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64 in 64: Episode 37

By Mento December 27, 2023 1 Comments

Welcome back to the very last episode of 64 in 64 for 2023. I wasn't going to see the year out without the December edition of this most vaunted exercise, though sometimes I wonder if my punctuality is necessarily a virtue. Speaking of virtues, the Nintendo 64 itself could be considered Nintendo's Virtue Boy (wait...) due to its diehard refusal to adapt to any flash-in-the-pan technological gimmicks and instead stick to its cartridge guns despite everyone else—and I do mean literally every other console manufacturer of this era—switching to CD-ROM. I can respect that, or at least the part about being too obstinate for one's own good. Hence why I keep pushing through this godawful library, I suppose. Just kidding; the N64 is a singular delight and I don't regret embarking on this feature for a moment. Wow, that sounded totally sincere, didn't it? The power of the written word at work.

I wish I had some seasonally-apposite glad tidings for you regarding this week's pair of candidates but it looks like I made a slight tactical boo-boo and now I've got two racing games to contend with, neither of which has a Metacritic score of over 71. Not exactly my most favored genre but then I can't be featuring 3D platformers every time, not when I run the risk of inching ever closer to having to showcase Glover or Earthworm Jim 3D. I can only blame this double-booking snafu on hubris, as I do with many of my catastrophic life decisions. Still, I managed to slake my curiosity about two games with connections to two much more famous (and much better) N64 racing games so that's... that's something.

Well, that should be enough psyching up the audience with sheer positivity, so let's move onto some rules:

Each episode of 64 in 64 sees two games for the N64 played for sixty-four minutes apiece. In the process, I write down my thoughts in intervals spaced sixteen minutes apart.
I also cover the game's production history and supply a moderately-informed take on its enduring appeal and the likelihood of it being added to the Switch Online service. Gotta offer more than just schadenfreude, after all.
The first game was pre-selected by me based on a number of criteria, most of which boil down to "Do I actually want to spend an hour playing this and writing about it?". The second game was coughed up by a random selection process that very rarely has my or indeed anyone's best interests in mind.
Unless previously covered, we're not going after anything already in the Switch Online N64 library. It would make too much of what we're doing here redundant, and the last thing I need to be is any more redundant. (Maybe I should make that a New Year's Resolution too, hm.) As of December that now officially includes 1080 Snowboarding and Harvest Moon 64. Will there be more? I sure hope so.

If you've read this far and are still somehow also hoping for more, then by all means consult the table of previous episodes below. I've been quite productive. Or, well, "productive".

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	Episode 19	Episode 20
Episode 21	Episode 22	Episode 23	Episode 24	Episode 25
Episode 26	Episode 27	Episode 28	Episode 29	Episode 30
Episode 31	Episode 32	Episode 33	Episode 34	Episode 35
Episode 36	Episode 37	-	-	-

Mickey's Speedway USA / Mickey no Racing Challenge USA (Pre-Select)

Rare / Nintendo
2000-11-13 (NA), 2000-12-01 (EU), 2001-01-21 (JP)
356th N64 Game Released

History: Mickey's Speedway USA is a Disney-themed cart racer that sees the funny animals from the House of Mouse's mirthful menagerie compete in a series of races across the United States while trying to overcome the weapons of their rivals, course hazards, chicanes, and standard New York traffic. It was the ninth Rare game for the system (out of eleven) and was simultaneously developed with its Game Boy Color port. Likewise, its predecessor Mickey's Racing Adventure was a GBC exclusive, so this is a case of a portable series being adapted for home console rather than the typical inverse. Usually a good sign that it'll be stuffed with an impressive volume of content and features, something the GB was notoriously well-known for providing.

Rare doesn't require any introductions at this point given this is the eighth game of theirs we've exhibited. They probably didn't need an introduction the first time either: the British studio was something of a third-party showboat at this time, being one of the few companies outside of Nintendo to really do right by the system as the other SNES old guards all flocked instead to the PlayStation (and Saturn, to a lesser extent). Rare's N64 tenure is best known for mascot platformers and racers like this one, so it's a little odd that they never thought to bring back their own mascot team, the Battletoads, for the console. Maybe they were too busy working on good games instead?

The reason I'm invoking my Inner Minotti this month is because this is the second cart racer that Rare developed for the N64, and given the first was Diddy Kong Racing (still sitting pretty at #2 in the current ranking) I'll admit to perhaps some wishful thinking that it might be anywhere near as transcendental. After all, you'd be professionally obligated to treat the intellectual properties of others as well as or better than your own, right? I'm sure that's how it's worked for every licensed game since forever. But yeah, I've been meaning to get all the Rare games on the list as a little side-project so we can have a definitive ranking of their entire N64 oeuvre, and this was one of the only two left. The other's Killer Instinct Gold which... well, I like ultra combos and killer grooves as much as the next guy but fighters aren't really my thing. Neither are racers, to be honest, but I can't well admit I don't like them given that aforementioned #2 slot. (Ew, "#2 slot".)

16 Minutes In

His name's on the box and he couldn't even make top three? It's no wonder he's not as culturally important as Pikachu.

Well... this isn't too bad I guess. It's definitely a standard cart racer but it's curiously a lot closer to Mario Kart 64 than Diddy Kong Racing. I facetiously claimed that external licenses should probably be given preferential treatment but I suppose that's actually true for "safe" treatment: refusing to push the boat out too much in case you potentially alienate the fanbase you're borrowing. Mickey's Speedway USA definitely feels basic to a fault: the courses have very little in the way of hazards or notable features, instead presenting some occasionally twisty tracks in otherwise quotidian locations like the Indianapolis loop or an Arizonan desert. Biggest problem so far has been dealing with how good opponents are on tricky turns: the game does have that Mario Kart hop-and-drift mechanic for squirrely sections but the CPU is way better at it than I am. What they're less effective with are the power-ups, which is a dynamic I actually kind of prefer: that CPU in most Mario Kart games can screw you up with a red or blue shell on a regular basis is dispiriting when you're just trying to race them fairly, so to have that de-emphasized for the sake of having more fundamentally-skilled racers that you use these weapons against to even the playing field is a much more palatable arrangement. Likewise, there are some other small features I find myself appreciating that I wish were in other cart-racers: one is that the CPU opponents are constantly trash-talking each other (Mickey even called me a "palooka", which I'll just have to learn to live with) but they'll direct it at specific opponents if they just got hit by one of their weapons. I'm gratified to know that a baseball (the green shell) or the mud slick (the banana skin) I just left behind hit the guy in second place because now he's yelling at me, swearing revenge.

This first block had me take on the "Traffic Troubles" grand prix, the first of three, on its middle ("Intermediate") difficulty and I finished in first place without too much issue just as the 16-minute timer sounded. I will say that it can be hard to catch up with opponents once they've a decent lead because their AI is such that they make very few mistakes; as I mentioned above, the player's sole advantage is relying the power-ups they find and most aren't effective beyond a certain range (for instance, the tracking on the red shell equivalent, an RC car, isn't great). There was also one course where the CPU conspicuously avoided one of the two boosters, so either that's a difficulty thing (they might hit both on "Professional" and neither on "Amateur") or another player handicap for its presumably younger-leaning intended audience. Whatever, I'm not so prideful that I won't stomp all over a kids' game given the opportunity. Famous last words, I suppose.

32 Minutes In

Seeing heavy artifacting on your opponents is always a good sign. The lower their image quality, the lower their driving quality, right?

The rubberbanding is a little ridiculous but otherwise the playthrough continues to be more or less plain sailing for the second and third GPs. It is often the case that if you make a single mistake the entire cast of Kingdom Hearts just whizzes past you in a united block of animated whimsy; this has been especially true with the shorter courses, some of which take less than a minute to complete with all three laps combined. Thankfully, the GPs themselves are only four courses long apiece, though that does suggest that the game has a total of twelve tracks which seems miniscule. Maybe I'll unlock other GPs if I beat these three? Or perhaps the game undergoes some significant changes on the other difficulties? I guess I'll find out once I'm done with this third GP, Freewayphobia, after the next two races.

The game continues to exhibit a combination of extremely familiar mechanics and a few smarter, less overt features mixed into its core. It has the same starting boost trick as games of this type if you hit the gas just as the final light on the countdown pings, and there's tokens that work like the coins in Mario Kart in the sense that I think they're supposed to make me faster but it's far too incremental to actually tell. One of the smarter ideas is that there's a limited number of restarts if you botch one race particularly badly, but if it's the first race of that GP then there's no restart penalty (since you'd be starting the whole GP over, effectively) so that's a nice player convenience. This definitely feels like what you'd get if you commissioned the smart cookies at Rare to make a no-frills cart racer they could throw together in a year, rather than the super ambitious "Mario Kart 64 killer" that DKR set itself up to be (and succeeded, in a perfect world).

48 Minutes In

The Chicago level is set entirely within its sewers, giving the Windy City all the respect it deserves.

I'll take back what I said about this being a kids' game. Well, the part about it having the difficulty of one, at least. Mickey's Speedway USA has been significantly harder than DKR due to some very competent AI even on the medium setting, as I regularly found myself getting pushed from 1st to 5th or 6th after taking a turn too widely. Those guys are right on your DuckTail the entire race waiting for you to slip up, and the third GP makes that very easy for them with its more elaborate courses with all its strategically-placed pillars and slowdown terrain patches. With only two restarts you're pretty much screwed for the whole GP after a couple bad races, but having four pretty short courses for each cup makes it easy enough to jump back in. I lost the third GP to Pete on my initial attempt, but barely scraped through to first with the next; I don't think I won a single race either, just came second enough times to win on points aggregation.

My award for winning every GP on the medium setting was... Louie. The green nephew. His stats aren't bad, actually, so I might switch over to him (I've been using Donald so far, who like Mickey has all-rounder stats akin to Mario and Luigi) for this last segment. I also unlocked a cheat: a heckle button. How tempting. I might void any further progress sticking a cheat on though, and that one seems better suited for multiplayer trolling anyway. Question now is whether I enjoy myself by waltzing through the Amateur mode and seeing if that has also a character to unlock (not that I'll get through all three GPs in sixteen minutes; they're not that short) or going up to Professional and discovering how much more unforgiving this Mickey Mouse game for children can be. For the sake of my own credibility if nothing else, the choice is obvious.

64 Minutes In

Look... cartoons don't have to make sense, you know? Count me down, me.

So, playing through the first GP on Amateur revealed a couple more tidbits about the game. The first is that you can actually earn a Platinum trophy instead of a Gold one if you win every race in a GP: most of the Retro Achievements are for Platinums only, a set which only now is starting to seem a tad insurmountable. The other is that the difficulties work the same way they do in Mario Kart (I suppose I shouldn't be shocked by now) in that not only is the CPU not quite as proficient but the overall game speed is considerably slower. Most of the courses in that GP took around three minutes to complete, when the Intermediate versions were closer to two minutes on average. Still, if I were to keep playing I would only continue on Amateur for the related achievements and unlocks: there's really nothing to it for those looking for something even slightly competitive.

That's going to do it for my Disney sojourn. This game seems very plain compared to what else was on the system but by the same metric didn't really put a foot wrong. Like mashed potatoes without the gravy or fries without ketchup, it's a perfectly fine tuber-based meal (metaphorically speaking) but not one that's likely to retain my or anyone else's interest for long, especially with MK64 and DKR just sitting there close at hand. We also get a disappointingly small cross-section of Disney characters: Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, Daisy, and Pete, with Louie as an unlock. Other unlocks include Dewey (but not Huey, fuck that guy I guess) and Professor Ludwig von Drake, who is also the race organizer and inventor of all the power-ups. Guessing he's like the T.T. equivalent. Tough break.

How Well Has It Aged?: About As Well As The DeSantis Lawsuit. Besides being a basically competent racing game there's nothing that really stands out about this also-drove in the arena of cartoon cart racers that got oddly competitive during this particular console generation. Most of the mechanics are flagrantly cribbed from the market leader, there's only twelve courses that I could find (though there's Retro Achievements for two more GPs, so I guess I spoke too soon; how do you even unlock those? Highest difficulty only?), and the CPU is unusually punitive when it comes to mistakes on anything beyond the easiest setting. I did wonder who this was for—someone who loves Disney so much that they can forgive a dull game if it features those characters, while also being a decent enough gamer that they could handle its harder races and be surprisingly easygoing despite the constant abuse—but then I figured it out.

Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: About As Likely As DeSantis Becoming President. It's not a particularly beloved game and it will mean Nintendo would have to play nice with both Disney and Microsoft, so it scarcely seems like it'd be worth the effort. They'd be better off focusing on getting Diddy Kong Racing on there, for multiple reasons.

Retro Achievements Earned: 3 out of 72. A real murderer's row of tough achievements here including Platinums for every GP on every difficulty, beating all the staff times in the Time Trial mode, and a few relating to the Battle Mode I didn't bother looking into (but seems otherwise identical to MK64's, surprise surprise). There's apparently hidden car parts to find too? And the aforementioned two extra GP modes. Feels like I barely scratched the surface. Just to check, this game is for babies, right?

Cruis'n Exotica (Random)

Gratuitous Games / Midway
2000-10-16 (NA)
349th N64 Game Released

History: Cruis'n, the racing franchise with the fastest of cars and the most errant of apostrophes, is conversely done with just the speedways of North America alone and takes on the wildest race courses found on this planet and elsewhere. Originally an arcade game that made a home for itself on the N64, following the same road as its predecessors Cruis'n USA and Cruis'n World, neither the arcade original nor the N64 port of Exotica were met with anywhere close to the same amount of acclaim as its older siblings. Our site's own former editor and photobomb expert Brad Shoemaker gave the N64 version a 5.8 while he was still at GameSpot, criticizing it for being a bit too easy and plain with straightforward courses you wouldn't want to dedicate hours towards learning. Well, that should suit our purposes here at least.

While Midway developed the arcade game themselves, the N64 port was handled by Gratuitous Games. This San Diego outfit was founded by Chip Burwell (so many Chips in the video game industry...) who was the former lead programmer for Realtime Associates, a company we bumped into just last episode with Charlie Blast's Territory. Gratuitous burst onto the scene with (oh no) the Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko N64 port which also happens to be the only other N64 game they developed. They stuck around long enough to produce some more ports for the following console generation, including MLB SlugFest 2003 and Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX 2, before bowing out in 2003 with the Xbox port of Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix. (Also, our Midway counter is now at nine and continues to rise to my chagrin.)

Of all the Cruis'n games to come up on the roulette, huh? I've zero experience with this franchise so I suppose jumping in with its weakest entry means I have the fortunate scenario of gradually escalating to the good stuff, I say with the maximum amount of cope. I know members of this site swear by that 2017 reboot with its suitably corny (in a good way) theme song so maybe I'll get a taste of that earnest silliness here as I race against dinosaurs and Martians. I have always claimed that I prefer the goofier games from this genre so- Man, how much more misplaced optimism can I muster? I'll get you for this, random chooser app.