When the N64 was released I was already firmly a PC devotee, and from what I saw of most of that generation's console offerings, they looked like desperate and pathetic attempts to imitate what was becoming possible on a proper gaming computer. It wasn't until years later that I finally got a chance to sit down and experience the handful of really great first-party games that had profoundly affected the people who DID play them before, for example, Quake and Half-life, stuff like OoT, Goldeneye, and SM64. And those games really were, in many ways, better than anything else of their era. Then I decided to dig deeper, check out some of the possible 'hidden gems' on the console... and found out why I'd never heard of most of them even from people whose gamer identity revolved around their memories of the N64. There's a couple games with an absolutely staggering amount of work and talent poured into making the most of the cutting edge hardware of the mid 90s, and that's pretty much it, and you have to play them with a controller that looks like it was built to be gnawed on and hurled into building blocks by toddlers.
I do want to push back slightly on your assertion that the N64 is the beginning of speedrunning - speedrunning, as it's now understood, was almost certainly birthed by the sharing of .lmp demo files from Doom, and then expanded by the online exchanges of similarly compact demo files for Quake a few years later. The N64 has some of the titles most beloved, popular, and ripe with potential exploits for speedrunners, and a lot of the 'modern' era of speedrunning [i.e. the age of YouTube and streaming] has some of those titans of the N64 as their entry point or lifelong passion, but it wasn't until video files could be saved and shared online that it really picked up, and that was long after the id games already had dedicated sites. Even if you just mean people speedrunning in isolation and posting times and tactics online, that was happening before the console in question released.
This is also the era when I became more of a PC gamer. I still consider it peak PC supremacy, when PC had entire genres that were unrepresented on console.
I’ll say though that my experience was N64 was a better complement to PC gaming. And not because of games like Mario 64, but because of 4 player. Games like Smash Bros, WCW/NWO Revenge, NFL Blitz. But Smash Bros above all, we were insanely competitive at that game.
This is middle school and high school for me. All of my gamer friends were also into PC, we would often LAN up on the weekends, especially once we all had cars. But those times we were not prepared to LAN, it was N64 every time.
PS1 worked better as your only console than the N64, but it had less to offer a PC gamer. It had some good JRPGs for example, but nothing that matched Baldur’s Gate 1-2, Diablo 1-2, or Fallout 1-2.
I think PC's supremacy over console has always been exaggerated; for every unrepresented genre, PC exclusive or technical achievement that wasn't possible on console I can also point out several areas where PC was weak and particularly in the 80's PC gaming was largely just Commodore shovelware or obscure games only mentioned in passing. That being said, I don't think we reached anything resembling parity until around 2013 with the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One, it's at that point I felt the two spheres of gaming coalesce... to the great detriment of the consoles.
I much prefer consoles as they were back then, as you say, a compliment to PC gaming because now, as someone who's owned a decent PC for a number of years, I see zero reason to own a console that isn't the Switch because a PS5 or Xbox will never match the modularity and power of my desktop. On the other side of the fence, a PC will never match the convenience, comfort, portability and cost effectiveness of my Switch, which costs less than just the GPU of a new build.
I never really grew up around PC gamers unfortunately. It was always too expensive to be accessible, I only really started PC gaming with a laptop around 2016 and even that was just to play Paradox Grand Strategy and the superior, PC versions of KOTOR 1 and 2.
Diablo actually did make it to the PS1 and I hear it's a decent port but you're right about the others.
Valid point about PS1 Diablo, it slipped my mind, but it's a reasonable port. You give up Battle.net for local multiplayer (albeit without a split screen option, which was rather constraining at that resolution).
In terms of peers having PCs: it's interesting how much experiences can differ here. We weren't especially rich (I looked it up: call us 65th percentile in those days), but if your dad was into PCs -- and if you were a geeky kid, your dad was probably also geeky and thus into PCs -- then in those years dad was upgrading every 2-3 years with hardware improving so rapidly. And every upgrade meant a hand-me-down to the kids. I was an only child so I always had dad's hand-me-down. People with lots of siblings had more to navigate. I was friends with two different pairs of brothers that shared a PC between them and would bring it to LAN parties together.
My guess would be that you needed to be at a higher income percentile in the UK to afford this than in the US though.
I agree regarding 80s games. We had PC games around the whole time I was growing up. Dad encouraged PCs as a hobby more so than consoles. But in the 80s, most PC exclusives were pretty bad. The only genre in which PC clearly dominated was point-and-click adventure games. Which still have a place in my heart, but they're admittedly niche, and the pre-VGA ones especially.
Meanwhile most of the best PC games got pretty good console ports. E.g. SimCity on SNES is probably a better experience than on PC.
There were some key PC exclusives in 1991-1992, but I see 1993 as the year that PC clearly started breaking away. Doom, SimCity 2000, Wing Commander Privateer, X-Wing, Syndicate, Myst, Master of Orion. None of these got good console ports for many years, some of them never. But 1993 was also an amazing year for SNES, so I remained around a 50/50 gamer for single-player games, but played SNES a lot more on balance because of 2-player games with friends (Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat 1-2, Secret of Mana).
I think 1996 is probably when true PC supremacy started. But you're right that even at that moment, and for years afterward, consoles were still better in a number of genres. It's just that at that point, I could take those genres or leave them, especially single-player.
I think consoles nowadays are still better for local multiplayer than PC most of the time. I guess I just constantly experience jank when trying to use multiple controllers on Steam, and even a little jank can cause the whole thing to go off the rails and someone to lose patience.
I can't really comment since I've not played it but the idea of 240p through the PS1's noisy analogue cables doesn't fill me with excitement, that's for sure.
That's definitely a big part of it. We did have a family PC (as most families were in the 2000's, our PC was a big beige box with a CRT monitor, reserved for my parents to use) but my dad wasn't geeky and into PC's, he used to burn music onto CD's and pirated films but that was about it. I wasn't an only child and a big part of me getting into console gaming as a kid was that my older brother would swap consoles a lot so instead of selling them, they usually wound up with me.
Definitely. Saying this as someone who has visited the USA, I think a lot of Americans underestimate how much richer they are than most Europeans. The average standard of living and wages in the UK resemble places like Poland and Slovakia, not Canada and Australia.
Point and click for sure and to this day, I wouldn't want to play an RTS or Grand Strategy on console, though the Switch 2 mouse controls have convinced me to buy Civ 7 on that instead of my PC. I own that Sim City SNES port, absolutely fantastic port and compatible with the SNES mouse too.
I definitely see that as the point PC started pulling away too, Doom has some notoriously horrendous ports from that era: the Sega Megadrive (Genesis) version has music that sounds like IBS, the SNES version looks like smashed up stained glass and the Sega Saturn version didn't fare much better either, it wasn't until Doom 64 I feel that the transition was truly made and even then, Doom 64 is a very different game to its contemporaries and often not in a good way.
I'm one of those people who tends to just lose patience with it. I have controller issues semi-frequently, I'm getting tired of Steam games that take 3 minutes to load not listing an SSD in system requirements and the level of internet integration/online bullshit surrounding PC gaming means I was 50/50 PC/Console about 2 years ago, but now it's more like 20/80.
It's funny because what you've just said about the Nintendo 64 is exactly how I feel about the PS1. There are a handful of games on that platform: Soul Reaver, Resident Evil 2, Crash Bandicoot, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken 3 that I think are still amazing titles but I can't play 98% of that library because I just find it too hard to enjoy now. On the other hand, I always felt the Nintendo 64 had very few crap games; a smaller, more curated collection of releases but we all like different stuff at the end of the day. The controller is god awful though, I'm always unable to take people who defend it seriously because it's just so clearly, immediately awful when you use it.
I will rephrase that and say 'popular' speedrunning. Doom was definitely the birthplace of speedrunning on PC: a platform which has a far richer history with player made challenges and content and before the Nintendo 64 was even released, Resident Evil on the PS1 (the entire series in fact) made speedrunning for unlocks a central mechanic but the popularity of speedrunning on the internet and its ascension into mainstream gaming culture began with Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time.
The N64 is a real conundrum, isn't it? It has some of the best games and even genre-defining classics that people still use as a reference to this day. But the console itself always felt like a prototype in design and execution. I always felt that the N64 crawled so that later consoles could walk and eventually run. I feel that while many games blew our minds graphically, they are akin to something like the CG used in the "Money for Nothing" music video by Dire Straits. Looked upon as an advancement, but now kind of laughed at for how simple and archaic it looks.
I think your review is pretty honest and on the nose. This was not a perfect machine, but it does sort of set the stage for so many things after, doesn't it? You hit the nail on the cultural impact, but I think on hardware or just 3D, the N64 took chances that the other systems just could not at the time. Hence, my opinion on crawling before others.
It definitely went places the Saturn and PS1 only dreamed of. The N64 just doesn't have that hideous texture warping or the characteristic pitch-black beyong your field of view, of the 3, it has aged the best for sure.
Thanks for your comment and the restack! I try to balance the line between respecting the console, being honest about my opinions on it but also ripping into it if it has glaring flaws, I'm glad you felt it hit the mark
This is a great piece. I love how the whole article is a rollercoaster ride of conflicted emotions.
Given when you grew up, I totally understand why the N64 is your favorite console. You always love your first, even when its flaws are so clearly evident.
The N64 was my third Nintendo console. I grew up with the NES and SNES. I was 11 years old when the 64 came out.
Mario 64 was the greatest game of all time (back then). Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing... I had some fun times with the system.
But man, for every amazing title, there were a handful of mediocre stinkers. Or just no titles at all. Waiting months for a new Nintendo game only to have it be Yoshi's Story, still the worst Yoshi game ever.
I never got into Mario Party or Pokemon or Smash Bros.
Paper Mario and Harvest Moon 64 were highlights at the end of the 64's life, but all in all, the console was for me - at the time and today - a massive disappointment and one of my least favorite Nintendo consoles ever, right there with the Wii.
But hey, that's ok! I'm glad the 64 gave you and millions of others such amazing memories. Thanks for the look back!
I can absolutely see the bad sides to the console too; I obviously didn't live through it but even just looking into the library's history you notice there were really 2-3 games worth buying a year at the most. I think Nintendo deserved the humbling Sony gave them.
At the same time though, I've always considered the PS1 to be a console that got the win because Sega and Nintendo screwed up so badly and not because it was really all that much better. The Saturn had/has an awesome library, the trouble is it was a nightmare to program for and the vast majority never left Japan and of course, the N64's issues we've covered.
The Gamecube was actually my first but I prefer the N64 library, I'm trying not to spoil my opinions on that console yet though!
I really want to try Paper Mario for myself but something about that franchise means that every one of the games must cost £100+ now, are they really in that high of a demand? It's not a series I see anyone outside of hardcore Nintendo fans talking about.
You're welcome! I'm glad I'm getting into the really mixed bag consoles now because I think this is where discussion will really get interesting and where what I value in a console will be reflected more heavily in the scores.
The PS1 has so many games that its hits-to-crap ratio is very heavily skewed towards crap. Also, many games that were highly beloved in the late 90s just... haven't aged well. Oh, those early 3D growing pains.
Oh the Gamecube was your first? Now I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on that system.
Paper Mario on 64 and Cube are great games but not £100+ great. Play PM 64 on the Switch online service and never look back.
I couldn't agree more. I just... don't enjoy playing PS1 games that much, even the good ones. These days I tend to seek out the Saturn ports because they usually look worse but have some interesting little bonuses or quirks to them.
It was! I got my first Gamecube when I was 5 years old. I have a lot of thoughts on that console for sure, looking forward to that review.
The N64 is absolutely wild for its ups and downs. Just by giving us Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, it commented its place in history. It's still weird to think those games were the very first 3D titles, especially with how solidly OoT still holds up today.
I never owned one, but both friends and family did, and my lasting memory of the hardware is the fact that those sticks couldn't hold up to abuse and went really floppy and barely responsive after just a couple years of hard playing.
If it just had a disc drive and a better controller it would be without question the greatest ever made, but without those chunky grey blocks it also wouldn't be the console we know and love.
There are quite a few N64 pad defenders out there too but in my opinion, the fact that some of these games control so well is a testament to the developers, not that awful design.
When the N64 was released I was already firmly a PC devotee, and from what I saw of most of that generation's console offerings, they looked like desperate and pathetic attempts to imitate what was becoming possible on a proper gaming computer. It wasn't until years later that I finally got a chance to sit down and experience the handful of really great first-party games that had profoundly affected the people who DID play them before, for example, Quake and Half-life, stuff like OoT, Goldeneye, and SM64. And those games really were, in many ways, better than anything else of their era. Then I decided to dig deeper, check out some of the possible 'hidden gems' on the console... and found out why I'd never heard of most of them even from people whose gamer identity revolved around their memories of the N64. There's a couple games with an absolutely staggering amount of work and talent poured into making the most of the cutting edge hardware of the mid 90s, and that's pretty much it, and you have to play them with a controller that looks like it was built to be gnawed on and hurled into building blocks by toddlers.
I do want to push back slightly on your assertion that the N64 is the beginning of speedrunning - speedrunning, as it's now understood, was almost certainly birthed by the sharing of .lmp demo files from Doom, and then expanded by the online exchanges of similarly compact demo files for Quake a few years later. The N64 has some of the titles most beloved, popular, and ripe with potential exploits for speedrunners, and a lot of the 'modern' era of speedrunning [i.e. the age of YouTube and streaming] has some of those titans of the N64 as their entry point or lifelong passion, but it wasn't until video files could be saved and shared online that it really picked up, and that was long after the id games already had dedicated sites. Even if you just mean people speedrunning in isolation and posting times and tactics online, that was happening before the console in question released.
This is also the era when I became more of a PC gamer. I still consider it peak PC supremacy, when PC had entire genres that were unrepresented on console.
I’ll say though that my experience was N64 was a better complement to PC gaming. And not because of games like Mario 64, but because of 4 player. Games like Smash Bros, WCW/NWO Revenge, NFL Blitz. But Smash Bros above all, we were insanely competitive at that game.
This is middle school and high school for me. All of my gamer friends were also into PC, we would often LAN up on the weekends, especially once we all had cars. But those times we were not prepared to LAN, it was N64 every time.
PS1 worked better as your only console than the N64, but it had less to offer a PC gamer. It had some good JRPGs for example, but nothing that matched Baldur’s Gate 1-2, Diablo 1-2, or Fallout 1-2.
I think PC's supremacy over console has always been exaggerated; for every unrepresented genre, PC exclusive or technical achievement that wasn't possible on console I can also point out several areas where PC was weak and particularly in the 80's PC gaming was largely just Commodore shovelware or obscure games only mentioned in passing. That being said, I don't think we reached anything resembling parity until around 2013 with the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One, it's at that point I felt the two spheres of gaming coalesce... to the great detriment of the consoles.
I much prefer consoles as they were back then, as you say, a compliment to PC gaming because now, as someone who's owned a decent PC for a number of years, I see zero reason to own a console that isn't the Switch because a PS5 or Xbox will never match the modularity and power of my desktop. On the other side of the fence, a PC will never match the convenience, comfort, portability and cost effectiveness of my Switch, which costs less than just the GPU of a new build.
I never really grew up around PC gamers unfortunately. It was always too expensive to be accessible, I only really started PC gaming with a laptop around 2016 and even that was just to play Paradox Grand Strategy and the superior, PC versions of KOTOR 1 and 2.
Diablo actually did make it to the PS1 and I hear it's a decent port but you're right about the others.
Valid point about PS1 Diablo, it slipped my mind, but it's a reasonable port. You give up Battle.net for local multiplayer (albeit without a split screen option, which was rather constraining at that resolution).
In terms of peers having PCs: it's interesting how much experiences can differ here. We weren't especially rich (I looked it up: call us 65th percentile in those days), but if your dad was into PCs -- and if you were a geeky kid, your dad was probably also geeky and thus into PCs -- then in those years dad was upgrading every 2-3 years with hardware improving so rapidly. And every upgrade meant a hand-me-down to the kids. I was an only child so I always had dad's hand-me-down. People with lots of siblings had more to navigate. I was friends with two different pairs of brothers that shared a PC between them and would bring it to LAN parties together.
My guess would be that you needed to be at a higher income percentile in the UK to afford this than in the US though.
I agree regarding 80s games. We had PC games around the whole time I was growing up. Dad encouraged PCs as a hobby more so than consoles. But in the 80s, most PC exclusives were pretty bad. The only genre in which PC clearly dominated was point-and-click adventure games. Which still have a place in my heart, but they're admittedly niche, and the pre-VGA ones especially.
Meanwhile most of the best PC games got pretty good console ports. E.g. SimCity on SNES is probably a better experience than on PC.
There were some key PC exclusives in 1991-1992, but I see 1993 as the year that PC clearly started breaking away. Doom, SimCity 2000, Wing Commander Privateer, X-Wing, Syndicate, Myst, Master of Orion. None of these got good console ports for many years, some of them never. But 1993 was also an amazing year for SNES, so I remained around a 50/50 gamer for single-player games, but played SNES a lot more on balance because of 2-player games with friends (Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat 1-2, Secret of Mana).
I think 1996 is probably when true PC supremacy started. But you're right that even at that moment, and for years afterward, consoles were still better in a number of genres. It's just that at that point, I could take those genres or leave them, especially single-player.
I think consoles nowadays are still better for local multiplayer than PC most of the time. I guess I just constantly experience jank when trying to use multiple controllers on Steam, and even a little jank can cause the whole thing to go off the rails and someone to lose patience.
I can't really comment since I've not played it but the idea of 240p through the PS1's noisy analogue cables doesn't fill me with excitement, that's for sure.
That's definitely a big part of it. We did have a family PC (as most families were in the 2000's, our PC was a big beige box with a CRT monitor, reserved for my parents to use) but my dad wasn't geeky and into PC's, he used to burn music onto CD's and pirated films but that was about it. I wasn't an only child and a big part of me getting into console gaming as a kid was that my older brother would swap consoles a lot so instead of selling them, they usually wound up with me.
Definitely. Saying this as someone who has visited the USA, I think a lot of Americans underestimate how much richer they are than most Europeans. The average standard of living and wages in the UK resemble places like Poland and Slovakia, not Canada and Australia.
Point and click for sure and to this day, I wouldn't want to play an RTS or Grand Strategy on console, though the Switch 2 mouse controls have convinced me to buy Civ 7 on that instead of my PC. I own that Sim City SNES port, absolutely fantastic port and compatible with the SNES mouse too.
I definitely see that as the point PC started pulling away too, Doom has some notoriously horrendous ports from that era: the Sega Megadrive (Genesis) version has music that sounds like IBS, the SNES version looks like smashed up stained glass and the Sega Saturn version didn't fare much better either, it wasn't until Doom 64 I feel that the transition was truly made and even then, Doom 64 is a very different game to its contemporaries and often not in a good way.
I'm one of those people who tends to just lose patience with it. I have controller issues semi-frequently, I'm getting tired of Steam games that take 3 minutes to load not listing an SSD in system requirements and the level of internet integration/online bullshit surrounding PC gaming means I was 50/50 PC/Console about 2 years ago, but now it's more like 20/80.
It's funny because what you've just said about the Nintendo 64 is exactly how I feel about the PS1. There are a handful of games on that platform: Soul Reaver, Resident Evil 2, Crash Bandicoot, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken 3 that I think are still amazing titles but I can't play 98% of that library because I just find it too hard to enjoy now. On the other hand, I always felt the Nintendo 64 had very few crap games; a smaller, more curated collection of releases but we all like different stuff at the end of the day. The controller is god awful though, I'm always unable to take people who defend it seriously because it's just so clearly, immediately awful when you use it.
I will rephrase that and say 'popular' speedrunning. Doom was definitely the birthplace of speedrunning on PC: a platform which has a far richer history with player made challenges and content and before the Nintendo 64 was even released, Resident Evil on the PS1 (the entire series in fact) made speedrunning for unlocks a central mechanic but the popularity of speedrunning on the internet and its ascension into mainstream gaming culture began with Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time.
The N64 is a real conundrum, isn't it? It has some of the best games and even genre-defining classics that people still use as a reference to this day. But the console itself always felt like a prototype in design and execution. I always felt that the N64 crawled so that later consoles could walk and eventually run. I feel that while many games blew our minds graphically, they are akin to something like the CG used in the "Money for Nothing" music video by Dire Straits. Looked upon as an advancement, but now kind of laughed at for how simple and archaic it looks.
I think your review is pretty honest and on the nose. This was not a perfect machine, but it does sort of set the stage for so many things after, doesn't it? You hit the nail on the cultural impact, but I think on hardware or just 3D, the N64 took chances that the other systems just could not at the time. Hence, my opinion on crawling before others.
It definitely went places the Saturn and PS1 only dreamed of. The N64 just doesn't have that hideous texture warping or the characteristic pitch-black beyong your field of view, of the 3, it has aged the best for sure.
Thanks for your comment and the restack! I try to balance the line between respecting the console, being honest about my opinions on it but also ripping into it if it has glaring flaws, I'm glad you felt it hit the mark
This is a great piece. I love how the whole article is a rollercoaster ride of conflicted emotions.
Given when you grew up, I totally understand why the N64 is your favorite console. You always love your first, even when its flaws are so clearly evident.
The N64 was my third Nintendo console. I grew up with the NES and SNES. I was 11 years old when the 64 came out.
Mario 64 was the greatest game of all time (back then). Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing... I had some fun times with the system.
But man, for every amazing title, there were a handful of mediocre stinkers. Or just no titles at all. Waiting months for a new Nintendo game only to have it be Yoshi's Story, still the worst Yoshi game ever.
I never got into Mario Party or Pokemon or Smash Bros.
Paper Mario and Harvest Moon 64 were highlights at the end of the 64's life, but all in all, the console was for me - at the time and today - a massive disappointment and one of my least favorite Nintendo consoles ever, right there with the Wii.
But hey, that's ok! I'm glad the 64 gave you and millions of others such amazing memories. Thanks for the look back!
I can absolutely see the bad sides to the console too; I obviously didn't live through it but even just looking into the library's history you notice there were really 2-3 games worth buying a year at the most. I think Nintendo deserved the humbling Sony gave them.
At the same time though, I've always considered the PS1 to be a console that got the win because Sega and Nintendo screwed up so badly and not because it was really all that much better. The Saturn had/has an awesome library, the trouble is it was a nightmare to program for and the vast majority never left Japan and of course, the N64's issues we've covered.
The Gamecube was actually my first but I prefer the N64 library, I'm trying not to spoil my opinions on that console yet though!
I really want to try Paper Mario for myself but something about that franchise means that every one of the games must cost £100+ now, are they really in that high of a demand? It's not a series I see anyone outside of hardcore Nintendo fans talking about.
You're welcome! I'm glad I'm getting into the really mixed bag consoles now because I think this is where discussion will really get interesting and where what I value in a console will be reflected more heavily in the scores.
The PS1 has so many games that its hits-to-crap ratio is very heavily skewed towards crap. Also, many games that were highly beloved in the late 90s just... haven't aged well. Oh, those early 3D growing pains.
Oh the Gamecube was your first? Now I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on that system.
Paper Mario on 64 and Cube are great games but not £100+ great. Play PM 64 on the Switch online service and never look back.
I couldn't agree more. I just... don't enjoy playing PS1 games that much, even the good ones. These days I tend to seek out the Saturn ports because they usually look worse but have some interesting little bonuses or quirks to them.
It was! I got my first Gamecube when I was 5 years old. I have a lot of thoughts on that console for sure, looking forward to that review.
I just might do that.
The N64 is absolutely wild for its ups and downs. Just by giving us Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, it commented its place in history. It's still weird to think those games were the very first 3D titles, especially with how solidly OoT still holds up today.
I never owned one, but both friends and family did, and my lasting memory of the hardware is the fact that those sticks couldn't hold up to abuse and went really floppy and barely responsive after just a couple years of hard playing.
If it just had a disc drive and a better controller it would be without question the greatest ever made, but without those chunky grey blocks it also wouldn't be the console we know and love.
There are quite a few N64 pad defenders out there too but in my opinion, the fact that some of these games control so well is a testament to the developers, not that awful design.
Can also confirm that about the sticks too.
Cemented*! Cemented its place in history! Orz
I remember playing Goldeneye first the first time and being astounded. Didn’t have either a PS1 or N64, but have more memories of the N64.
Goldeneye is one of those games I didn't play until I was an adult but I immediately understood the love for it after just a single mission.