Do You Have Any Unpopular Gaming Opinions?

[Jmustang1968]

It depends for sequels. If Ocarina didnt have a remake, it is a definitively unique game in its own right. But for games likes Mario Kart and Smash, there really isn't much incentive to play these anymore with the newer releases.

I would say you're wrong about Mario Kart actually. I still feel the N64 release is the pinnacle of the series, though it's an excellent series over all. But you're right on about Smash.

While I enjoyed the original, I think some of the more recent releases did what it did and more. Obviously this is a subjective thing, but it is why some of us dont care for the n64 as much anymore.

[ElkinFencer10]

While I would agree that the number of games that I like on the system is far smaller than any other major console, I still like it a good amount. Now I'm curious what your faves are.

I think, at the time, it was the place for kart racers, it played host to two excellent Zelda games, had Mario 64 and its Rare imitations, and Goldeneye / Perfect Dark. Oh, and Paper Mario! Those made it worthwhile, in my mind.

Plus, delve down just a bit more, and there's a good Ogre Battle game, weird stuff like Hybrid Heaven, Blast Corps, so yeah, I think my number on that is probably a bit higher than yours... but it's still not very large. Probably 20-ish.

I will say that I LOVED Perfect Dark when it came out, and still have fond memories of it. Not sure if the control scheme/graphics hold up today though. That is one of my beefs with the N64 is it feels like the graphics just don't hold up today while I could happily play a 16 bit console or the original Playstation. Dunno, probably that muddy look of some N64 games.

Also loved/have fond memories of Pokemon Snap, so I suppose there are a few games I could revisit.

If you've got decent cords and especially the RAM expander, most N64 games (at least from my experience) look better than PS1 games. The N64 was a much more powerful piece of hardware.

[Tanooki]

N64 gets kind of a bad wrap, but also due to Nintendo also kind of deserves it. The system itself, lack of a disc it should have had to really change the tide aside, has some nice stuff you can't get elsewhere at the time. Even then there were some admirable later in life conversions too worth owning too (Mega Man 64, RE2, its own version of Ridge Racer.)

I don't have a huge library of them, but given only 300 games came out for it I own nearly 1/10 of the library. I could see buying more, but I don't because I'd imagine using them once or twice then probably getting rid of them due to not caring as much as I did back then or just aging poorly. I've sold off 4-5 N64 games in the last couple of weeks due to that. Currently I have 33 games and 2 are JP imports people love (Bangaioh and Sin & Punishment I got on a hugely lucky US based seller find last year in one lot on ebay that went unnoticed thankfully.)

Those aside, stuff like Bomberman Hero, Castlevania Legacy of Darkness, both Goemon games, Conker (and for others the other Rare platformers), 007 and PD, the 1st party titles, Indiana Jones, the Star Wars games, Star Soldier, some PC conversions (quakes, hexen, etc) are solid, and also some Midway arcade conversions work nicely too. There are other uniques like DOOM64, some racing games (Beetle Adventure Racing among others more serious like F1 and Rally stuff) that are worthwhile. You just have to dig and look into it a bit, and even then some people may end up hating on a game a lot like say Quest 64 but I do like it due to it not being another me-too RPG trope.

[Sarge]

The RAM cart only really helped a few games. The ones that used it best were probably DK64 and Majora's Mask, which required it. Of the optional games, probably the Star Wars shooters like Rogue Squadron. I remember games like Perfect Dark, Hybrid Heaven, and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness using them, but the framerate went to pot if you enabled hi-res mode.

Good cables are almost a must for the system, though. Things are blurry enough as it is, no sense adding another layer on top. S-Video is sufficient, and makes things look quite nice, despite some really smeary texturing.

[Tanooki]

Castlevania I don't recall slowing down, at least any worse than without but it did add high res and nicer textures.

Indiana Jones used it very well. 640x480, sharper visuals, better details on stuff, framerate didn't take a hit, and the game added a stage to play too. There's a list out there of games using it, one grossly wrong someone quoted recently I saw but the wiki has a general list of any game that taps it. In many cases like Indy or Extreme G 2 it would add a higher res, cleaner visuals, and not take a speed hit. But some did take a hit to trade off being nicer to the eyes.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Castlevania I don't recall slowing down, at least any worse than without but it did add high res and nicer textures.

I played Legacy of Darkness not too long ago, and that game takes a MAJOR hit when you turn on the higher res textures. Maybe it was only in the opening cutscene, but the opening cutscene was all I needed to convince me that turning it on would nuke my framerate.

Is Indiana Jones 64 good? I've heard mixed things about it. I'd hope it'd be good for like the 30 bucks it goes for.

[Gunstar Green]

The RAM cart only really helped a few games. The ones that used it best were probably DK64 and Majora's Mask, which required it. Of the optional games, probably the Star Wars shooters like Rogue Squadron. I remember games like Perfect Dark, Hybrid Heaven, and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness using them, but the framerate went to pot if you enabled hi-res mode.

Good cables are almost a must for the system, though. Things are blurry enough as it is, no sense adding another layer on top. S-Video is sufficient, and makes things look quite nice, despite some really smeary texturing.

Perfect Dark also required it for the single player campaign if I'm remembering right. You were limited to multi-player without it.

[Sarge]

Oh, wow, I had no clue that PD wouldn't work without the expansion. I had one by the time I got a copy, so I just assumed that it wasn't necessary since you could toggle low-res and hi-res modes.

[ElkinFencer10]

Starcraft 64 required it for 2 player games.

[Tanooki]

Castlevania I don't recall slowing down, at least any worse than without but it did add high res and nicer textures.

I played Legacy of Darkness not too long ago, and that game takes a MAJOR hit when you turn on the higher res textures. Maybe it was only in the opening cutscene, but the opening cutscene was all I needed to convince me that turning it on would nuke my framerate.

Is Indiana Jones 64 good? I've heard mixed things about it. I'd hope it'd be good for like the 30 bucks it goes for.

I'll give you that I do remember the opening going down, but when playing it's fine or I'd have never used it. I remember it being as flowing as the game without, maybe a hair better but I doubt it.

Now Indiana Jones I'd 100% recommend with a caveat. Go into it knowing what I learned at E3 back in 2000 from the last guy on the project thanks to douche Lucas. The game was in co-development along with Battle for Naboo, but since SW was hot crap Lucas made an executive decision to remove the entire team but one guy in later beta on it to the SW game. I met the guy at the show, stressed out, he started talking about his annoyance/anger over it and having to patch bugs as best he could, finish up touching up some audio and visual bits, general cohesion of the game and under a tight deadline. And then only after (show me seeing him) to then decide to go rental with it and only make 10000 copies as to not maybe hurt Naboo's sales (big bitch move.)

It has bugs, it WILL crash, I'm not saying it can, it WILL. If you go into it accepting that and saving often, like anytime you solve a puzzle, or make it a rule every 15min just to hit the save button, go for it. The vastly most often bomb it does is it will start to act up a little, maybe slow down, a good queue to save NOW. Shortly after it will lock up, audio sometimes gets stuck, but usually it's quiet and you get this vomitous rainbow pixel puke all over the screen. It bombs out so hard you can't even use the N64 reset button, you have to flip the switch to clear the memory on the system to start over. If that is an issue, ignore it, and ignore the PC one too as it's in its own way buggy as well and it has a really will murder Indy swinging camera system and busted controls.

The N64 version the camera, controls, and look around they cloned Ocarina of Time and it's awesome (I've played both.) The story is top notch, the locations are detailed and huge (especially for N64 without even requiring the RAM pack, though with it as I said before it boosts things nicely.) The game is superior or equal to the PC in every way as they both max at 640x480, both everything with a line of text will speak, both have the same quality audio, same quality video and textures, and the N64 version adds a fun stage to it. The N64 one crashes, but that aside it matches and surpasses the PC game.

One bug I will note, it's 100% crash rated too. I forget the stage name, towards the end you have these couple of crates, and a 1 man phone booth type box car over a ravine on a cable. You have the move the boxes to end the level and board it. Logic would state, pull the box until it's out of the way -- do that, it crashes, start over from last save. If you pull once, go around push once, then back around and pull again -- no crash. Keep that in mind if you try it.

There is an emulator out there, I think it's that mugen one, and some very picky graphics plugin someone made, but it will run the PAL version of Indy as it was nearly I think made for it. Maybe you can test drive it that way. I never bothered since I have kept the CIB game all these years.