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N64 Games I Played Recently, Reviewed
5 years ago
So, after getting N64 emulation working, I ended up playing some N64 games.
-Goldeneye-
To no ones surprise, Goldeneye holds up. Playing it on Agent is a breezy playthrough. Secret Agent can get tough at points. Particularally control and Aztec. I persevered and did finish the game, and got most of the cheats up to that point. I considered playing 00 Agent, but I didn't feel up to the grind. But maybe some day I'll go back and try and get that Facility inviciblity cheat that evaded me when I was a kid.
-007 World Is Not Enough-
I've wanted to play this game for a while. What little I heard of it wasn't good. I played the game on agent and they were right. It doesn't seem so bad at first. The graphics are nice, and the gunplay is fast and responsive. It also has some nice cutscenes and even full voice acting.
There's some weird rules though. eg. Using the stun watch or punching people counts as lethal damage, though tranquilizers are ok. If you so much as graze a civilian, they die and you fail the mission, but you can allow them to gunned down by the bad guys without consequence. As such, there's no reason to try and save the random civvies since doing so is dangerous, only the mission critical hostages matter.
I think the real flaw with the game is the level design. It's awful, committing almost every level design sin I can think of off the top of my head. Instant fail stealth missions, check. Escort quests, check. Underwater maze, check. Lengthy unskipable talking scenes before action scenes with no checkpoints, check. Enemies attacking from outside the draw distance, check. Shitty boss fight after lengthy level with no checkpoints, check. The last level is so bad it's second only to Armoured Core in the bad final level competition.
It's telling that the games best level, a London subway filled with bad guys that reminded me of Soldier of Fortune, avoids most of these gimmicks. Focusing instead on fairly straight forward action.
Multiplayer is ...interesting. There's bots too which is nice. There are 2 things I want to mention though. First, you have the option to set how detailed the weapon models are, ranging from close to single player detail, to basically textured boxes not too different from the kind of weapons I made during my early 3D game attempts. Second, you aren't allowed to have good characters fight each other, which is a strange restriction.
One final thing I want to mention. The Playstation game seems to share similar assets like graphics and sounds, but the levels are different. I might give that a try some time, see if it's better.
-Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire-
Nostalgia fuelled retro gamers remember Shadows of the Empire as a great game back in the day. I never owned it, but I think I rented it a few times, or played it round a friends house. But I've seen a YouTube review complain that this is a bad game not worth revisiting. I didn't get far in the game, but what I played so far was fun, which I wasn't expecting because I heard it didn't hold up.
-F-Zero X-
F-Zero X holds up. The models are blocky, but the fast paced racing with smooth frame rate and controls keep it fun to play all these years later.
Most of the AI tricks common in racing games even today like rubber banding, aren't present here. The only trick I noticed is that a random few racers will be chosen to place highly more often than not. One thing I liked about GX was that this trickery wasn't present, so you could win a tournament despite not placing first due to being consistent. You can kind of do that here as well, but it's not as easy.
That said, this is some real nitty gritty stuff. The core gameplay of 30 super sonic cars battling it out over courses that twist and loop like roller coasters is great fun. You can also destroy other cars on the feild, so a well timed nudge to take out a rival is a viable strategy.
It's just well put together from top to bottom, and holds up great.
And that's about it for N64 games so far. I want to go back and play through Body Harvest, see if it's how I remember it, but otherwise I'm playing other stuff.
-Goldeneye-
To no ones surprise, Goldeneye holds up. Playing it on Agent is a breezy playthrough. Secret Agent can get tough at points. Particularally control and Aztec. I persevered and did finish the game, and got most of the cheats up to that point. I considered playing 00 Agent, but I didn't feel up to the grind. But maybe some day I'll go back and try and get that Facility inviciblity cheat that evaded me when I was a kid.
-007 World Is Not Enough-
I've wanted to play this game for a while. What little I heard of it wasn't good. I played the game on agent and they were right. It doesn't seem so bad at first. The graphics are nice, and the gunplay is fast and responsive. It also has some nice cutscenes and even full voice acting.
There's some weird rules though. eg. Using the stun watch or punching people counts as lethal damage, though tranquilizers are ok. If you so much as graze a civilian, they die and you fail the mission, but you can allow them to gunned down by the bad guys without consequence. As such, there's no reason to try and save the random civvies since doing so is dangerous, only the mission critical hostages matter.
I think the real flaw with the game is the level design. It's awful, committing almost every level design sin I can think of off the top of my head. Instant fail stealth missions, check. Escort quests, check. Underwater maze, check. Lengthy unskipable talking scenes before action scenes with no checkpoints, check. Enemies attacking from outside the draw distance, check. Shitty boss fight after lengthy level with no checkpoints, check. The last level is so bad it's second only to Armoured Core in the bad final level competition.
It's telling that the games best level, a London subway filled with bad guys that reminded me of Soldier of Fortune, avoids most of these gimmicks. Focusing instead on fairly straight forward action.
Multiplayer is ...interesting. There's bots too which is nice. There are 2 things I want to mention though. First, you have the option to set how detailed the weapon models are, ranging from close to single player detail, to basically textured boxes not too different from the kind of weapons I made during my early 3D game attempts. Second, you aren't allowed to have good characters fight each other, which is a strange restriction.
One final thing I want to mention. The Playstation game seems to share similar assets like graphics and sounds, but the levels are different. I might give that a try some time, see if it's better.
-Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire-
Nostalgia fuelled retro gamers remember Shadows of the Empire as a great game back in the day. I never owned it, but I think I rented it a few times, or played it round a friends house. But I've seen a YouTube review complain that this is a bad game not worth revisiting. I didn't get far in the game, but what I played so far was fun, which I wasn't expecting because I heard it didn't hold up.
-F-Zero X-
F-Zero X holds up. The models are blocky, but the fast paced racing with smooth frame rate and controls keep it fun to play all these years later.
Most of the AI tricks common in racing games even today like rubber banding, aren't present here. The only trick I noticed is that a random few racers will be chosen to place highly more often than not. One thing I liked about GX was that this trickery wasn't present, so you could win a tournament despite not placing first due to being consistent. You can kind of do that here as well, but it's not as easy.
That said, this is some real nitty gritty stuff. The core gameplay of 30 super sonic cars battling it out over courses that twist and loop like roller coasters is great fun. You can also destroy other cars on the feild, so a well timed nudge to take out a rival is a viable strategy.
It's just well put together from top to bottom, and holds up great.
And that's about it for N64 games so far. I want to go back and play through Body Harvest, see if it's how I remember it, but otherwise I'm playing other stuff.
I don't know if I ever played Zero Hour. I remember the Playstation game where you go back in time, and I owned Duke Nukem 64 as a kid.