The Decade of the N64 131
1up is running a piece looking back at the ten years since the N64's launch. The start of Nintendo's slump, the N64 still managed to come out of the console wars with some great and lasting memories, like GoldenEye, Smash Bros., and Ocarina of Time. From the article: "Nintendo certainly gave players plenty of time to get all 120 stars. By the end of 1996, the N64 still had fewer than a dozen games, and even that anemic library was glutted with mediocrity like Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Cruis'n USA. Sure, there were gems like Mario Kart 64 and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, and there was the stubborn optimism of Nintendo of America President Howard Lincoln (who insisted N64 games sold more than 250,000 per title), but industry commentators were starting to see through the emperor's clothes. Meanwhile, Sony was turning up the heat with massive blockbusters like Final Fantasy VII." The Press the Buttons blog has some additional commentary on Nintendo's first 'meh' console.
It wasn't great, but Mencia wasn't entirely right (Score:2, Informative)
It wasn't a 'meh' console, it was simply one that had had quality and not quantity. I'd still play mine if the controllers weren't prone to get that wobbly joystick feeling after almost no time. I guess that's my only complaint, the controllers sucked in terms of quality.
Re:Meh? (Score:5, Informative)
Although from that list, 8 of the titles had multiplayer play as one of their biggest features (sure, you could play Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, and Bomberman single-player, and we did, but a huge part of those games was playing with/against your friends), so if you didn't have many friends that played video games back then the N64 probably wasn't for you. Me and my brother had 3 or 4 friends over every weekend, and there would always be at least 4 of us crowding the N64. We played every multiplayer game on that list for hundreds of hours. Every group of friends I hung out at the time had and played the N64, and every gathering would see 4-player of some game or other. To us, the Playstation was a laughingstock. There was absolutely no value in it. Sure, you could sit alone playing FFVII or whatnot, or you could all hang out and have insane amounts of fun playing the N64. So, it was the N64 for us.
I didn't even know that the PSX outsold the N64 until well into the Gamecube era. I started hearing that Sony won that generation and was very confused, because out of probably 15 or so people that we played games with regularly, only 2 had a playstation.
Its the same with the Gamecube for me. I have no interest in most single-player games. The only exception to that this generation has been Mario Sunshine and Zelda Wind Waker. Those are my two single-player games. My multiplayer games are: Super Smash Bros Melee, Mario Kart Double Dash, Wario Ware, Zelda Four Swords, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, some Mario Parties, Monkey Ball, F-Zero GX, Pacman VS, and so on. All the gamecube is missing is a decent shooter (the closest I know of this generation on any console is Halo, but Halo pales in comparison with Perfect Dark, so we play Perfect Dark on the 64 instead).
Celebrate with a new Mario 64 100% speed run (Score:1, Informative)
Re:N64! (Score:3, Informative)
That said, the so-called "time limit" wasn't even much of a factor for most things. It was mainly used for repeating certain events so that you can figure out peoples schedules, and get some of the optional masks or heart pieces. Did you miss an event? Oops, reset the timer, fast-forward to where you want to be, and do it again. 30 seconds lost.
My guess is that you never even tried it. Just like most of the people who think that Wind Waker sucks have never even played it. (IMO, Wind Waker has one of the most believable, cohesive worlds ever presented in a video game. Sure, there are flaws, but no game except Tetris is perfect.)
--Jeremy