My mate Steve still owes me twenty quid from a bet we made in 1997. The wager? Whether anyone would ever top GoldenEye 007's four-player split-screen battles. He reckoned Quake II would murder it within six months. Poor sod's been dodging that debt for twenty-seven years now, and honestly, I'm not even mad anymore because he was spectacularly wrong.You have to understand something about gaming in the late nineties—proper multiplayer on consoles wasn't really a…
Standing in front of that burgundy CRT television in 1996, watching Mario's pixelated face stretch and scrunch in the file select screen, I had no idea I was witnessing the birth of something that would fundamentally rewire how we think about moving through digital space. My mum was somewhere behind me complaining about the "telly being upside down again" because we'd switched from the regular aerial to the N64's RF adapter, but I couldn't hear…
You know what? I was digging through my old console collection last weekend, trying to find my copy of Mario Kart 64, when I picked up that distinctive three-pronged beast of a controller. My thumb automatically found that little divot in the analog stick—you know the one, where years of Mario's running had worn the plastic down to a perfect grip. And it hit me like a brick: this weird, alien-looking thing was basically gaming's…
Christmas 1999 was approaching and my mum had that look—the one where she's holding a wrapped present behind her back and trying not to grin. "Don't shake it," she warned, which naturally made me want to shake it even more. When I finally tore through the wrapping paper on Christmas morning, there it was: Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue for the N64, complete with that distinctive yellow cartridge that looked like it…
You know what still gives me goosebumps? That opening crawl. Not just any opening crawl—the one from Star Wars Episode I: Racer on the N64. There I was, probably wearing my lucky Phantom Menace t-shirt (the one with Darth Maul's face that glowed in the dark, because 1999 was a simpler time), watching yellow text scroll up my fuzzy CRT while the 64's audio chip did its best impression of John Williams. It wasn't perfect.…
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 I was, scrolling through Spotify at half-past midnight again—you know how it is when you should be asleep but your brain's still buzzing—and Alex G's "Nintendo 64" came shuffling through my discover weekly. Honestly, I'd never heard of the guy before that moment. But when those opening chords hit, something clicked. Not just the music itself, but the title. Nintendo 64. Just seeing those words together made my chest do this weird thing.The song…
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…