Still a fantastic console (Nintendo N64)

Member Name: tomo359

Product:	Nintendo N64
Date:	11/11/08 (67 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great console with some fantastic games

Disadvantages: Games are quite large and take up quite a bit of space, so is the controller

I first played the N64 many years ago when my friend got one. I has a playstation and she got a N64. We lived on the same street so we often went round to each others house. Now i loved playing the N64. She had some of the greatest games including Mario Kart, Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie and more and i loved them so much that several years later when all the new modern consoles were out, i bought a N64 myself just so i could relive the memories of these great games.

Ok so the console is very old nowadays but it still has some of the greatest games of all time.

First the console itself. The main console is Black in colour (but some other colours models were made, along with some special editions like a pokemon one) but usually they are Black On the top is a slot for the game cartridges to slot into. The a slide power button and push reset button and inbetween these is a cover than conceals a memory pack. On the front of the machine are four ports to connect your N64 controller to and the N64 logo.
On the back of the console are the ports to connect the lead to your TV and the power lead, all very simple.

Now the controllers. These will look quite weird to people who have never used them. Controllers like the PS2/3 controllers have two handles to hold but the N64 controller, as you can see in the picture, has 3 handles. The normal way to hold them is put your let hand on the middle handle and your right hand on the right handle. The D or + pad is not used in many games so you rarely hold the left handle. With your left hand you control the joystick to move the character around on screen or what ever else you are controlling. Just above the joystick is a Start button to pause your game. With your right hand you control the blue A button and the green B button and there is also the 4 yellow C buttons. These buttons operate different stuff depending on the game you are playing.
At the top of the controller are two shoulder buttons, a left and right button, and on the back in the centre (behind the joystick, operated by left hand) is a Z button.

OK unlikes with most other consoles, games do not come on disks but instead they come on cartridges that slot into the top slot. This sounds quite good at first as it means they are more durable and cannot get scratched and broken easily but cartridges take up more space than disks, and the boxes that the cartridges come in are quite large as well so these take up some room.
Another problem with cartridges is they are not as capable of holding as much data as disks so games can't always be as big or as good quality, this is one of the reasons why Nintendo did not continue to use them in future consoles.

Ok, now to games. There are a wide range of games for the N64 ranging from adventure games through to action and racing games. Nintendo have some of the most popular of all time games including Mario and Banjo Kazooie which are still very popular now. Now as i was saying earlier about the cartridges not being capable of holding as much data, well they managed fine with games like Banjo Kazooie and even more with Banjo Tooie which is a huge game with really good graphics. Some of the games on the N64 were very high quality with brilliant graphics and me personally, i think that overall the quality of the N64 games was better the playstation games in general.
I don't know any of the technical details about the games or the console itself. The N64 might have been more powerful that the PS but sorry i do not know any of this side of it.
I mentioned Banjo Tooie earlier, now this was a very popular game and it was also quite a rare game (no pun intended on the makers Rare) what i mean is if you go onto ebay and type in Banjo Tooie you will see people are still paying as much as £50 for the game. That is how popular the game is. I managed to finally get it a while ago for about £32 and i'm so glad i did as it is a brilliant game and better than most modern games.

If you want to play on the N64, you can get one fairly cheap nowadays on ebay and other sites and many comes with games. If you can, i recommend getting one just for a bit of fun, i'm sure people will enjoy using this still great console.

Summary: A great all round console, still today