64 in 64: Episode 17

Man, it's been a week, huh? I feel like I should be saying something pithy about the Nintendo 64 and its endless procession of terrors, like a figurative youkai parade of kusoge, as I build towards introducing the two new ones entering the rankings this episode. However, I've been left a little verklempt with the site's transition to new ownership and in particular what that might mean for our wiki, which I've poured way too much of my time into and upon which many of my features have been based. I have some trust in the people who run this site, whomever they may be these days, but the wiki feels like it's been relegated to something beneath even an afterthought with Jeff's departure and seeing a notoriously ruthless wikia authority take the reins is giving me some cause for concern. All the same, we have the best video game database in the biz—if not quite the most comprehensive, at least not yet—so I'm confident its value will shine through to its new owners. Perhaps I could focus instead on what the acquisition might mean for our small and beleaguered but resolute blogging community instead: I'd love for some new web developers to take a look at those tools and improve things around here. Lord knows my own blogs could use every advantage they can get.

Speaking of advantages, the random selector decided to play nice this week (sorta) so we'll have another two candidates that I'd actually call real games, including an old favorite of mine that could use some puffing up and a game I never expected to see on this platform (and probably for good reason). Before we get into those, let's recap the rules again:

Two games. Both on the Nintendo 64. Both played sixty-four minutes apiece with regular quarterly updates. The first was chosen by me, the second was chosen by a legion of demons that now possess the robot I use to make random choices on my behalf. Sadly, I couldn't find any hobby store willing to sell me a 388-sided die to make this process easier.
Our stated goal here, as always, is to find games suitable for the highest "Expansion Pack" tier on the Nintendo Switch Online service. You'd think that tier would have DS and GameCube games by now, but it's still just the N64 and the Sega Mega Drive. I love the Mega Drive as much as the next Sonic x Knuckles fan-artist, but no-one's paying $50 a year for friggin' Vectorman so it feels like the N64 is where this battle for everyone's dollars must take place. In addition to my own appraisal of each game, I've tried to logically deduce the likelihood of it making it onto that platform too, based on what little I understand of the business practices happening around this "Hall of Fame" induction process.
Considering the above, we're not covering any game that is currently on the service or has been confirmed as a future addition. That is, unless I was sneaky enough to cover those games before they were ever announced (or watch the wrong Direct, in the case of Harvest Moon 64).

Past episodes can be found both in the table below and at the end on my ever-growing master ranking list:

Episode 1	Episode 2	Episode 3
Episode 4	Episode 5	Episode 6
Episode 7	Episode 8	Episode 9
Episode 10	Episode 11	Episode 12
Episode 13	Episode 14	Episode 15
Episode 16	Episode 17	Episode 18

Space Station Silicon Valley (Pre-Selected)

DMA Design / Take-Two Interactive
1998-10-21 (NA), 1998-11 (EU)
131st N64 Game Released

History: This one's been a while coming. The SNES had a group of games that I'd always assumed were more famous than they actually were, and it turned out that was because they were developed in the UK and saw comparatively limited attention beyond our shores: titles like Equinox, Plok, or Jelly Boy to name a few globally obscure examples. Likewise, the N64 had Rare leading the UK game industry to global dominance, but we still saw games like Wetrix from smaller UK devs that if you were to mention them to most Americans they'd have no clue what you were talking about. Well, maybe not the deeply nerdy Americans on this site, granted, but more generally perhaps. That local flavor also applies to Space Station Silicon Valley, a truly imaginative 3D puzzle-platformer action game that requires a little bit of luck and trial and error to pull off its diverse challenges as you bodyjack various robotic animals and ride them around like a digital cordyceps. It was a firm favorite in my early teens, in part because it was so unmistakably British with its self-deprecating and somewhat dark sense of humor and an art style that looked like it was taken from the kids' gag comics of the era, such as The Beano. (No, you don't need to know what that is.)

I say it came from a small developer, but in my defense DMA Design was still a fairly minor studio at the time. Lemmings put the Scottish developers on the map in the early '90s but they struggled to find another rich vein to mine for a while until they hit upon their most famous franchise, and the one that placed them in the orbit of a big publisher from America that snapped them up in 2001 and had them all but focus on that franchise from then on. That franchise was Grand Theft Auto and that big publisher was Rockstar. Suffice it to say, sticking entirely to GTA games (with the occasional Manhunt) has done wonders for the company's success ever since. Rockstar, of course, are themselves owned by Take-Two Interactive, who were the direct publishers for SSSV since they'd yet to establish Rockstar as a subsidiary brand (that actually happened a mere month or two after this game launched). Wild to think this little comedic 3D platformer is essentially the second collaboration between what would become Rockstar North and Rockstar Games, after the original GTA from 1997. (DMA Design also created another N64 game, Body Harvest, that we'll be covering eventually. It just happens to be another shooter with bug aliens in it though, so I'm giving it some space after last week's Jet Force Gemini.)

16 Minutes In

Racing this dog with wheels is how you earn one of the game's many golden trophies. The only indication you can do this is by moving near that checkered ground texture as the mouse, which is the only fast mover you have access to at that point. Other golden trophies tend to have equally esoteric demands.

All right, a little explanation as to how the game progression works. Each level in SSSV has a number of objectives you need to accomplish to activate the exit portal. It also has a number of robot animals, including whichever one Evo—the robotic protagonist, whose true form right now is a helpless walking microchip—is currently possessing as the level begins. Each of these animals has two abilities, mapped to the A and B buttons, and you've got to figure out which abilities are required to complete the level objectives. There's also fifteen collectibles that I can only describe as "cyber orbs" to be found per level, as well as a hidden objective that nets you a golden statue.

Given the number of moving parts, the game opts to start simple for its initial "Europe" biome (mostly grass and trees) with a few pretty straightforward animals: there's the dog, which has a standard jump and bite attack, the latter needed to knock out animals so you can possess them; the sheep, which cannot attack but has a floaty Yoshi jump that's handy for reaching platforms; and this mouse I'm in right now, which has a built-in engine and is pretty zippy. The mouse cannot jump, but there's ramps all over the place if I need to get some air. More animals are on the way, and they have a hierarchy of sorts where some are better suited for more general purposes like, say, combat or traversal or swimming (the dog and sheep are excellent in the water, but the mouse sinks like a stone and takes constant damage while submerged). It takes a little while to get used to the more puzzle-focused nature of SSSV over the more traditional platforming found in Banjo-Kazooie or Super Mario 64, but it's also what sets it apart from the herd. The robotic sheep herd, as the case may be.

32 Minutes In

Every time you possess a new animal, you get this statistical rundown of their strengths and weaknesses. All of these stats actually serve a role in-game (except maybe the engine) and don't just exist to contribute to this Terminator parody.

Three levels in and the game's starting to get a bit more complex. The goal here is to shut down a machine to disable an electric fence, and then work your way around the level in a circle to grab a sheep and use its leaping ability to reach an exit suspended over a pit. Along the way I met a fourth animal - the fox - but neither the mouse I started with nor the sheep were any match for it, so its true introduction will have to come later. Also, as a credit to the game's progression, the first level of the next biome opened up at some point: Antarctica. I forget if that's just because I finished three levels in Europe or maybe they're checking how many collectibles I've found in total or what, but it means that if I get stuck on these harder Europe levels I have alternatives to look into as a palate cleanser. I've also found two golden statues: I seem to recall now that there's one in every level, but figuring out how to get them all comprises the game's biggest mysteries and requires quite a bit of exploration and guesswork. Gotta get that extra longevity from somewhere.

If I had to levy a single complaint against SSSV so far it's one that is unfortunately common to all 3D platformers from the N64 era: the camera is absolute trash. A lot of the time it won't track behind you if you decide to make a turn, requiring you to refocus the camera manually with the C-buttons (which, I'm glad to say, have been relegated to a supporting role where they belong). The mouse in particular needs a run up for all the ramps it uses to get from A to B, requiring the camera to be lined up directly behind him before committing to a forward charge, which is putting too much of a spotlight on this particular failing. It also refuses to go behind inclines if one happens to be between you and the camera, and would rather angle itself downwards from above which makes it hard to see incoming threats. Not a dealbreaker by any stretch though, especially since—as we'll see many more times in this feature I'm sure—it's a tragically universal problem.

48 Minutes In

I intuited that this valve had something to do with collectibles, but I have nothing that can cover that distance over the river (and you can only exit water at certain points). Somehow the missiles aren't helping here.

The pace of the game is relatively sedate, with levels having to be conquered piece by piece and very carefully. Evo shares a health gauge with every robot he possesses, so he can't just jump ship if one shell is getting too damaged and refill with another, and dying means having to start the current level over from the beginning. Good practice is to run around eliminating any threats before starting to work on the puzzles. On Level 4 "Battery Farm", these threats are represented by a ram hiding among the sheep (the previous screenshot), a couple of foxes near the farmhouse in the corner, and a "racing dog" that will destroy you with its missile launcher if you get too close to its patrol route. By removing all four of these hostile creatures, you have all the time in the world to work out how to open up the exit and acquire the stage's collectibles, if the latter is a concern.

I'm remembering the game's charm points as I play. One of them is that the jaunty Hammond organ music that accompanies every level is actually diegetic: it's getting pumped into every enclosure by speakers, and the music gets louder the nearer you are to one. I'm also close to certain that you can destroy these speakers with the right robots—the racing dog's missiles, for instance—so I might try that to see what happens.

64 Minutes In

I only just noticed that the robotic animals exhale mist on this level. That... that can't be right? Unless...

Took a while to figure out what that fourth Europe level wanted me to do to unlock its golden statue, but it turns out it just wanted me to murder everything. Easily done. For this final segment, I decided to see what was up with the Antarctica biome and discovered a relatively big stage centered around a snowblower machine. Amusingly, one of the goals of this level was to switch on a big cool computer-looking thing on the far wall: all this did was power up the secondary engines on the Space Station Silicon Valley, allowing it to move even faster on its collision course with Earth. (I don't think a time limit ever comes into play until right near the end, but it's just one narrative example of many that Evo and his human partner Dan Danger have no idea what they're doing.) Starting a new biome also meant I was introduced to the penguins (jumps, throws snowballs), huskies (jumps, bites), and snow rabbits (jumps real high, has a shockwave thumper attack).

After completing four levels in Europe and one in Antarctica, the final buzzer went off and so my time with this game came to an end. Other observations: I did indeed destroy the speakers with missiles and it did indeed make the levels silent, though I didn't get any other reward for doing so. The game actually gets kinda eerie without music. In addition to what I said earlier about animal hierarchies, the same is true for predator/prey relationships: if you're occupying a predator's body, it's unlikely anything will attack you though if you're occupying a prey's body (perhaps because they have better jumping skills) then you either need to avoid any predators around or defeat them as another predator first. Both the player's animal and any other NPC animal will start noticeably sagging when they're low on health: this helps as an indicator to escape and find some energy refills if it's happening to you, or to press your attack on a foe if they're clearly on the way out. A little harsh, perhaps, but it's a robot dog eats robot dog world out here. In space.

How Well Has It Aged?: Well Enough. SSSV is a little rougher around the edges than the finely-polished likes of Rare and Nintendo (though probably way less rough than something like Earthworm Jim 3D, if I'm ever unlucky enough to find out first-hand) but the whole focus on puzzles and completing objectives puts it closer to adventure game territory at times. I might argue that SSSV is to the UK what Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is to Japan: not only are both steeped in their respective cultures and in particular their respective national senses of humor, but an indication of their inventiveness at work when designing engaging scenarios with goals beyond "jump across these platforms until you reach the end".

Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: A Complete Mystery. I've never seen Rockstar North say or do anything to acknowledge Space Station Silicon Valley, including putting it on the Wii or Wii U Virtual Consoles when they were hosting N64 games, even though they have the cash and manpower reserves to do so in a heartbeat if they wanted. It makes me wonder if they're somehow ashamed of it, despite the many positive reviews it received. It's a far cry from their more "mature"-leaning properties like Manhunt and GTA and I've heard it didn't make a whole lot of money which might be why they're choosing to forget it exists. I bet with the "from the developer and publisher team behind GTAV" push it could get a lot of eyeballs, though.

Command & Conquer (Random)

Looking Glass Studios / Nintendo
1999-05-31 (NA), 1999-07-30 (EU)
=219th N64 Game Released

History: If the previous game was a case of a developer still finding their groove just prior to hitting upon the franchise that turned them into superstars, this game would be the example of the post-script. Through the early '90s Westwood Studios had earned themselves a gathering with a group of fantasy-themed games that wowed audiences with their graphical complexity and quality sound, but arguably the most important game they developed in that time was, oddly enough, a sequel to a movie tie-in based on a book: Dune II, which in some respects kickstarted the whole RTS genre for PC (Herzog Zwei already beating them to it on consoles). Dune II was soon followed by Command & Conquer, which used many of the same systems in a setting largely based on the late Cold War era but with significant sci-fi tweaks owing to an alternative history spin where the UN is forced to compete with the mysterious global Brotherhood of Nod cult over reserves of a powerful new fuel source, Tiberium.

However, Westwood themselves were not the developers of the N64 port—Looking Glass Studios were. This completely threw me, since Looking Glass Studios were even more PC-focused than Westwood (Westwood had made a few "Gold Box-adjacent" RPGs for Sega Genesis and the TurboGrafx-16 previously, as well as SNES and Sega CD ports of Eye of the Beholder) and are best known for the System Shock, Thief, and Ultima Underworld franchises, none of which saw much in the way of console ports. Maybe they owed a favor to someone? Or it could be the case that the studio was taking on any work they could to stave off their eventual bankruptcy the following year, which saw most of its staff relocate to Ion Storm Austin to work on Deus Ex. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for a post-mortem if one exists. Despite publishing on N64 previously, Virgin Interactive—the former owners of Westwood—let Nintendo themselves handle publishing duties.

All of this is a little surreal to me. I somehow wasn't aware there was a N64 Command & Conquer port released some four years after the original, since why would there be? Why would you port a game so reliant on the alacrity and diversity that mouse and keyboard controls offer to the Nintendo 64 and its Fisher-Price plastic trident, of all systems? This is coming from someone who has enough trouble maintaining the sort of disciplined multi-tasking mindset the RTS genre demands without also having to memorize which C-buttons are bound to the most important functions. Also, why Looking Glass Studios? Why not transfer the older Saturn or PlayStation versions over instead of starting over with a new developer? Why get poor old Nintendo involved in publishing this, unless they specifically put all this into motion and if so... huh? Why have you heaped all this upon me, random selector bot? OK, let's just... chill, and see what this thing's deal is.