#285. Big Mountain 2000
October 10, 2000
Imagineer
SouthPeak Interactive
As someone who has unironically devoted hundreds of hours of her life to snowboarding games; seriously, fuck this game. Have you ever played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and thought, ‘Damn I wish the camera was giving me a colonoscopy and I had to do the stupid grinding balance slider thing every time I make even a slight turn?’ Then I’m sorry to say you’re a stupid masochist who probably has polyps they need to get checked out.
Not to mention that this shit has the grossest 90’s art I have ever fucking seen outside of Rob Liefeld. I guess there are a lot of character customization options, which is cool, but I have to imagine there are better dress up simulators out there.
As for any secessionists who want to blame this game’s faults as being a product of its time, SSX was released in North America the same month as this pile of sticky yellow snow. If you told your mom that you wanted the snowboard game and she grabbed you this instead, you may be entitled to a large cash settlement. — Naomi Krause
#284. Paperboy
October 31, 1999
Hugh Voltage Software
Midway Home Entertainment
$31.40 on Amazon
I feel like I’m going to describe this and it’s going to sound cooler than it is, and I really wish this game was as fun as I’m about to make it sound, but please just trust me. It’s Paperboy in 3-D, and instead of a trip up a single street you have two minutes to ride your bike freely around a neighborhood, delivering newspapers and fucking shit up by chucking those bad boys at whatever interactive parts of the scenery you can find.
There’s varied levels, like RV parks and beach communities, and there’s even a Frankenstein/Cortex inspired final boss. For real, an honest-to-god built-in-a-lab scary motherfucker, and you’re just a little guy with a paper route armed only with today’s edition and you gotta do the thing.
So that all sounds rad, but sadly the main character is the worst looking protagonist on the entire system. Him and his stupid bike look so ridiculous it’s honestly hard to focus on other things. The twiggy paperboy is indicative of how the whole game just feels bad and weird. Kind of a shame, because there were some interesting ideas here, but also, I’m really not sure how many games we need dedicated to delivering newspapers on a bicycle. Summer job ass games. — M. Roebuck
#283. NFL Quarterback Club 2000
August 26, 1999
Acclaim Studios Austin
Acclaim
The opening cinematic of this game is not only incredibly hype, it’s one of the silliest things you’ll see in a Nintendo 64 game. Brett Favre is in the production truck all by himself and is apparently live mixing the intro montage of nasty football maneuvers you’re watching. He’s in his full gameday uniform, just directing his ass off. He’s so selfless too, making sure to showcase plenty of clips of other players, like a quarterback ought to.
Sadly, this got me excited for a better experience than I ultimately had. I honestly couldn’t figure out how to tell the game which team I want to control when I play a season. I’m sure there’s a way to do that, but it wasn’t really evident after a few minutes of trying, and I have like 14 football games to tackle (Pun intended! We’re fuckin’ doin’ it!). So apologies to Quarterback Club 2000, I didn’t really have the time to figure you out. I liked your movie at the beginning a lot, though. — M. Roebuck
#282. Virtual Pool 64
December 17, 1998
Celeris
Crave Entertainment
$33.99 on Amazon
This isn’t “real” pool. It’s virtual pool. You know, like virtual reality? Except not– it’s just a video game on the Nintendo 64! You know, like 3D images transferred to your TV screen? Don’t worry, the billiard balls can’t hurt you.
Listen, I’ve only ever played pool in dingy back rooms at dive bars in Chicago on nights where my memory was a little hazy. I’m far from a pool expert, but I can tell you that you’re probably better off just going to a local bar or an uncle’s house and playing ‘real’ pool there. But, if you don’t have a pool plug, Virtual Pool 64 may suffice. The physics are fairly realistic, but the presentation is incredibly bare bones. Menu screens look like debug menus, and the sound design is atrociously repetitive. Seriously, you’re better off playing pool at your uncle’s house. He’ll probably put on a Def Leppard album, at least. — Kevin Podas
#281. Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics
July 29, 1998
T&E Soft
Nintendo
$10.99 on Amazon
Oh, here’s this game. Just an atrocious exercise in digital golf, this game seems largely like an infomercial for one specific golf course in Hawaii. Which doesn’t mean the game automatically sucks, but you know something? It does suck, for all kinds of reasons. If I had one word to describe this game, it would be “golf.” If I had another one, it would be “lifeless.” From the announcer that sounds like he’s afraid of waking his parents with a line reading to the unsettling crowds that just stand there, never moving, staring, judging. Waiting. For what? I shudder to think. This game is a waking nightmare and not in a cool, fun way. — M. Roebuck
#280. War Gods
May 21, 1997
Midway
Show of hands: who else here grew up poor? If your hand is currently raised, then there is a decent chance you remember War Gods. This game is what you got because your parents wouldn’t buy you Mortal Kombat Trilogy. Not because it was too violent, but because that shit was top shelf level expensive and everyone knew it.
So that’s how we got War Gods, the off-brand big bag of cereal to Mortal Kombat’s family sized box of Cookie Crisp. — J. Knapp
#279. GT 64: Championship Edition
August 21, 1998
Imagineer
Ocean of America
$10.99 on Amazon
Ugh, you probably made a better racing game than this playing in your living room with your Hot Wheels when you were a kid. The handling is absolutely abysmal, as trying to make a turn of any kind will send you spinning uncontrollably into the scenery, all while the framerate occasionally slows to a crawl. It looks like they tried to make this game both realistic and arcade-y, but in shooting for both, completely missed the mark on either. Most insulting is the fact that GT 64 has the gall to have only three tracks to race on in the entire game. No unlockables, no nothin’, just three tracks, and I refuse to accept that each has a “long” and “short” version as additional courses. If your entire racing game has fewer roads to drift on than a cup in Mario Kart, send it back and sell it for parts. This game is very bad, but it’s still better than Carmageddon 64. — W. Quant
#278. Rat Attack!
September 12, 2000
Pure Entertainment
Mindscape
$209.99 on Amazon
This is probably one of the worst looking N64 games, straight up. The title screen and menu look like they were made in MS Paint, and it only gets worse if you decide to press the start button and press your luck. The character models are god awful, just the most basic polygonal models of cats and rats (I think). But I’d be lying if I said the gameplay itself wasn’t at least a little bit clever and unique. The premise is, “evil mutant space rats Washington and Jefferson have returned from exile”. Your mission is to stop them from eating your furniture. I mean, I know that’s the first thing I’d do once I returned from exile. As a cat, you have to run around making loops around the rats, while dodging obstacles like Roombas and lawnmowers, effectively trapping and killing them. I’m still not sure if I actually played this game or if it was a fever dream, but I’m currently working that out with my therapist. — K. Podas
#277. Battlezone: Rise Of The Black Dogs
March 1, 2000
Climax Studios
Crave Entertainment
This game was doomed from the start. A N64 port of a PC RTS/FPS/3rd person shooter game, there was some heavy ambition in getting this thing on the console. I respect the desire to get Battlezone on the N64, but man is it harsh to play, due to a confusing HUD and camera controls that make you wanna barf as you fly across the most boring video game world I’ve ever seen. Every map is a single colored plane with hills haphazardly tossed in wherever. Nothing exists more than five feet in front of you, leading to some horrific pop-in as well. Battlezone is an example of why some games should stay off of lower-end hardware. — G. Porter
#276. NBA In The Zone ‘99
April 8, 1999
Konami
$22.99 on Amazon
The worst sports franchise on the system had some extra time to get this version together due to an NBA strike, but it would appear the developers pissed the time away, probably playing NBA Hang Time in the office or some other game that feels vaguely like basketball is happening. Parts of In the Zone ’99 feel like they were five or ten years behind the curve at this point. The in-game score overlay is as dated as Jon Stockton’s shorts, and slow motion replays of three pointers reveal a ball rotating at two frames per second. I complained about ‘98 not letting you run any offense, and to this game’s credit, they tried this time. I pick plays and press the D-pad to run them, and the players start to sorta shuffle around in different directions in a manner that doesn’t convince me anything of strategic note is happening, but they tried, damn it. Like a little bit. — M. Roebuck
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