Shigeru Miyamoto, We Thank You (Nintendo N64)

Member Name: nathaninnit

Product:	Nintendo N64
Date:	11/03/08 (143 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: With the N64 I felt no need for any other console

Disadvantages: Clearly the PlayStation wiped the floor with it

I still remember the days of renting 'Theme Park' from Blockbuster to play on the SNES, or running into spikes sending Sonic and his coins flying everywhere during some Megadrive playtime. Gaming didn't begin to reach a level where I could accomplish anything until 1996, and at seven years of age I got the taster of the next generation of gaming. This would of course be in the shape of a Nintendo 64, as my brothers have pursuaded my parents to purchase it as a joint family present - those with siblings will know the joy of having a present that you have to share. Needless to say as the youngest of three I probably got the least time with the black piece of plastic, and when I say the N64 began to see gaming accomplishments for me I do say that loosely as it was possibly only the building blocks to moving on to completing my first games for myself, possibly in the days of the Gamecube.
Gaming has always been a huge deal to millions of people around the globe, and that has developed into groups of fanboys, although this war between the three gaming giants for the billion pound industry could have been avoided. Nintendo and Sony were originally working together in a bid to make a console, however fell out over the idea of whether or not the public were ready for disc technology as opposed to cartridges. Naturally the two then went their separate ways and we all know how that turned out, Sony shifted over 100 million units of their debut PlayStation console worldwide, whilst Nintendo only shifted around 30% of the same units as Sony. Needless to say I was pretty young, niave and therefore oblivious to this console war going on around me and didn't even see my first PlayStation until I went round a friends house. I still to this day standby my decision not to delve further into the then-mysteries of the PlayStation world as I earnt countless hours of entertainment with my N64, although with the poor sales and then the further disappointment of the Gamecube you can see as to why people thought Nintendo were a no-go area before the Wii.

Fanboyism is more over-the-top than ever now we're twelve years on from the original release of N64's first three-dimensional home console, and you can imagine the reaction in this day and age if Nintendo took as long as they did to get the console released worldwide. Nintendo did not get the N64 released in Europe until March 1st 1997, nine months after the console had been released in Japan. It is all well and good releasing something in your native country first, but people go mad now if they get a game a week after another country, let alone something you need to play a game on. Also in this day and age with importing rife, it does not come as a surprise that the Nintendo Wii was out within a month worldwide. Accessorizing was a huge part of the N64's life cycle, with not just multi-coloured controllers, but the consoles came out in all varieties as well - even as far as transparent purple. As the controller allowed you to plug expansions into the back of it, this led the way for memory cards to store game data on and rumble paks. It's somewhat funny looking back at the garish console decision and oversized memory packs, but it's still a statement of the evolution Nintendo brought with 3D gaming and an anologue stick controller. Will anyone forget the first time they started moving around on Super Mario 64?
And it would be no surprise that the flagship character of Nintendo went on to be the best selling game of the N64's lifespan, meaning over a third of all N64 owners were playing as the fat plumber saving his princess girlfriend. When the Nintendo 64 was first released there was not the wide variety of launch titles to choose from as you get in this day and age, but rather you could either pick up the Italian's adventure or Pilotwings 64 - I actually ended up having both in my family collection, although the whole Pilotwings thing was too daunting for me in my youth. And do not ask why they choose to put 64 at the end of almost all their first-party releases, I guess it had something to do with showing off the outstanding achievement of being a 64-bit console. For me the crowning achievement of the N64 era would be published by RARE WARE, who had gone from creating two dimensional Donkey Kong games on the Super Nintendo to their own fully-fledged titles. With fantastic work the likes of Banjo-Kazooie, it is no wonder Microsoft bought the exclusive rights to them, a game that took everything that was great about Mario 64 and then some. I also remember waking up, probably around 4am on a Christmas morning, to play the RARE published 'Diddy Kong Racing' - I'm sure my parents were regretting that purchase.

Nintendo has never really been about playing alone though, and I'm sure no one will ever forget the third best selling game of all-time on the N64, 'Goldeneye'. Published by RARE as well, this led to hours passing like minutes on multi-player as everyone ran around shooting at one another. I seem to remember classic battles of changing the settings to golden gun ruling, meaning everyone died with one shot but it made things all the more tactical. Oddjob and Jaws were off limits. Whilst they can add new settings and astonishing graphics, no one will be able to recreate the magic that led to that game making Goldeneye one of the best 007 movies by default. 'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time' is without a doubt a single-player masterpiece that no one will ever forget, receiving many perfect scores from the critics and is still the game that everyone aspires to beat, and since then there has been nothing in the gaming world quite like Zelda-fever when a new announcement from the series is made. Ocarina is one of only four games to surpass the seven million units sold mark, including the aforementioned Mario and Goldeneye, as well as Mario Kart.
With an RRP of $199, the N64 shows the increase in gaming for the new state of the art technology, although I seem to remember games costing around the £60 - practically daylight robbery, for which I could be right in saying Nintendo got slapped with a fine for. Many say Nintendo big-titles came few and far between, and whilst that is still true, when you look back at the catalogue of games from the N64 you can see a wealth of beautiful memories. Whilst Nintendo did miss the boat by not using discs, with cartridges you were able to save the majority of your game data on them, and when you see how unsuccessful they were with smaller-sized Gamecube discs, it is no wonder that a decade later they finally decided to give up trying to be difficult with how they were storing their games and rather decided to be different with what those games they were storing are. Graphically I do not remember thinking how bad they looked, but of course with most things when you look back you can see the huge differences - you can even see the sizeable improvements of the Nintendo DS upgrade to Super Mario 64 back in 2004.

I won't forget the days of a freezing console, tugging out cartridges by hands or the up-down power button and the reset button. Even when nowadays we can switch consoles on remotely and the only button we need is an eject. No one can call the N64 a dark day in the history of the company, especially now when you consider Nintendo are making money out of people that want to replay those historic games using the virtual console service on the Wii. Incredibly there are already over ten million virtual games sold spread across the library including a variety of retro consoles, and Nintendo's return to dominance is shown when they are only around ten million units off beating the N64's selling total a year into release. Nintendo have character and I loved my Nintendo 64, even if I did never complete a game.

Summary: To have a time machine and return to this golden age...