GasJocket214's Full Review: Nintendo 64 Black Console
It’s time to go old school Nintendo. No I am not talking about the infamous “regular Nintendo” I am of course talking about the Nintendo 64. With the coming release of the highly anticipated Nintendo GameCube, the N64 will soon be forgotten, just like all old systems are. It is time for Nintendo to move on, they have new competition and the company that started it all cannot be left in the background. Like I said the Nintendo 64 will soon be a thing of the past (if it isn’t already) and it is time for me to get my thoughts on the system out there before all of these new systems come out. Anyway, back when the regular Playstation came out, there was nothing better. The Sony Playstation ruled the world of video games. Then Nintendo made a comeback, with the release of the Nintendo 64.
The 64 is put in the title because Nintendo obviously wanted to put emphasize on the fact that the system is 64 bit. 64 bit! Whoa that blows away the measly 32-bit system that is Playstation. So of course everyone was excited about Nintendo releasing the futuristic gaming system. I was one of those people. I rushed to my local gaming store to pick up my copy of the $200 unit. (Which you can now buy for about $80 and you get multiple controllers.) While I was at the store I picked up a few games, and went back home to see what all the fuss was about.
These are the moving pictures that we always wanted to see.
Though the Nintendo 64 gives incredible graphics to all of its games, they all look the same. There is never any diversity given to the games, let me elaborate more: Every game looks like the graphics were taken straight from Mario world. It seems that all of the N64 games have the exact same graphics, just different characters, and different shades of the bright colors that are always used. I have heard many people claim that the N 64 is a “little kid” system. That is not very far from the truth in my opinion. Almost every game has incredibly bright blues and greens that are depicted as childish. What ever happened to one of those killing games, where you are in dark mysterious dungeons and monsters award you points for knocking the snot out of them? With the Nintendo 64 system it seems all too many times that you are trying to save the world, but no killing is involved. I am not saying that to make a good game you must involve killing, but it does make things more realistic. The mood that you get from the graphics of this system is that everyone is happy, and it really does make for a “little kid” system.
If you only played one game ever on N 64 you would be impressed with the graphics. Even today you would not think that the system is outdated at all. The Nintendo 64 did set a new standard for graphics, but it could have been better if Nintendo made more realistic games that appealed to more then the little kid audience.
So do we get sound from this machine or what?
In most of the games for this system we unfortunately are stuck with always upbeat, always happy music. The mood is rarely set correctly in the games because once again Nintendo is only appealing to a certain audience. Listening to happy high note after happy high note will leave your brain a mutilated mess after a while. No matter what the game is, it should at least be a little bit realistic, or at least try to be realistic. In some of these games it seems as if Nintendo purposely made everything unrealistic just to appeal to little kids, which was a huge mistake in my mind from Nintendo. If you think about it, they had the world captivated with a 64-bit system, and they squandered it by making the majority of games playable by an age range from 6-10. If Nintendo only made things a little bit different this could possibly still be a thriving system. They did not accomplish the feat of appealing to everyone with this system; lets just hope that the GameCube is a different story.
We have to have some decent games here.
If it weren’t for this fact that have been repeating over and over again: that almost all of the games appeal to little kids, the games would be amazing. Even a supposed killing game such as Perfect Dark has childish elements to it. Sure it is a very violent game, but for some reason Nintendo still holds back and puts in little lovable aliens to make the little kids feel happy. That is only one example of what I am talking about, there are others: How about how no one ever actually dies in any of the Mario games, things just seem to vanish. How about the fact that you are supposedly defeating enemies with banana peels and turtle shells? Who was the genius behind that idea? What about the unbelievably nice bad guys that are put into the games? What ever happened to the ruthless bad guy that would stop at nothing to kill our hero? Sure we have Bowser, but he is so incredibly lame it isn’t even funny, with is very cheesy cliché laugh, and the spikes coming from the back of his turtle shell.
Now enough of me ranting about the system. I have been making fun of how childish the system is, and how it only appeals to one audience, but there are some good games, and yes they even include Mario. Who doesn’t love that plump Italian plumber? Mario is a great character that Nintendo deserves all of the credit for. Some of Mario’s games are very fun to play. How can you not enjoy a game like MarioKart? Sure it may be directed towards kids, but it is fun for all ages. You can have a lot of fun racing your friends, or computer opponents. Even though there are a lot of very childish elements in the game, it is a racing game, so you don’t really need to be as realistic as all of the other games.
Nintendo tried to put out different genres of games, especially with the recent Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but that game in my opinion just signed Nintendo 64’s death warrant. How can a system put out little kids games their whole existence and then change it all with one game? Hopefully Nintendo can change it all around with the release of GameCube.
We released the cartridge first, why are we outdated then?
Why are we getting a system with all games in a cartridge after a system that came out with games on CD’s? That was one fallback that killed the system right from the start. The Playstation already had their games on discs the size of CD’s and Nintendo comes out with another system with more cartridges, that does not make sense. CD’s are obviously a lot more durable and easy to handle, so I am not sure if Nintendo wanted to keep the trademark cartridges going on with another system or what, but I was very disappointed to find that Nintendo was still using cartridges to put their games on.
So then why give the system 3 stars?
Believe it or not the Nintendo 64 does have some very prominent positive features. First of all the system already comes with 4 controller ports, to have up to 4 people playing at one time right when you get the system. Also there aren’t any load times! That’s right we all hate to wait, for anything for that matter. Especially for a game to load, with the N 64 the games never load. Another great thing with the system is its controller. I don’t care what anyone else says, but I love the N 64 controller. It gives you a joystick and a D-pad all in one! It is shaped in such a way that it is easy to hold, and remember where all of the buttons are. Even though Nintendo was stuck back in the age of cartridges at least it made advances in loading time and the shape of a controller.
Overall
If you have a son or daughter who is under the age of 10 then the N 64 is a great system. You will be pleased that there is hardly any violence in any of the games, and your child will also be pleased. The older children might not be so pleased though. Older kids want to see action. That action is just not in the N 64, and that is why that the N 64 is a dead system. The kids grew up and want bigger and better things. The N 64 just can’t deliver anymore, the gas is empty, and it is time for Nintendo to make its mark again, and hopefully with the release of GameCube we will see that mark.
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