encounter design issues outlined above and I'm realizing I was put off by more than just the lack of collectibles and on-the-nose (more like up-the-butt!!!) (!!!!!) mature humor.

    64 Minutes In

    Sorry to all the 'leafies' out there for covering up the topless flower. Take solace from knowing that, as society continues to promote plant-based meats, so too will plant-based erotica flourish. Flowerish. You know what I mean.
    Sorry to all the 'leafies' out there for covering up the topless flower. Take solace from knowing that, as society continues to promote plant-based meats, so too will plant-based erotica flourish. Flowerish. You know what I mean.

    Sadly we've reached the end of our time here and there have been no musical numbers about feces, not this time anyway. The session ended with another fetch quest, this time to gather three groups of "tickle bees" to entice this big-breasted sunflower to bare all in order to entice a down-and-out King Bee to pollinate her, none of which sounds like something I'd want to be involved with. In the meanwhile, I killed that rat by overfeeding him—he literally exploded into guts, because edge—and that allowed me to get inside a barn where a paint can and brush convinced their best friend, a pitchfork, into killing himself after he was unable to poke me in the ass while quoting Deliverance. At a certain point you have to wonder what kind of tone the joke writers were aiming for; I can excuse the misogyny ("you can excuse misogyny?") but all these paper-thin movie references are wearing, uh, thin.

    I guess what's actually bothering me, since you can take or leave the inconsequential humor, is just how aimless CBFD feels. Like I wandered into this barn only because I had no particular plans to be anywhere else. After completing half of the steps above, Conker pulls out a watch and declares that another part of the level has suddenly opened if I'd like to go there instead, but since the game doesn't really do collectibles—there are bundles of Cockney-speaking cash around, but I've no idea why or what I need them for—I'm not sure what the incentive here to go to pastures new beyond encountering yet another classic bit about poop or dude-on-dude sexual assault or an NPC calling their ex-wife a bitch every other sentence. I don't actually need 500 golden TACOs to want to keep playing a solidly-made 3D platformer, for as much as I might opine otherwise, but in such an open format like this genre dangling such items like a carrot on a stick helps as a means to direct me to where the action is. Here it just feels like I'm sauntering from one random happenstance to the next, and it's nowhere near as engaging.

    How Well Has It Aged?: Like Those Moldy Cheeses I Kept Having to Escort. I know CBFD has its fans. I know many of those fans consider it the best Rare game for the system in spite of its humor and/or lack of collectibles. In fact, I'm sure many of those fans consider it the best Rare game for the system explicitly because of its humor and/or lack of collectibles. I've never seen the appeal, not even back when I was an age to appreciate its sub-4chan humor, and now that I'm a sour old man who can only laugh at Classic Era TheSimpsons re-runs and schadenfreude it's still not hitting. I have, and will always, consider it a rare mis-leap for Rare. Looks all right though, excepting perhaps the parts where the textures are literally shit instead of just figuratively shit like in most other N64 games.

    Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: Good. I don't think Nintendo has an issue with its humor—though it might need some touching up here and there for the sake of modern mores, and I'm not talking about the bad touches you get in prison shower rooms, amirite or amirite Conker fans?—but I couldn't say how eager they are to get Rare and Microsoft to part with it. Since this is the last Rare game I'll be covering for a while, I'm going to take this opportunity to rank the order I suspect the entire Rare N64 oeuvre will come to the Switch Online service:

    1. Banjo-Kazooie (already there)
    2. GoldenEye 007 (already confirmed to be coming)
    3. Perfect Dark (will probably coincide with the release of that remake if Microsoft has any marketing savvy)
    4. Diddy Kong Racing (the more beloved of the DK N64 duo)
    5. Donkey Kong 64 (the less beloved of the DK N64 duo, though the trailer will be easier to cut if it's just DK Rap memes)
    6. Banjo-Tooie (people who have already played Banjo-Kazooie on Switch are probably wondering what's taking it so long)
    7. Conker's Bad Fur Day (the remaining 3D platformer, the thing Rare is famous for)
    8. Jet Force Gemini (because of a very small amount of name recognition)
    9. Blast Corps (good for variety as there's nothing else like it on the system)
    10. Killer Instinct Gold (they could always use more games that take advantage of the online multiplayer)
    11. Mickey's Speedway USA (good luck convincing Disney to re-license it)

    Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals (Random)

    No Caption Provided

    History: I was curious if "Transmetals" meant what I thought it meant, like a Transformer that woke up one day and realized it was more of an Arcee than a Jazz, but I think it's just something specific to the lore of Beast Wars, the CGI Transformers spin-off that enraptured a nation of kids about five years younger than myself. Always rough when you just miss the cut-off like that; I went through the same thing with Spongebob too. (Man, whole lot of showing my age this week...) Set several hundred years after the original show's timeline, Transformers: Beast Wars has the descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons, now the Maximals and the Predacons, continue to fight over reserves of precious Energon. It's anyone's guess why they went from cars to prehistoric animals; maybe evolution is reversed for transforming robots? What am I, a robopaleontologist?

    Locomotive is a company that quietly worked as an anonymous contractor until they started receiving some developer credits for Virtual Boy games, which is definitely the system to go for if you want to become a household name overnight. The company had been around since the '80s though, and is thought to have been involved with both StarTropics and Super Punch Out to some extent. In addition to Transmetals Locomotive put out three other N64 games, all racers: Choro Q 64 (also known as Penny Racers), its sequel Choro Q 64 2, and the F-Zero-ish AeroGauge. GDRI suggests they were also behind Doraemon: Nobita to 3-tsu no Seireiseki, the first of three (!) N64 games based on the anime robot cat that, surprisingly, was this close to seeing an English localization. Japanese publisher Takara (now Takara Tomy) is an enormous toy company and the producers of anything Transformers in Japan, as the franchise is based on their own earlier series of transforming toys, while US publishers Bam Entertainment were Cartoon Network-affiliated licensed game peddlers from San Jose whose only other N64 credit was for The Powerpuff Girls: Chemical X-Traction. The original PS1 version of Transmetals was their first ever release.

    Transmetals happens to be another fighter game too, and specifically it's a licensed anime fighter game from before Arc System Works came along and made those four words put together less terrifying than they are today (well, OK, Guilty Gear was 1998, but they weren't the established saviors of anime fighters yet). So that all bodes well. I'll stay cautiously optimistic for now: maybe it'll be another surprisingly high quality case like Gundam Wing: Endless Duel for SFC? C'mon, it's giant animal robots fighting each other, how can you possibly screw that up?

    16 Minutes In

    I'm the robot on the right. I couldn't tell you if I fired that missile or the other guy did, but I'm not stopping to find out.
    I'm the robot on the right. I couldn't tell you if I fired that missile or the other guy did, but I'm not stopping to find out.

    Oh my stars and garters what the heck even is this. So, we're once again back with a fighter game where the important punch/kick equivalents are relegated to the C-button wasteland while the much more focal A and B are used purely for transforming between Robot Mode, Vehicle Mode, and Beast Mode, each with their own playstyle and, I can only assume, tactical utility. I say that because I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and the game has zero on boarding by way of a practice mode or tutorial. From what I can tell, Robot Mode relies on ranged combat, Vehicle Mode for quick hit-and-run attacks that combine long-distance and charging, while Beast Mode is purely physical melee. Each fight is a chaotic mess of running and flying around trying not to get hit, and any damage is accompanied what feels like five whole seconds of invincibility time during which you can't do anything but try to avoid a retaliatory strike. The Z button is what they decided to bind to jumping, for reasons I can't even begin to guess at.

    It's putting into perspective just how lucky I've been that it's taken 22 episodes before I hit a game I couldn't conceive of playing for more than five minutes in a normal scenario. If there's a learning curve to be discovered in Transmetals it's lost in a morass of poor controls and frantic dashing around looking for an advantage and then going on the defensive for long stretches while you wait patiently for the opponent's invincibility to end. There's no appreciable difference in the characters I've used so far, despite them all having different statistical loadouts: since the hit-and-run seems the most effective, I went with the Maximals' only flier (and the game's only female character, unless there's a secret one somewhere) Airazor who can transform into a falcon and a jet that mostly still looks like a falcon. Most battles so far have involved flying around in a circle firing missiles that hit once in every hundred fired.

    32 Minutes In

    One issue with the 'keep charging directly at the enemy' tactic is that sometimes you'll just get blasted in the face.
    One issue with the 'keep charging directly at the enemy' tactic is that sometimes you'll just get blasted in the face.

    I swear, Transmetals makes Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. look like Bio S.H.O.C.K.. Realizing I'll never have the patience to figure out what makes this game tick, I've already resorted to cheesing the Vehicle Mode's charge attack because being in that mode makes me very difficult to hit and trying to aim guns when you're flying in a circle at 100mph is an exercise in futility. However, just lining yourself up and slamming into your opponent with the charge is a much easier means of doing damage, albeit very small amounts of damage, while keeping oneself relatively harm-free. With this tactic I've made it all the way up to the final boss for any Maximal character, the Predacon leader Megatron (though presumably not that Megatron), and hope to roll credits before the next update. Of course, my time with the game will sadly not end there, but there are a few other modes and characters I can try out at least.

    I'm not sure if it's that the game's controls feel bad that's the chief issue here. Like I could've used a better selection of controls, but I'm sympathetic to any developer forced to jam something as complex as a fighter game's many functions to the extremely uncooperative N64 controller, which like most Nintendo consoles from that point onwards seemed specifically designed to play games released by Nintendo and few others. Oh, so you don't want to take your moderately popular game and be forced to shoehorn in motion controls or a stylus, do you? Third-party ingrate. Anyway, while I can't imagine Transmetals was ever moderately popular, it's not so much its controls that let it down than the sheer chaos involved in trying to execute on a plan of action, since everyone's shifting between three modes and navigating a 3D space at breakneck speeds. I guess it could work as a party game, since I'm not sure how you'd be legitimately good at it without cheesing it like I've been doing.

    48 Minutes In

    I'm not sure what the deal is with Optimus Primal's gun. Am I shooting bullets at my opponent, clocking their road speed, or trying to dry their hair?
    I'm not sure what the deal is with Optimus Primal's gun. Am I shooting bullets at my opponent, clocking their road speed, or trying to dry their hair?

    Well, I thought I could get by with Operation Smash-and-Dash but after defeating Megatron I was put up against the true final boss, Megatron X. If you're curious what's different, the answer is not a whole lot besides an iridescent metallic texture swap (so that's yet another Dural clone) and, oh right, the boss has two health bars instead of one. That meant slowly whittling down its HP was impossible with a 99 second timer since the whole idea of my approach was to pick moments to strike between enemy attacks and invincibility recovery periods, and I couldn't help but take a few hits which meant no timer-scamming him either. That final boss was also a one-and-done attempt: I still got to see Airazor's unique ending (which was just a text scroll that told you what happens to her after the end of Beast Wars) followed by the credits, so I guess it was one of those Akuma-style optional "test your mastery" challenges that isn't part of the main progression. Once I was done with the Arcade mode, I elected to check out the Mini-Games section. So far I've taken part in a race, a slightly longer race, and this timing-based quick draw thing lifted directly from Kirby Super Star. The races just had you spamming every button (but no same button twice) which was easy enough to win by windmilling the C-buttons, so that was lame, but the quick draw is kind of fun, at least? More so than the rest of the game so far?

    Here's the initial roster, by the by: Optimus Primal, who turns into a primate; Rattrap, who turns into a rat; Cheetor, a cheetah; Megatron, a T-Rex (what happened to Grimlock?); Tarantulas, a tarantula; Waspinator, a wasp; and Terrorsaur, a pterosaur. I just wish their names gave you a better idea of what their beast forms were like, you know? Also, did this game (or, more likely, the franchise) invent the term "Beast Mode" or did it exist prior? Internet sources suggest it originated with Altered Beast, but I don't recall anyone ever using the term Beast Mode to refer to the animal transformations in that game back in its day. Mostly it just was called "now it sucks slightly less to play" mode. Talking of sucks to play, I guess I have one more segment with Transmetals left to go. Wish me a little Energon and a lot of luck.

    64 Minutes In

    I can't get over this sub-Mario Party coin collecting mini-game. These mini-games feel like developer tests that they accidentally left in the game.
    I can't get over this sub-Mario Party coin collecting mini-game. These mini-games feel like developer tests that they accidentally left in the game.

    Wrapped this last segment up getting as far as I could in the quick draw mode (35 wins! I only messed up after jumping the gun on the last attempt) and then trying out the fifth and final mini-game: Disc Hunter. I wondered if this mode was about finding rare alt-rock CDs from independent music stores, but instead you're running around collecting shiny discs as they fall from above. They don't even let you transform into vehicle mode in this mini-game; you have to hoof it to each disc and try to grab it with your miniscule jumps. It's very easy to have a disc fall inside your turning circle, which means you just run around it for a while until you get some distance and try coming at from another angle (and it happened to the CPU at least once, which made winning that match feel kinda cheap). You can also knock your opponent on their ass if they get close to you, which of course buys you some time to sweep up any discs. While it does highlight how not-great the movement is in the still-inchoate 3D fighter genre, there's something so goofy about these giant robots running around picking up CDs that almost makes it charming.

    Honestly, I'm probably a little more into this game now that I've spent an hour figuring out why it sucks so bad. Is that strange? Like it's not "so bad it's good"—such a label doesn't really work with video games, which require that certain standards of quality be met in order to not be frustrating, buggy messes—but if I was an eight-year-old in the year 2000 who loved the heck out of some transforming animal robots I think this collection of more party-game-esque modes would be better suited to my interests than some super deep fighter with tough combo inputs full of quarter-circle motions to memorize, if not the type of game that would hold my interest long. I might suggest it could've been more like the multiplayer in Star Fox 64 or Virtual On, where you have a bit more space to roam around in vehicle modes firing off missiles at each other, and perhaps featured a larger roster from the show since eight is pretty pathetic (though I've no idea how many unlockable secret characters there are). Otherwise, I'm not sure how this could've ever been good, so I guess kudos to the developers for meeting my expectations.

    How Well Has It Aged?: About As Well As the Dinosaurs. Look, IGN gave this a 3 out of 10, and this is IGN we're talking about: a business where all the keyboards have pristine 1-6 keys and their 7-9 keys are worn down to nubs. It's an entirely accurate score, but even so it's a game that's managed to cajole a small amount of affectionate respect out of my cold, dead heart regardless. Don't go thinking I've turned around it since my initial impressions and now consider it a lost classic—its placement in the rankings below should give you some clear idea of my true feelings—but, man, just conceptually having a bunch of robots that can transform into animals and then vehicles that are just the same animals with wheels, and then practically giving them cowboy hats so they can fast-draw each other in front of a sunset is inspired stupidity and I can't fault a game too hard for being that self-aware about the caliber of experience it offers.

    Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: The Opposite of Maximal. Bam and Locomotive are long since gone but Takara might be down to port it over to Switch, except they haven't been all that active in video game publishing lately. The only game they published this year was a Duel Masters thing for Switch, so I guess they still have a relationship with Nintendo at least. Is there still a big crowd for Beast Wars? As stated earlier, I know it was a huge deal for a certain audience for a while there, but the Transformers franchise has moved onto bigger if not necessarily better things and I don't think anyone under 30 is going to know who any of these characters are. Also the game's terrible, and while I realize Nintendo doesn't always take that into account—they did just put out two Mario Party games—it's presumably still a factor.

    Current Ranking

    1. Super Mario 64 (Ep. 1)
    2. Diddy Kong Racing (Ep. 6)
    3. Perfect Dark (Ep. 19)
    4. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Ep. 3)
    5. Donkey Kong 64 (Ep. 13)
    6. Space Station Silicon Valley (Ep. 17)
    7. Goemon's Great Adventure (Ep. 9)
    8. Pokémon Snap (Ep. 11)
    9. Rayman 2: The Great Escape (Ep. 19)
    10. Banjo-Tooie (Ep. 10)
    11. Mischief Makers (Ep. 5)
    12. Mega Man 64 (Ep. 18)
    13. Wetrix (Ep. 21)
    14. Harvest Moon 64 (Ep. 15)
    15. Hybrid Heaven (Ep. 12)
    16. Blast Corps (Ep. 4)
    17. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Ep. 2)
    18. Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (Ep. 4)
    19. Snowboard Kids (Ep. 16)
    20. Spider-Man (Ep. 8)
    21. Bomberman 64 (Ep. 8)
    22. Jet Force Gemini (Ep. 16)
    23. Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers (Ep. 7)
    24. Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage (Ep. 20)
    25. Conker's Bad Fur Day (Ep. 22)
    26. BattleTanx: Global Assault (Ep. 13)
    27. Hot Wheels Turbo Racing (Ep. 9)
    28. San Francisco Rush 2049 (Ep. 4)
    29. Fighter Destiny 2 (Ep. 6)
    30. Big Mountain 2000 (Ep. 18)
    31. Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (Ep. 14)
    32. Tetris 64 (Ep. 1)
    33. NBA Live '99 (Ep. 3)
    34. Rampage 2: Universal Tour (Ep. 5)
    35. Command & Conquer (Ep. 17)
    36. South Park Rally (Ep. 2)
    37. Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. (Ep. 7)
    38. Eikou no St. Andrews (Ep. 1)
    39. Rally Challenge 2000 (Ep. 10)
    40. Monster Truck Madness 64 (Ep. 11)
    41. F-1 World Grand Prix II (Ep. 3)
    42. F1 Racing Championship (Ep. 2)
    43. Sesame Street: Elmo's Number Journey (Ep. 14)
    44. Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (Ep. 15)
    45. Mario no Photopi (Ep. 20)
    46. Blues Brothers 2000 (Ep. 12)
    47. Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. (Ep. 21)
    48. Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals (Ep. 22)
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    jeffrud

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    Blues Brothers 2000 fans, rejoice.

    Let's pretend, hypothetically, that you wanted to lie to us and have your "Randomizer" only pick games you actually wanted from the non-designated pile. What would you hope it pulled? In other words, what do you see on that list that you are the most curious about at this point?

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    Mento

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    #2 Mento  Moderator

    @jeffrud: Anything specific I want to look at is already in my pre-selection shortlist. If we're talking more generally, I was hoping it'd pick more random weird Japanese games like Photopi while continuing to avoid all the generic sports and racing games on there.

    Of course, I've already rolled it for next week and it is indeed a generic sports game. Statistically probable, unfortunately.

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    jeffrud

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    Here's hoping you develop a taste for Mike Alstott and other fine fullbacks in the fine American football games you'll be playing.

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    borgmaster

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    Just noticed that there's a True Golf game on the N64, so I now have a randomizer pick to root for.

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    judaspete

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    As someone who was not really young enough to watch Beast Wars, but more kept watching kids cartoons way longer than I should have, there are a few thing I can explain. The show took place on a planet with so much Energon, the radiation would interfere with their robot systems. They developed animal transformations because the skin layer shielded them from the radiation somehow.

    Transmetal was an excuse for a mid-series toy refresh, I mean a new alloy that gave resistance to radiation even in robot form.

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    chamurai

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    Two weeks in a row for the bottom of the barrel. I saw bits and pieces of Beast Wars while I had Fox on while I waited for better shows like Animaniacs to come on. Never really paid attention so the only thing I remember was there was one dinosaur dude on the Mammal Autobot team for reasons.

    This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:

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