There I was, fifteen years old with a fresh N64 controller in my hands, expecting another colorful romp through whatever cutesy world Rare had cooked up next. I mean, come on—this was the studio that gave us Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country. Fluffy platformers with family-friendly charm, right? Then I booted up Conker's Bad Fur Day for the first time, and honestly? My teenage brain nearly short-circuited.The opening sequence alone should've prepared me. That cheeky…
The rental shop on our high street had this bizarre policy where they'd put the most disappointing games right at eye level, like they were trying to trick you into a lifetime of trust issues. I remember staring at that Superman 64 box art—bright blue, cape flowing, all that heroic promise—while clutching my £3 rental fee like it was my last tenner. Should've bought a bag of chips instead. Would've been infinitely more satisfying.You know…
You know how sometimes you stumble across an old box in your mum's loft and suddenly you're twelve again, arguing with your brother about who gets to be Yoshi? That happened to me last weekend when I found my N64 controller collection—four original grey pads, one with a wonky stick that drifts left like it's permanently steering into a skid. The muscle memory kicked in immediately. That three-pronged alien spaceship design that everyone mocked until…
There's something about sitting in front of a telly on a quiet Sunday afternoon, N64 controller in hand, watching a little hang glider drift over Birdman Island that just…gets you, you know? I've been thinking about this lately because I dug out Pilotwings 64 last week—proper cartridge, none of this emulation business—and within minutes I was back in that headspace where time moves like honey and your biggest concern is landing on the correct pad…
You know that feeling when you're digging through a charity shop's random box of N64 games and you spot something that makes you double-take? That's exactly what happened when I found Glover tucked between about fifteen copies of FIFA 98. The cover looked like a fever dream – this white glove character with cartoon eyes, holding what appeared to be a rubber ball. I'd heard whispers about this one on old gaming forums, usually accompanied…
Saturday afternoon, 1997. I'm sprawled across the carpet of my mate Dave's living room, the kind with those swirly brown patterns that could hide Cheerios and shame in equal measure. The N64's been out for a year, and we've already worn grooves in Mario 64's castle floors, but today's different. Dave's sliding a new cartridge into that front-loading slot with the reverence of a priest handling communion wine."My brother got it from Blockbuster," he says,…
You know what's weird? I can still remember the exact moment I realized Dash Rendar wasn't just some random smuggler they threw into the Star Wars universe. It was probably the third or fourth time through Shadows of the Empire on my N64, and I'd just nailed that speeder bike chase on Ord Mantell without hitting a single tree. Something about the way his ship, the Outrider, felt different from the Millennium Falcon in other…
The smell of a friend's basement in winter 1999 is burned into my memory—that musty carpet odor mixed with the electric warmth of a CRT that had been on for three hours straight. We'd gathered for what felt like a historic moment: someone had actually managed to get Resident Evil 2 running on Nintendo 64. Not just running, mind you, but looking… well, shockingly decent.I mean, we all knew the story by then. PlayStation had…
I was digging through my game collection last night, trying to find something to show my nephew who's visiting for the week, when I spotted that familiar yellow cartridge. Donkey Kong 64. Just holding it brought back this wave of Saturday mornings and the particular excitement of unwrapping what was essentially Rare's love letter to everything they'd learned about making platformers.You know what's funny? Everyone remembers the Nintendo 64 as this revolutionary machine—and it was—but…
You know what still gets me? The way that little paper Mario would flutter when he jumped. There was something so perfectly Nintendo about taking their most famous character and flattening him like he'd been run over by a steamroller, then somehow making that limitation feel like pure magic.I remember the exact moment I first saw Paper Mario running in that Mushroom Kingdom intro. My mate Dave had picked up a copy from Electronics Boutique—remember…