4 N64 Games I Actually Like (Guest post by The Ghetto Gamer)

Let me just say…

On Twitter and on the Ghetto Gamer website, I really give the Nintendo 64 a hard time.

In my extremely humble opinion, the foggy, muddy graphics simply did not age well compared to the NES and SNES I grew up with. And when I got my N64, even though I had asked for it 2 Christmases in a row, I was
somewhat disappointed.

To me, the primitive 3D graphics weren’t enough to make the system better than its predecessor. The polygons might have been in a 3D space, but they were so blocky and muddy it hardly seemed worth the change. Besides, the Super Nintendo was my absolute
favorite. And unlike the N64, the bright, crisp colors and fast, intuitive gameplay of the SNES stand the test of time.

Don’t get me wrong (at least, not completely wrong), there were certainly a handful of games that I truly enjoyed on N64, and they made the console worth owning.

Lets check ‘em out!

The obvious

Let me just start with the obvious.

Nintendo usually does exceptional work for their first-party franchises. So Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Star Fox and Mario Kart 64 were all fine games for their time. But for this post, I’d rather focus on some of more random games that I liked.

Blast Corps

I won’t say Blast Corps was a great game, but it certainly was frantic fun. And there’s something deeply satisfying about smashing like, you know, everything.

Blast Corps is not the type of game I would usually play or even take a chance on, but one of my good friends owned it and didn’t like it, so he offered it to me. Free game? Sure, why not!

I was very surprised to find it a fun and addictive experience. Not sure what his deal was.

Pokémon Snap

Pokemon Snap is another N64 game that really surprised me.

The idea seems dumb. Like a rail shooter with a camera. But somehow it just worked. Seeing all my favorite Pokémon in the wild was neat by itself, but the actual challenge of getting the perfect picture made it fun, interesting, challenging at times, and totally worthy of multiple replays.

I haven’t revisited Pokemon Snap since I first played it in the 90s. But now that I’m writing about it, I definitely want to go dig up a copy!

F-Zero X

More than Goldeneye, more than Smash Bros, and even more than Mario Kart, F-Zero X was the multiplayer game in my house.

Whenever friends came over I would force them to challenge. And they would lose.

This definitely wasn’t the best racing game. I think Mario Kart is objectively better. But the memories I made with this game give it a special place on my shelf.

Rogue Squadron

Rogue Squadron is possibly my favorite N64 game. Possibly. And it holds up today surprisingly well.

Spaceflight simulator games fared pretty well against the N64’s – um – shapely controller. The true 3D flight actually felt good with that weird little thumbstick. Especially compared to trying to play flying games on the SNES or even the NES D-pad.

And even though this game gets really hard later on (at least by my standards), I feel like I can keep going back to Rogue Squadron again and again.

Big thanks to N64Squid for letting me weigh in. If you enjoyed my little post, you might want to check out my blog, GhettoGamer.net.

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Ghetto Gamer doesn't think too fondly of the Nintendo 64, so he weighs in on which are the games on the Ninterndo 64 that he thinks are worth revisiting in this guest post.
Article published on N64 Squid

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