POWERSPHERE
Member
Still gives me a nostalgia avalanche.
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The Nintendo 64 Appreciation/Collecting/Emulation Thread.
- Thread starter Seik
- Start date
sixteen-bit
Member
Infernal Monkey
Member
Ah, the rare birthday cake edition of N64.
Finally have some time alone with the purple n64 i got last week
Im getting used to the dark and muddy graphics, even playing it streched. But the owner of a retro game shop told me a non-official AV cable could be making things worst on my n64. So i checked and yes, the av cable that came with the console isnt nintendo branded. I think i still have my original gamecube AV cable on my parents house...
Aside from that, im loving it.
To me its pretty funny that people dont remember Shadows of the empire as a fantastic game. I love it, i love the camera angles, the auto aim blaster, the seeker missile camera, the hilarious scream when a stormtrooper falls from a cliff, the one-hour long stage with no save points in between, the boba fett fight. And the jetpack is just too good, i forgot there was a jetpack in this game.
Feels more fun than a lot of modern games.
Except the train stage
Im getting used to the dark and muddy graphics, even playing it streched. But the owner of a retro game shop told me a non-official AV cable could be making things worst on my n64. So i checked and yes, the av cable that came with the console isnt nintendo branded. I think i still have my original gamecube AV cable on my parents house...
Aside from that, im loving it.
To me its pretty funny that people dont remember Shadows of the empire as a fantastic game. I love it, i love the camera angles, the auto aim blaster, the seeker missile camera, the hilarious scream when a stormtrooper falls from a cliff, the one-hour long stage with no save points in between, the boba fett fight. And the jetpack is just too good, i forgot there was a jetpack in this game.
Feels more fun than a lot of modern games.
Except the train stage
Uncle Rupee
Banned
That's not even the best Ogre Battle game. LOL
lensoftruth
Member
Sixtyforce got updated a month or two ago, mupen64plus core is in OpenEmu
Thanks. Turns out the old owner made a mess with the power cord inside, so it was getting in the way of the R button
Is it just me or does no one talk about Jet Force Gemini as much as they should?
I've really sat down with it for the first time since I got it for Christmas years ago. Honestly, it feels like "Halo before Halo" in a manner of speaking. Lots of tribal inspired music, not so expected sci-fi settings off the bat, enemies that bleed neon and while the story tries to be serious, there are some light comedic undertones with enemy behavior.
Sure the main character design isnt all that (the guy and the dog look fine, but they really could've made a better lady...both in uniform and facial features), but the game is pretty fun, the sound effects are rich, and the soundtrack is great.
I wonder why Nintendo never used the franchise to create another sci-fi shooter of their own aside from Metroid and Star Fox? Or even why Rare never ran with some ideas for the 360...or even Xbox One?
Title Screen
Character select
Goldwood
SS Anubis
I've really sat down with it for the first time since I got it for Christmas years ago. Honestly, it feels like "Halo before Halo" in a manner of speaking. Lots of tribal inspired music, not so expected sci-fi settings off the bat, enemies that bleed neon and while the story tries to be serious, there are some light comedic undertones with enemy behavior.
Sure the main character design isnt all that (the guy and the dog look fine, but they really could've made a better lady...both in uniform and facial features), but the game is pretty fun, the sound effects are rich, and the soundtrack is great.
I wonder why Nintendo never used the franchise to create another sci-fi shooter of their own aside from Metroid and Star Fox? Or even why Rare never ran with some ideas for the 360...or even Xbox One?
Title Screen
Character select
Goldwood
SS Anubis
Is it just me or does no one talk about Jet Force Gemini as much as they should?
I've really sat down with it for the first time since I got it for Christmas years ago. Honestly, it feels like "Halo before Halo" in a manner of speaking. Lots of tribal inspired music, not so expected sci-fi settings off the bat, enemies that bleed neon and while the story tries to be serious, there are some light comedic undertones with enemy behavior.
Sure the main character design isnt all that (the guy and the dog look fine, but they really could've made a better lady...both in uniform and facial features), but the game is pretty fun, the sound effects are rich, and the soundtrack is great.
I wonder why Nintendo never used the franchise to create another sci-fi shooter of their own aside from Metroid and Star Fox? Or even why Rare never ran with some ideas for the 360...or even Xbox One?
Best price in brasil: 25$ + shipping. And its just the cartridge, no box
Also, I own 4 games. Two of em are really hard to make it work. Usually 5+ tries before the cartridge really connects. Already cleaned with isopropyl alcohol, it helped to some extent, but not too much. So im getting kinda scared of paying too much on old cartridges...
xImmortal007x
Banned
How do you guys get these great yard sale scores? The advertisements in our local papers are always so generic with listings such as "game" or "nintendo". Do you just haul ass to all the local yardsales and then just quickly scan for games and leave if nothings there?
I'm on a big N64 collecting kick and want to get some good deals.
I'm on a big N64 collecting kick and want to get some good deals.
sixteen-bit
Member
You'd have much better luck getting N64 stuff at yard sales a decade ago. Now if they say Nintendo it's probably Wii or DS related.
Jonneh3003
Banned
Nothing major, adding Sin and Punishment, Conkers Bad Fur Day and Killer Instinct at some point. Am I missing anything major?
More news: Cen64 author MaratonMan has been rewriting his emulator from scratch (=better) for version 0.3.
It has been making some progress since then, as several games are already booting.
Nothing major, adding Sin and Punishment, Conkers Bad Fur Day and Killer Instinct at some point. Am I missing anything major?
Both Goemon games, Mischief Makers, Star Soldier and Ogre Battle.
Nothing major, adding Sin and Punishment, Conkers Bad Fur Day and Killer Instinct at some point. Am I missing anything major?
whats an n64 passaport plus?
Star Soldier for N64 is a decent shooter but nothing more.
I would add to your suggestions:
Top Gear Rally, Beetle Adventure Racing, Doom 64, Rayman 2, Wetrix, Star Wars Racer, Pilotwings 64, Wave Race.
Edit:
Oh yeah blast corps too.
Pilotwings 64, Wave Race 64, Mischief Makers, and Blast Corps.
chalkitdown1
Member
Lets you play games from all regions.
sixteen-bit
Member
Mischief Makers is a fun platformer. Get it!
Man how'd I forget Wave Race...thats one of my favorite games. So Top Gear Rally is actually pretty good?
chalkitdown1
Member
Top Gear Rally is probably my favourite "serious" racer on the system. Tracks are boring as hell looking but the controls are sublime. Really take a while to master, too. I loved that you could do all kinds of crazy physics shit with the cars, like flipping them over, barrel rolls etc.
A Black Falcon
Member
All four of the Top Gear games on N64 are good! Each one is quite different, too.
Top Gear Rally is the most popular one. It's a slightly realistic arcade-style lap-based racing game. It's got good physics, gameplay, and graphics. Fun stuff. From Boss Games, who went on to make World Driver Championship. Two player splitscreen. This game deserves its good to great reputation!
Top Gear Overdrive is from Snowblind. It's the only N64 Top Gear game with on-cart saving, instead of requiring a controller pak. It's a very arcadey game, more like the SNES Top Gear games than any of the others. It's great fun, but short. There are only a handful of tracks, and nowhere near as many seasons to go through as Top Gear Rally has before you win. The good arcade racing makes it well worth playing, though. It's got four player splitscreen and supports the expansion pak for high res mode.
Top Gear Rally 2 is from... Saffire, I think. It's a more 'realistic' rally racing game, so it's got point-to-point races only. This game has lots of tracks, but as usual in rally games they're all quite similar; there are various environments and track sections which get mixed up in different ways. It's also got license test-style challenges. This isn't a serious sim, the car handling is still arcadey and fun, but it's a little bit more realistic than the other Top Gear games. Good game, though it might be my least favorite of the four. It does have four player splitscreen and expansion pak support.
Last is Top Gear Hyper-Bike, probably the least popular N64 Top Gear game, but I really like it! Top Gear Rally probably is the best one, but Hyper-Bike is great. It's from Snowblind again, only this time they were rushed -- this game released only like six months after TGR2, early in 2000 as opposed to late in the year like the previous three games did (in '97 through '99). I'm not sure why Kemco pushed it out so early, but it's unfortunate. What is here really is good, though! This is a good arcade motorcycle racing game, sort of like Excitebike 64 but not quite as good as that all-time classic. Even if it's not quite Excitebike 64, though, it's still a good game, with great track designs, good graphics, and great arcadey handling. It's only two player (rushed...), but does support the expansion pak. It was originally supposed to have 4 player support and on-cart saving, but both of those were casualties of the early release. I got this game expecting it to be not nearly as good as the other three N64 Top Gear games, but really, it well deserves the label.
Of course, all four of these games are N64 exclusives. It's too bad that Kemco basically gave up on the Top Gear series on consoles after the N64 -- they only made one 6th gen Top Gear game, and it's the not-so-good PS2-exclusive Top Gear: Dare Devil. That one's actually made by Kemco of Japan, making it the only TV console Top Gear game made in Japan; Kemco only made the PS2 game, the first GBA game (Top Gear GT Championship), and the two GBC games. The rest are all Western. (There is one other "Top Gear" game on a 6th-gen TV console, but that game, Top Gear RPM Tuning, is an unrelated European tuner-racing game that Kemco licensed for release in the US and slapped the Top Gear name on.) Anyway, the Top Gear series was great on the SNES and N64! It's too bad that the series, and Kemco, faded afterwards. It's also too bad that this Nintendo-exclusive series in the 5th gen didn't lead to even one 6th-gen Top Gear game on the Gamecube. Ah well.
In my opinion it's one of the hidden gem of the N64.
The problem with TGR is that at the beginning the game does everything to seems bad.
There are three handling to choose from (without giving proper description) but really only the third one is good.
The first track is for novice and it's very shallow (the other tracks are much better).
The first Season (championship) is played with the slowest cars which don't give the proper idea of how fast the game can get with latter cars.
Also with more powerful cars you really need to learn to use the brakes, something that at the beginning seems useless or else you literally fly off the track because the physics engine is somewhat realistic (but it's still an arcade game).
Ah yeah the physics engine, in 1997 this was one of the first game to simulate independently the four wheel suspension.
There are a few bugs with the physics engine but it is also what set apart TGR from other racing game from that era.
Also speaking of 1997, TGR was probably the best console racing game available.
It's still nice looking game to this day (if low res of course).
I'm mastering the game in these days and I would say TGR is in the same league as Sega Rally for Saturn but for different reasons.
SR has a more faithful presentation of the sport (Rally), better track design, phenomenal handling and better production values overall (music is much better for instance) however TGR has far better graphics, is more of a "arcade racer" with a rally theme than a rally simulation (it's more similar to Daytona than SR IMO, there are even shortcuts!), the semi-realistic suspension system make it hard to master but feels good, the progression through the seasons (championships) is better and allow you to unlock new tracks and better cars.
The game soundtrack is low-fi in quality however if you are a fan of Top Gear OST on SNES, you need to know that the same composer worked on TGR (and some music is indeed really catchy).
In the end I think TGR is underappreciated because its quality start to shine only when you are mastering the game and since the beginning is so bad many don't give a fair chance to the game.
Proper gameplay video of Top Gear Rally (not the fastest car though):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kWuUP225So
EDIT:
Don't bother with TGR2, different developer.
I strongly dislike the game.
TG Overdrive is a looker but I find it shallow (rely too much on the cheap thrill of insanely high speed).
To Gear Rally on GBA is also very good for the system it is on.
The last Top Gear game should be the DS game.
A Black Falcon
Member
I don't think Top Gear Rally is under-appreciated. It's often mentioned as being one of the better N64 racing games, after all.
"Strongly dislike"? Why? How odd... it's a perfectly good rally racing game! Sure, I do think it's the least good of the four N64 Top Gear games, but it's still a fine game. It's a lot better than V-Rally '99 Edition for the N64, and might be better than Rally Challenge 2000 too; it does have point-to-point races, something that game doesn't have. It's probably the best more realistically-styled N64 rally racing game.
Bah, high speeds and fun gameplay are all you need to have a good game.
That's a very simple game, but sure, it's decent fun. The GBC games are sort of like that too, and they're good.
That's true, yes. Top Gear Downforce. It was designed as a Top Gear game, but only actually has the Top Gear name in Australia; Kemco didn't release it in the US, since they were mostly dead at that point. The game released in the US a few years later, from Majesco, as Super Speed Machines. I have that version; it's a good, but not great, game. It's kind of interesting that the only topdown Top Gear game is the last one, not one of the early ones, but it's true! The game is from Tantalus, the same developer as Top Gear Rally for the GBA, but in gameplay it's quite different from that game because of the different perspective.
On that note, the only Top Gear games I don't have are the Genesis and Amiga versions of Top Gear 2, Top Gear RPM Tuning for Xbox (if you count it as a Top Gear game), and Top Gear GT Championship for GBA. I have the three SNES games, the four N64 games, the two GBC games, Rally for GBA, and the PS2 and DS games.
Hahaha, my man!
I played Mischief Makers last week, I had an old save that was just near the end so I tackled it since its been quite a few years since I finished it.
So good, Mischief Makers is a must buy.
I was in a nostalgic mood and decided to hook up my PAL N64 to my TV to play some Body Harvest and Ocarina of Time. Ocarina of Time, however felt extremely slow compared to the 3DS version, and after some googling I found out that this is due to poor PAL optimization, causing the game to run slower than intended. Good thing I never noticed this as a kid.... Body Harvest did seem PAL optimized though.
Is it worth it to actually buy a NTSC N64? Do a lot of PAL N64 games suffer from poor optimization?
Is it worth it to actually buy a NTSC N64? Do a lot of PAL N64 games suffer from poor optimization?
Jonneh3003
Banned
How playable are the Mario Party games in Japanese? The PAL prices are ridiculous however the NTSC-J versions are super cheap (I don't speak any Japanese)
After some searching on the internet, I found this list. It's not even close to being complete, but it's the best I could find.
If you can live without instructions on how to play the minigames; it should be pretty straightforward. Just press the Practice button before pressing Start so that you can guess what to do before you lose any coins.
A Black Falcon
Member
You can do it, but it's challenging; the menus are entirely in Japanese, so learn it all and/or use a walkthrough, and of course figuring out what to do in the minigames will take trial and error, since those instructions are all in Japanese as well. I have the Japanese version of the third game. It's playable with effort, but it'd definitely be more fun in English.
I'd get the JP Mario Party games just for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWD88E6Arv0
what in the heck is going on in the comments for that vid?!?
I don't know, I'm stuck somewhere where I'm not supposed to use much wifi so I hadn't even looked, I just linked an old link. But now I'm going to go and look, lol!
Edit: OH MY GOD what the hell?! I just had a quick look but it seems like it's got way too much potential to distract me right now, I'm supposed to be writing!
Ein Bear
Member
Nostalgia has got the best of me, so have just bought an NTSC N64 off eBay. I live in the UK, so will be cool to get to play these games in full-screen, 60hz for the first time.
Now to start collecting games. I just wish it was easier to find games that are in good condition boxes, my heart can't take loose cartridges.
Now to start collecting games. I just wish it was easier to find games that are in good condition boxes, my heart can't take loose cartridges.
Conrad Link
Member
There's something charming about that N64 poly model Bowser, makes me happy looking at it. Maybe just yearning for the old days.
Hey, I was browsing indiegogo and kickstarter and I discovered this -
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gliden64-graphics-plugin/x/4364299
It's a project to create a more modern graphics plugin for N64 emulation by the looks of it.
Anyone got more information on this? I really want more perfect N64 emulation so I can hook up some N64 controllers, connect my PC to the CRT and get lost in modern nostalgia...
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gliden64-graphics-plugin/x/4364299
It's a project to create a more modern graphics plugin for N64 emulation by the looks of it.
Anyone got more information on this? I really want more perfect N64 emulation so I can hook up some N64 controllers, connect my PC to the CRT and get lost in modern nostalgia...
Hey, I was browsing indiegogo and kickstarter and I discovered this -
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gliden64-graphics-plugin/x/4364299
It's a project to create a more modern graphics plugin for N64 emulation by the looks of it.
Anyone got more information on this? I really want more perfect N64 emulation so I can hook up some N64 controllers, connect my PC to the CRT and get lost in modern nostalgia...
I wish somebody could develop some sort of mod to, you know, "up-res" a real n64
Brighter colors, less jaggies, no configuration needed...
That is something i could really put money on...
Modding a real n64 to output at higher resolution? That's impossible. At best someone could put a small PC into a N64 shell and wire up the cartridge reader and controller ports.
There is a real GameCube mod to get digital audio, but you need an older Cube with component cables which are really expensive.
xclaw
Member
If you're good at soldering you can install a HDMI output right on the board prior to video processing but all it'll do it give one heck of a clean output at 640x480 or whatever. Short of playing around with an emulator we're stuck with what we have.
sixteen-bit
Member
how's that going by the way? it has been a while since I heard about that mod.
I check it from time to time. He changed the release date from Q1 2014 to Q3 2014. No other news
Pancakes R Us
Member
Can anyone recommend a decent N64 emulator for Macs? I never did finish DK64 back in the day and would be willing to buy a cart off eBay if there's a decent emulator available. I'd get a N64...but space issues. Already have Wii U, Wii and will soon have my Gamecube set up. ARGH.
blast processed
Member
Does anyone have any experience with these box protectors? I have a ton of carts that I want cases for but don't want to spend $78 with shipping for qty 100, if they're crap. I plan on using the Cover Project to either print my own, or take them to staples and have them do it.
Hmm, now I wonder if I should get my N64 RGB modded or wait for this.
We live in an age of technological wonders, where everything is possible (except anything i want)