#91. Nagano Winter Olympics ‘98
January 29, 1998
Konami
Konami
Nagano Winter Olympics ’98 (or the “nWo,” as it was commonly known among teenagers in the late ‘90s) is notable for being the only place on the Nintendo 64 to find many of its activities. You can’t throw a rock in a used game store without hitting an N64 racing or football game, but where else are you gonna find a decent speed skating game? Nowhere else. nWo 4 Life, baby. The immersive sense of speed a lot of the games offer is heightened by the best wind I’ve heard on the system, if that’s your thing. Some people are really into water in video games. Maybe your thing is wind, I don’t know. Curling, the slowest paced game, is probably the most fun, though. I can really picture sitting around with the boys and having some curling matches late into the night, with its Wii Bowling-like pacing. Notable for featuring console exclusive teams: Finland and the Netherlands are exclusive to this version, while the PlayStation version is the only way to play as China or South Korea. Soul Caliber would rip this idea off years later. — M. Roebuck
#90. Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense
February 1, 2000
Luxoflux
Activision
$104.99 on Amazon
More of the same from the delightful original, with a greater variety of cars. None hold a candle to Beezwax, though. He drives a camper filled with bees and your special move is he opens the window and shoots bees at you. How he wasn’t at least as culturally relevant as Sweet Tooth if not more so is truly one of the great failures of the modern age. Nevertheless, on top of all of the positives I’ve described, this game has what I believe to be the best theme song on the system, and has to be in the running of great video game title tracks of all time. That’s worth something, right? I missed this game when I was a kid, but if I’d owned this cartridge (or the original, honestly), as a youngster, this Twisted Metal-loving sumbitch would’ve played the hell out of it. — M. Roebuck
#89. FIFA ‘99
December 1998
EA Canada
EA Sports
$59.99 on Amazon
The rare sports franchise that saw it fit to simplify and refine over time rather than add unnecessary features and bloat, the FIFA ’99 control scheme is simpler and better than ever. The graphics, too. Shame that it’s at the expense of the Indoor Mode, a highlight of the previous two entries in the series that is undersold by the word ‘minigame.’ And before you ‘99 heads come at me in the comments and at my own personal home, no, Golden Goal is not a worthy substitute. It also draws the short straw of being the entry in the franchise that falls right after one of the more robust sports games ever made. No World Cup mode here, but it’s hardly a game based in 1999’s fault, right? Nevertheless, it’s two steps forward, two steps back. Like some damn soccer drill. — M. Roebuck
#88. F-1 Pole Position 64
October 16, 1997
Human Entertainment
Ubisoft
$41.99 on Amazon
Not a terribly impressive game, but oddly worthwhile when considered among the litany of racing games offered on the Nintendo 64. So many are meant as technical showcases, screaming “Hey look, we can run your favorite arcade games,” but these titles were designed to angle for your quarters one checkpoint at a time. Therefore, they just don’t make for great console experiences. Maybe for a little while at first, sure, but we’re filthy gamers. We demand depth, substance, something we can put 50 hours into and then complain about afterwards. The F-1 Pole Position’s and NASCAR 2000’s of the world at least have the good sense to offer you substantial experiences mindful of the cost of a new video game. It ain’t Gran Turismo, but if you wanted to simulate the 1999 Formula One season, buddy, this’ll do just fine. — M. Roebuck
#87. Snowboard Kids
February 1998
Racdym
Atlus
$149.99 on Amazon
Who are the Snowboard Kids? This clever, Lord of the Flies meets Mario Kart-on-a-ski-hill racer tells us so little about the titular orphans (I’m assuming) that the scraps of exposition we do get are fascinating. The kids are all 10, except Linda, who is 11. What horrors has she witnessed in her extra year of life that she hasn’t told Slash and Debbie? We’re never told how everyone ended up on the hill, nor what inspired the stomach churning level of constant violence the children display towards each other. Honestly, it’s fun enough, but a few elements hold it back from greatness. I find it way too easy to oversteer through a turn and accidentally just bring your scared child to a complete stop, amidst the chaos of the battlefield. Needless to say, in a war torn hellscape where speed rules the slopes, this is cause for certain death. Also, the decision to end each ‘lap’ down the hill with an awkward scramble to fight over seats on the ski lift? Well, my friends, it sucks. It really, really sucks. Snowboard Kids also pays its respects to Mario Kart by having absolutely infuriating items damage you close enough to the finish line so as to undo your entire race, and even truly does Mario Kart one better by making coins feel halfway important, by tying them to the ability to buy items in real time, which you need, because Snowboard Kids takes place in a frozen, kill or be killed world. Pray for Linda. Pray for them all.
Very fun game! — M. Roebuck
#86. All-Star Baseball 2001
March 31, 2000
High Voltage Software
Acclaim
$22.99 on Amazon
When it came to baseball on the Nintendo 64, ASB trounced the competition. Another year of polish to the standout baseball game on the system, this one just feels like a flex. In addition to every team, stadium, and player being fit onto this cart, Acclaim started up with the cute shit like teams of classic players and the Field of Dreams cornfield being a playable stadium. The baseball game that would blow your dad’s mind if he ever dared to play one. This is easily the absolute greatest baseball game on the system, which clearly makes it just a hair better than the first Snowboard Kids game. — M. Roebuck
#85. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
August 21, 1998
Red Storm Entertainment Saffire
Red Storm Entertainment
$44.99 on Amazon
It was 2000 and by this point I was finding myself regretting my decision to commit to the Nintendo 64. I was 16 and was finding myself aging out of a lot of the Nintendo exclusive content. At the same time, I was seeing all the games available on PlayStation and feeling as though Nintendo’s stubbornness was depriving me of a lot of games. Naturally, I was excited for the Rainbow Six port to the N64. Having seen my cousin play the game for PC, the idea of a realistic special forces first-person shooter available to me was exciting and this was the best one since GoldenEye. And then I played it, and well, it was just sort of meh. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. The graphics were wonky and before you really had a chance to get into it it was over. I guess in a lot of ways, this game was a metaphor for my relationship with Nintendo at the time and to this day — Patrick Crooks
#84. Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey
November 11, 1996
Atari
Midway
This NBA Jam-on-ice arcade port was one of the very first games released for the system, and was the very first to feature four player gameplay, beating Mario Kart to the punch by about four months. It’s also a fun as hell arcade style hockey game. The ‘98 version of this game that followed a year later caught a lot of shit for being essentially a reskin (a complaint that has never once resurfaced in the world of sports video games), but now that it’s decades later, why not just play the one that’s more polished? Even so, this is a semi-important and very fun game that deserves a lot of credit. — M. Roebuck
#83. Chameleon Twist
December 9, 1997
Japanese System Supply
Sunsoft
$89.99 on Amazon
Now this is a lil’ gem right here. If bandicoots, hedgehogs, and little lizard guys that quote movies can all star in video games, then a chameleon, with its ability to blend in with all kinds of different surroundings and environments, is a brilliant choice to lead a clever little platformer such as this. Firstly, this game makes absolutely no sense, in the way that can be really fun when a game doesn’t give a shit about making sense. The first thing that happens is you follow the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland into a wormhole and emerge in a new dimension where the chameleon you’ve chosen now resembles Lolo from the NES games if he had legs. And instead of changing your appearance, you just go around to different places doing stuff with your tongue to everything. Yeah, it’s all tongue stuff. You kill enemies with your tongue, and you get around by using your tongue as a sort of grappling hook. A bit of research tells me that chameleons do have big ass Gene Simmons tongues and all that, so fair enough. It’s a tongue game, not a stealth game. Got it. The connection to gathering crowns across six levels and my chameleon’s recent teleporting and shapeshifting are never really explained, and honestly, that’s fine by me.
Once I adjusted to the fact that this was a game that tasked me with licking everything in sight, I actually quite enjoyed it. It’s got great controls, creative and varied level design, and a not-the-worst camera (that defaults to an extreme close-up of the action for some reason). Chameleon Twist is short, and that was certainly grounds for valid criticism when it was released, but realistically, this is probably a game on a ROM list to you if anything. It’s worth a run through on a weekend afternoon while you debate which longer game you’d like to really dive into. — M. Roebuck
#82. International Superstar Soccer 2000
July 29, 1999
KCEO
Konami
Requisite ominous messaging about the millennium aside, this is more of the same from ISS, the tried and true second best soccer franchise on the system. Of all the N64 menu music that just repeats an odd phrase over and over, this game’s “Okay, fellas,” is up there with WWF No Mercy’s “Dig-diggity dog.” What a time to be alive.
Listen, I’m running out of ways to creatively write about the subtle differences in all these games from year to year. This one’s a little more polished than the last one. Imagine that!
Ultimately, ISS and FIFA were the Coke and Pepsi of the late 90s soccer game scene. Both had their fans, and no one’s objectively wrong for preferring one over the other*. Basically, I think the FIFA games are great, and these ones are pretty good. I’m sure they hit different when they were brand new, but here we are. ISS just doesn’t grab me like FIFA does today, but they’re rock solid soccer games.
*Mia Hamm Soccer, meanwhile, is a hot glass of RC Cola you left in the attic. — M. Roebuck
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