#255. Mia Hamm Soccer 64
November 9, 2000
Silicon Dreams Studio
SouthPeak Interactive
$39.99 on Amazon
NHL ‘99 had the good fortune of being the only entry from the two prominent hockey franchises of the era to appear on the Nintendo 64, making it an easy choice for best hockey cartridge on the system. Mia Hamm Soccer 64, sadly, is in the exact opposite situation, being the only one of the console’s eight soccer releases to not be part of the FIFA or International Superstar Soccer series, both critical darlings. This game was always going to be playing from behind, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that it was just a reskinned version of a game that was called Michael Owen’s World League Soccer 2000 in other parts of the world and that they didn’t appear to change the graphics at all, resulting in some of the more masculine soccer sprites you’ll find on the N64 being marketed as a soccer game full of women. Oh, and the matches themselves are as quiet as a child’s funeral for some reason. — M. Roebuck
#254. Indy Racing 2000
May 30, 2000
Paradigm Entertainment
Infogrames
$49.99 on Amazon
Grab your controller, start your engines, and play some Indy Racing 2000 because your cousin doesn’t have any other games. Just like in NASCAR, you can choose from courses like oval, slightly bigger oval, or oval with a little extra curvature on it. Interesting thing is though, these tracks are not just iconic racing locations– they include the precise date and time of your race. So you’re not just racing in Indianapolis whenever you feel is convenient. You’re racing there on May 30th, 1999 at 11:00am on the fucking dot. I still haven’t figured out if you can warn anybody about 9/11, though.
The graphics are surprisingly basic compared to other racing games on the N64, of which there are… many. More than you’d think! Haha! Cars have little to no texture, but there are some nice little details like wall marks remaining visible throughout the race if you happen to run into them. Controls are decent, and thankfully merciful and inoffensive, which is all I can really ask for or expect from these games. — K. Podas
#253. Gex 64: Enter the Gecko
August 1, 1998
Crystal Dynamics
Midway
$54.99 on Amazon
It’s Tail Time! Gex is here! That’s right everybody, Gex! Everyone gather ‘round to see the king of the B-list mascot platformers (sorry, Bubsy) karate leap onto the Nintendo 64. Unfortunately, this port of the PlayStation 1 platformer has not made it in one piece. This game has fewer levels, worse sound, and most egregiously, has cut the majority of ol’ Gex’s very funny voice lines. Sure, I know it must have been hard to cram a PS1 game into an N64 cartridge, but I’m not exactly playing Gex for the gameplay, you know? Gex controls like a boat and the camera loves to be uncooperative while making tricky jumps. But the TV show aesthetics of the game are still super fun, and I’d love to see a modern game pick up the “channel surfing” baton. — S. Finkelstein
#252. Golden Nugget 64
December 1st, 1998
Westwood Studios
Electronic Arts
$10.89 on Amazon
This is a 50-word essay of a video game, and does nothing to improve on similar titles from a generation prior. If you just want to idly play some casino games, there’s nothing objectively wrong with Golden Nugget, but there’s just no incentive for you to keep playing. In Vegas Stakes (SNES), you come to Vegas with your friends and meet both shady and trustworthy characters along the way. In High Stakes Gambling (Game Boy), you are an undercover officer attempting to bankrupt the mafia by winning their illegal card games. Comparatively, in Golden Nugget 64, there’s a really neat ‘Slideshow,’ option in the main menu that shows you seven different pictures of what I have to assume are the lobby and dining room of the real life Golden Nugget resort.
I really wish we’d gotten a better casino game on the ol’ Nintender 64. Not gonna lie though, some of those shots of the hotel interiors are really, really nice. — M. Roebuck
#251. Charlie Blast’s Territory
April 2, 1999
Realtime Associates
Kemco
Do you like moving boxes and playing janky puzzle games at 12 frames per second? Fuck you, Charlie Blast’s Territory runs even slower and has fast moving platforming! Don’t worry, it’s impossible to actually die, you just restart the level until you can beat it. Not that they’re particularly challenging, I mean it’s a children’s puzzle game from 1999. It’s nothing special and nothing horrible, but requiring precise jumps at its terrible framerate is just tedious. Even if you can’t die, it’s too easy to softlock the level and screw yourself.
If for some reason you feel like playing the worst puzzle game of your life, remember that this isn’t even the original version! It’s actually a shoddy remake of a PlayStation puzzle game called The Bombing Islands starring Kid Klown, star of his own poorly constructed platformers. This wonderful reverse Final Fantasy VII runs far more smoothly on Sony’s hardware, but it’s a smoother version of hot garbage. Kid Klown has a step counter and completion medals, you know gameplay mechanics, but who needs that shit when you have a half assed multiplayer mode you shouldn’t play with anyone whose friendship you cherish?
Sorry to say, but I think the developers of Gex 64: Enter the Gecko really dropped the ball here. — N. Krause
#250. Milo’s Astro Lanes
November 24, 1998
Player 1
Crave Entertainment
$59.99 on Amazon
Hey, here’s that outer space bowling game you were asking about. Milo’s Astro Lanes is a game that answers the question “What if robots and aliens and shit could bowl, and there were power ups and crazy levels but it was all still boring like bowling ought to be?” Sadly, all of the bells and whistles keep it interesting until about frame three of the first game you play. This Jetsons-esque experiment ain’t your father’s bowling game. No, that would be Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling. It’s a little bit better than this. Your father would be so pissed if you showed him this shit. — M. Roebuck
#249. Knife Edge: Nose Gunner
November 1998
Kemco
Kemco
$13.98 on Amazon
You know, when I saw this game, I thought it’d be a standard military on rails shooter. Then I booted it up and your helicopter gets launched out of a fucking spaceship onto Mars and I was beyond hyped for the hidden Star Fox 64-ish gem.
Then I saw the brown.
So much brown.
If anyone reading this has access to time travel, can you please go back to the ’90s and let Kemco know that Mars is red? Oh and also maybe stop 9/11 if you have time, I guess.
Granted, the level design & color palette does gradually improve. Eventually you’ll find yourself squaring off against robot sphinxes and googly eyed squid UFOs which are rad as hell, but god damn what a disappointing intro. If I rented this from Blockbuster, I’d ask for my money back.
The gameplay itself is a mess. Enemies will constantly fly way too close to the camera from off screen, dodging and shooting both feel weird and clunky, and the level design gives me a newfound respect for Star Fox. Like, you’d think an on-rails shooter would fix up the fucking rails a little. Your camera bounces back and forth so randomly and lazily that you’d think it was part of someone’s first Blender camera tracking tutorial.
If you’re looking for a Nose game to play this spring, I highly recommend NOSE – The Great Keana over this dud. They have nothing at all in common beyond the names, and that’s probably for the best. — N. Krause
#248. Fox Sports College Hoops ‘99
November 23, 1998
Z-Axis
Fox Sports Interactive
$24.99 on Amazon
It’s too bad this game didn’t get more things right, as being the lone college basketball (hell, the lone college sports) title on the system gives it an advantage none of the half dozen other NBA games offer. Despite the appeal of things like 120 playable teams and the ability to recreate the NCAA tournament, there are just shortcomings and shortcuts every which way. No NIT tournament, no 4-player support, busted ass animations. One of the more inexplicable hindrances came when, unless I am a world class dummy, I couldn’t figure out how to look at the damn bracket of my ongoing tournament. I would just win a game and play my next opponent, all the while being assured this was the big March Madness bonanza everybody loves. I felt a little gaslit, to be honest. If I was a games reviewer in the 90’s I would make some stupid crack here like, “this college basketball game should have been left behind for a few semesters,” or some shit. But I’m not, so I won’t.
They really should’ve, though! — M. Roebuck
#247. Cruis’n USA
December 3, 1996
Williams
Nintendo
$32.15 on Amazon
Cruis’n USA was a spectacular arcade game. As any six-year-old who has just been unleashed by their parents on an unprepared and defenseless putt putt mini golf course will tell you, this game fucking rules! You’re driving a fucking Corvette!
However, as any eleven-year-old latchkey kid who only had the N64 port of Cruis’n USA knows, this game sucks noodles. Even if you were the incredibly lucky kid who managed to get the steering wheel, bucket seat and separate pedals to use at home, tediously turning the wheel back and forth in the corner of your beige family room is just joyless time killing. You are not driving a Corvette, you are in traffic court. — J. Knapp
#246. ClayFighter: Sculptor’s Cut
May 15, 1998
Interplay
ClayFighter: Sculptor’s Cut is one of the most expensive N64 games. You might think this is due to having amazing gameplay, revolutionary graphics, or another aspect that is usually seen as desirable. Nope, it’s expensive because it was a Blockbuster exclusive and there aren’t a lot of copies. There aren’t a lot of copies of me, but I’m not worth much. Instead, after you pay $900 for this cart, you are greeted with a roster of racist caricatures, lame gameplay, and everything else bad that I already said in the ClayFighter 63 ⅓ review. While there are some additions that put this slightly over the original, such as new characters, I’m pretty confident in saying that you’d be better off spending that $900 on clay and making your own fighting game. It’s sure to be only a little more broken and hopefully a little less racist. — G. Porter
#245. Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
December 2, 1996
LucasArts
Nintendo
$27.44 on Amazon
I can show my math on this one. This game is commonly remembered (not unfairly) as one that starts with a rip roaring Hoth level straight out of Empire Strikes Back, and then sends the player into a litany of boring third person missions playing a character most of us didn’t know in unfamiliar locations (that character was Dash Rendar. Dash Rendar. Love that name. Dash Rendar.) What many players didn’t realize, and again, I can’t blame them, was that at the end of the game there’s actually a very fun space level where you take on star destroyers and destroy a giant Empire base à la Return of the Jedi. It’s an incredible ending. So it was like a shit sandwich on primo bread. My friend had this game and since he’d beaten it you could select levels to specifically replay, and I used to play those two over and over. So two out of the ten levels are quite fun. One in five. Bottom 20th percentile. Easy one. Damn, there’s a lot of list to go still. — M. Roebuck
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