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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
California Speed - AAGAAG - 67% (6)
Earthworm Jim 3D - BBBBBB - 0% (6)
Itoi Shigesato no Bass Tsuri No. 1 Ketteiban - AA - 50% (2)
Shin Nippon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Road 2 - AA - 50% (2)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - GGAGBGGG - 81% (8)
WinBack: Covert Operations - GGGAGAG - 86% (7) (2 SR)
I was actually surprised by how many votes this topic got despite the relatively low number of posts, which must mean that most people rated a lot of the games. I guess due to the low number of games on N64, many people have played a pretty decent percentage of them.
Games for this topic:
Automobili Lamborghini
Daikatana
Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck
Magical Tetris Challenge
NFL QB Club 2001
V-Rally Edition '99
I remember enjoying Duck Dodgers, but I've never gone back to it, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it holds up. Also, there was originally a different FPS game in this topic, but I couldn't fit its name in the topic title, so I swapped it for the relatively shorter Daikatana.
Automobili Lamborghini - A
ReplyDeleteDaikatana - G
Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck - G
Magical Tetris Challenge - A
NFL QB Club 2001 - A
V-Rally Edition '99 - B
Automobili Lamborghini is a decent enough game, which is high praise for a game made by Titus, but that's about all you can say about it. It is a competent but basic arcade racer with 6 tracks that controls pretty decently and runs well, even in splitscreen, which is probably its most impressive feat. There are a few unlockable cars, but generally there's little progression and not a whole lot to do here. It's functional, which again, is very surprising for a Titus game, but there are tons of better racers on the system. In particular, I feel this pales significantly to California Speed in virtually every way. Still, probably the best game Titus ever made.
I'm probably going to get crap for this but I think Daikatana is fun. It's basically just Quake but with more weapons and a heavier focus on story. Obviously, Quake's engine is good, the game runs pretty smooth, and has surprisingly solid visuals, particularly in terms of texture design, which is quite well done. The cutscenes in this version are complete trash, though, featuring laughably stiff animation and no voice acting, which is too bad because the plot is otherwise pretty interesting. As far as the gameplay is concerned, it's classic Quake but with a ton of diverse and varied weapons to use. I do wish swapping them was a little easier, Turok's weapon swap wheel would have come in immensely handy here, but the Dpad is serviceable. By far the biggest issue with the game is that it has backwards controls, the Stick is used to aim and the C Buttons move, and there's no way to change this unless you're using an emulator, but if you can get past this one aspect of the game it's pretty solid. I also like how varied the settings are and the levels are generally a decent length, though the fact that there are no checkpoints whatsoever can be a bit of an issue if you ever fall into a pit or something. Honestly, I think this game was just a victim of the reputation of the PC version. I watched footage of that version and it looks like it has a ton of issues, but pretty much all of that nonsense is gone in the N64 version, for example your allies never show up during gameplay so you don't have to spend the whole game protecting them, you can just focus on good old Quake gameplay. It's no Goldeneye and Quake 64 has better control options but this is still one of the better FPS games on the system IMO.
Duck Dodgers is a fairly solid 3D platformer but I can also kind of see why I didn't remember too much about it. The best things about the game are its presentation and variety. In terms of presentation, the entire game has a nice, clean look to it that meshes well with the franchise, and it's also quite nicely animated with good attention to detail. Something I noticed for example is that when Daffy talks (which he does a lot), his mouth is properly lip-synced, even for his random quips during gameplay. Speaking of which, Daffy is quite charming and funny as usual, the endless cavalcade of 90s animal mascots wish they had half of his 'tude and panache. As far as the gameplay is concerned, it's fairly basic. Daffy has a very standard 3D platformer moveset, with a typical double jump, ground pound, and basic attack, and the core gameplay mostly consists of exploring 3D worlds to find atoms, which are little different from any other collectable in a game like this. The one area where the game does stand out to some extent is that there's quite a bit of level variety. The areas in the game are generally divided into scenes, which tend to vary a fair bit from one to the next (I also like that they tell you how many atoms are in each one), and the planets themselves are also very varied as well. I feel there's little that especially stands out, but it's varied and funny enough to help you get through the adventure. I don't think I'd really call this a classic, but it's a solid outing for the franchise and a decent time for fans of the genre.
DeleteI'm pretty much in agreement with tepid_goo on Magical Tetris Challenge. The game offers two modes, Magical Tetris and Updown Tetris, which is really just regular Tetris. In Magical Tetris, clearing lines sends various attacks to the opponent that change their pieces, but if they play well it's not that hard to defend against these, so even though they do mix up the game a bit, the lack of any ability to attack the opponent directly often leads to these matches taking forever. By comparison, in regular Tetris, clearing lines sends nearly filled lines to the bottom of your opponent's stack as it does in most versions of Tetris, and these matches tend to go much faster. While the Magical Tetris mode could maybe be an interesting diversion against another player, I find it too slow-paced to want to play against the AI for more than a couple rounds, so in the end, it tends to play just like normal Tetris. Compared to Tetris 64, which I think I gave a low G to, this mode boasts the ability to play against the AI, though I think Tetris 64's selection of modes is somewhat better (it also features normal Tetris plus a gimmick mode, Giga Tetris, though I like that one better), so I guess which is better depends heavily on how much you value VS Com mode (or 4-player support, which 64 has but not Magical Tetris). Overall I think Tetris 64 is just marginally better enough that Magical Tetris Challenge is probably a high A, but I can see how different people might prefer one or the other.
NFL QB Club 2001 is a weird one because I feel that it seems quite good on paper, but I find it very fun. The presentation of the game is quite good, the visuals are decent, though not quite as good as some of the later Madden games, and it has good commentary, so that's a good start. Mechanically, this is a game where defense is pretty strong, which isn't a bad thing as it forces you to play more strategically and earn your first downs. I think my main issue with the game really just comes down to a bunch of minor annoyances with the gameplay that add up to make the experience more frustrating than it should be. One of the first things I find annoying is play selection. It feels overly hard in this game to identify which plays are passes and which are runs, probably because handoffs in this game are not automatic as they are in most other games and can be missed, and also because the play icons are pretty small and overly busy (compare Madden for example). As such, I quickly found myself gravitating to a very small handful of plays that I understood and worked decently well. Even when I did manage to find a proper passing play, a great source of annoyance for me is that catching in this game is not automatic, you have to press C-Left to make the receiver catch the ball, which just feels like an unnecessary mechanic, particularly since you also use the C buttons to select who to pass to. Speaking of, I'm also not a fan of how you have to use all of the C-buttons while running the ball as well, in general the controls for this game tend to feel somewhat awkward on the N64 controller. I also find it extremely annoying that the AI wastes 10 seconds on literally every play before they hike the ball. I'm aware that running the clock is a legitimate strategy, but it slows the pace of the game quite a lot and the AI does it even when it's not helpful to them. I guess the game is going for a more simulation feel compared to Madden, but I feel like most of the changes that it makes simply make the game less fun, and I significantly prefer playing Madden or Blitz. I guess part of the issues is that when it comes to Football there's not a huge difference mechanically between Sim and Arcade style (compare Basketball, where the difference is massive), so it's a bit hard for a game to carve out a unique niche compared to the established titans of the genre.
DeleteV-Rally 99 is another one of those cases that proves my point that you often know a game's rating within the first 5 minutes, especially for racing games. If a racing game controls like garbage, it's virtually always B, as is the case with V-Rally 99. For starters, it's barely even a Rally game, there's no concept of car damage or anything like that, it's basically just a racing game with mushy, awful controls and completely illogical physics. If you hit the slightest bump in the road the car bounces around like it only weighs a few pounds, and given how lousy the handling controls are this happens often. The game has many tracks, but they're generally very uninteresting from a design perspective, and the lousy driving engine means that none of them are fun to race. I can't believe I'm saying this but you should definitely stick to Titus's game this time around.