This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Mace: The Dark Age - AGAAAAABA - 50% (9)
Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr - GGGGGA - 92% (6)
Mario Kart 64 - GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGAGGGGGGG - 98% (25) (2 SR)
Rampage World Tour - BBABGAGAAAGA - 50% {12}
Rugrats: Scavenger Hunt - AAABA - 40% (5)
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter - GGGGGGAAGAGGGGGA - 88% (16)
Another topic with absolutely crazy turnout, we've already surpassed the record we set back in GAB #1 for vote count. Rampage also becomes the game with the most votes ever to get the squiggle bracket (which for those who don't recall means that all 3 votes comprise at least 20% of the total). Mario Kart also has the highest score ever that isn't 100%.
Games for this topic:
Bassmasters 2000
Chameleon Twist
Extreme-G
Mia Hamm 64 Soccer
Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Volume 1
WWF War Zone
Hilariously, there is no Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Volume 2 (or higher) on N64, for whatever reason those games only appeared on DC. Almost all of the other games in this topic have sequels later on in the system's life, but not that one.
Bassmasters 2000 - A
ReplyDeleteChameleon Twist - G
Extreme G - A
Mia Hamm 64 Soccer - B
Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Volume 1 - A
WWF War Zone - G
Fishing games have certainly come a long way since the 16-bit days. Bassmasters 2000 is actually a fairly technically impressive game, with a fully 3D lake that you can cruise around and full camera control underwater when attempting to hook fish. The core gameplay is not drastically changed from most older fishing titles, where 90% of the game is spent trying to find a fish to catch, though at least you do have access to a sonar and the fact that you can look underwater helps some, but generally the fun part of a fishing game is actually catching the fish. However, the main fishing tournament mode is not the only mode here! There's also a Speed Fishing mode where you forego the boat to simply fish in a lake, which is chock full of fish who want to bite, and this mode is vastly more fun. There's kind of an interesting gimmick where you have 3 mintues to catch as many fish as you can, but catching fish extends the time, which means you'll want to try to reel fish in fast, but obviously this runs the risk of accidentally snapping the line if you try to fight them too hard. Speaking of the actual fishing gameplay, it's very similar to many other games, you'll reel when the fish is tired, and let them run a bit when they want to run, but the smart angler tries to give a little bit of resistance while they're running to discourage them from doing it. It feels kind of like Nushi Tsuri 64, though a fair bit easier since you have a visual tension meter to let you know when you're being too rough with your line. The Speed Fishing mode is solid, but it's not enormously fleshed out (there's only 3 fishing spots), so I'm not sure if I'd recommend the game for that alone, but it's certainly a sign of good things to come, as we are only a few years away at this point from fishing games realizing that this sort of gameplay is the direction the genre needs to move in.
It might be short and easy, but I've always liked Chameleon Twist. For starters, it's clearly very original. The many things you can do with the character's tounge are novel and allow for a fair number of neat tricks if trying to play fast (which the game encourages to some extent because it times you). The game is also very cute and has generally nice presentation for its time, even if the camera is very uncooperative at times. As mentioned before, it's not a long game, with only 6 stages, though finding the hidden crowns provides a little bit of replay value. Also, as a random aside, the Japanese version of this game has quite a number of changes and upgrades that aren't in the original version. This is probably only barely G, but it's still worth trying out.
I had an irrational hatred for Extreme G back in the day, often citing it as my least-favourite N64 game. Clearly a lot of this is because of how ludicrous Canadian game prices were in the N64 era, I remember I paid $90 for a USED copy of the game back in the day, and it definitely wasn't worth that price. Despite that, the game is not really THAT bad but it does have some issues. The first, and most obvious issue that I note is that the AI in this game is far too fast and aggressive. Even if you're driving at maximum speed and making few to no mistakes, the AI will still blast past you on the straightaways on the easiest difficulty setting and they are absolutely brutal with weapons. You will have to make extremely good use of your nitros and weapons to keep up even on the simplest tracks. Speaking of, the game also has some standard N64-style problems with certain tracks having significant frame drops or having too much fog. The desert tracks run well, but most of the rest of the game has at least minor issues with one or the other. The third, and perhaps most annoying issue is the way the main campaign mode works. Extreme G has 12 tracks which are divided into 3 cups, so you would assume there'd just be 4 tracks per cup, like in every other racing game, but no, the first cup has 4 tracks, the second has 8 tracks, including the first 4 tracks again, and the third has all 12 tracks. As you can imagine, playing the second and third cups is an absolute slog and I have no idea why they did it this way. As for the core driving gameplay, it's not bad, the game feels fast (when the framerate holds, anyway) and the tracks feel different enough, though it is clearly not on F-Zero X's level. If some of the issues with the game were cleaned up I could see the case for it being a low G, but as it stands I think it's more of a low A. There's a bit to like here, but you'll need a lot of patience.
DeleteMia Hamm 64 Soccer is an extremely basic Soccer game. In a certain sense it is functional, but neither the presentation nor the gameplay are remarkable in any way. The game's UI is super basic and the players all look exactly the same, and it also features maybe the most unenthusiastic commentary of all time, which kind of highlights what a ho-hum affair it all is. Gameplay is about what you'd expect, you have basic passes, shots, and tackles, but with almost none of the nuance that you'd get from ISS 64. In fact, ISS 64 is just such a drastically better game in every way that this game really just has little reason to exist. The only "advantage" you could give this game is that it's more simplistic, but I feel ISS 64 does such a good job of being accessible that this is of little to no value.
There's honestly not too much to say about Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits that hasn't already been said, so I'll keep it fairly short. One thing I kind of appreciate about this game is that there are some titles that you don't see all that often here, particularly Tapper, though the emulation quality of the games is not quite as arcade-perfect as I'd like, so that brings things down a bit. Starting in the next generation, we'll start seeing compilations of arcade games that both contain drastically more games and feature generally much more accurate emulation (ie, the Midway Arcade Treasures series), so it's hard to recommend going back to these versions, but they were somewhat functional for their time.
DeleteOn a technical level I would imagine you can probably make the case that the Aki wrestling games are more polished or complex, but I just can't deny the fact that War Zone is more fun. For starters, the presentation in this game is fantastic. Most notably, this game has excellent commentary and crowd noise, with unique commentary and chants for each wrestler, which really helps the match come alive (this is something the Aki games are sorely lacking). The moves themselves look great too and have a very satisfying crunch when they land. The selection of Wrestlers is also incredible, with pretty much everyone you would want from this era, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, The Rock, Bret Hart, Triple H, The Undertaker, and Kane, to name a few. Gameplay-wise, it's somewhat basic, with moves being performed by combinations of directional inputs and button presses, but it's simple enough to be accessible without being totally repetitive, and I do like the way the stun system in the game works, it feels intuitive and gives the game a good sense of back and forth. There is create-a-wrestler, but it's very basic, so you'll probably stick to the existing WWE Superstars for the most part. It's not a complicated game by any means, but it nails what I want out of a Wrestling game better than most.