[DanBC]

I really loved the menu screen showing you what levels you'd done and what difficulty level you'd done them on. Simple, efficient.

It took me weeks to realise that the cut-scene graphics were actually useful and not just fluff. They often provided hints and tips or let you know about enemies.

There's a bunch of stuff still in the rom code that isn't accessible from the game - the hidden island; some glitchy levels. And there's some bits left over from the "notorious" but removed "put your face in the game" mode. (Which used the GB camera to map face photos onto game models for multiplayer but got removed after a mass shooting.)

I loved the train; I loved the tunnel in the damn. I hated trying to keep the bloody hostages alive on the boat. The first few times I set the alarm off were scary.

This was an amazing game. The N64 was a peculiar sweet spot for games and I'm not sure why.

[nikatwork]

> The N64 was a peculiar sweet spot for games and I'm not sure why.

That's arguably age-related nostalgia. I feel the same way about the Super Nintendo instead of the N64.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1322

[ekianjo]

The N64 was a very poor system for games. You had a few very good ones and a lot of crap. The Playstation was a way more versatile system with great games in all genres. Hell, even the Saturn was more complete in terms of software.

[lmm]

The N64 had fewer games and more expensive than the competition, but the quality standard was far higher (there was a whole lot of unbelievably crap shovelware produced for playstation) and it was a more powerful system; the best N64 games (of which Goldeneye was certainly one) were by and large better than the best Playstation games.

In "top 10 games of all time" lists the only Playstation game you tend to see is FFVII, which deserves its place but is more a triumph of storytelling than gameplay; from the N64 Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye both regularly feature. It was only towards the end of its life that we saw Playstation games comparable to those in technical terms (heck, while it's been overshadowed by later instalments I remember being blown away by Rogue Squadron back in '97 or so), and I don't think we ever saw the equal of Perfect Dark until the next console generation and Halo.

[icefox]

Besides FF, Metal Gear Solid is another game for the PS1 that I have seen pop up on top 10 lists. Both the N64 and the PS1 had a range of good games for their system. Tomb Raider, Gran Turismo, Spyro, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night all come to mind as quality games that you could pick up today and enjoy for the PS1. But really these days you can pick up the systems for pocket change ($20 tops?) so if you are a gamer owning both to experience the best in both systems seems like a no brainer.

[DanBC]

PS1 had some great games. Obviously Gran Turismo needs to be mentioned - it was important in the development of 'realistic' driving simulations.

IMO the original is much much harder than the follow-ups. Those licence tests were hard. (And a great part of the game play that they only really realised in much later incarnations, that tiny short challenge had the "just one more try" feature that's important for good addictive game play.)

Tomb raider is an interesting choice. It's a huge franchise, and very very popular. Some parts of the games were really good. But the games did suffer from unnecessary bugginess. Which is weird because that company produced other great games that were not full of bugs.

Owning many systems is, obviously, something that people who love games should be doing. BomberMan on SNES is god-like multiplayer; MicroMachines on Genesis / megadrive is the best version; etc.

It's a shame that as the hardware (and the storage medium) is dying that people have to rely on emulation. Mostly this is great. But for some systems it's not, and for all systems it's not legal.

It'd be nice if there was a simple way to pay for playing roms, and if people could work on emulators for dead systems without facing scary legal stuff.

[ekianjo]

I was talking about the variety of games available on PS1 rather than simply which system had more top10 games, which is highly subjective. The PS1 hand thousands of games available and if you were into imports you could get your hands on japanese gems as well, literally quadrupling the games available for the system. There was no other system like it (the closest in that regard being the Saturn). The N64 never reached that kind of "standard" status and therefore the offering and third party support was limited at best. As to whether the N64 was a more powerful system, yeah, it may have been, but on consoles we all know that software makes the different more than hardware.

There's a clear reason why the N64 sold way less than the PS1: it was just a much better deal to get a PS1 if you wanted to play lots of different games. The market is not stupid :)

[lmm]

>I was talking about the variety of games available on PS1 rather than simply which system had more top10 games, which is highly subjective.

Sure, but I think it extends to top100 or even top1000 games; my point was that the N64 has more of the high end. Unless you're a video game reviewer or something you're probably going to play <50 games over the life of a system, and for most people who play a variety of games (sure, not if you're a dedicated fan of a single genre) I think the N64 top 50 beats the PS1 top 50.

The PS1 undeniably had more third-party support and far more games, and sure that means more variety. But if you're talking about whether something's a "poor system for games", I'm more bothered about having the best games than having a wide variety of genres. (Hell, I count the Game Gear as a "good system")

>There's a clear reason why the N64 sold way less than the PS1: it was just a much better deal to get a PS1 if you wanted to play lots of different games. The market is not stupid :)

Careful. By that logic the Wii is the best of the current generation (and I don't think either of us believes that).

[DanBC]

Perhaps, I'm 42 though.

I think "sweet spot" is the wrong term.

There were some excellent games. 1080; Super Mario 64; Golden Eye; some of the Zelda games. These aren't just "very good", these are "among the best", and they are still very very good games.

I'll admit there were also some real duffers. Superman, that claymation fighting game, etc.

Sega Saturn has been mentioned, and that had some great games despite some serious flaws with the system. Sega Rally on Saturn is almost perfect, even though you only have 3 cars and a handful of tracks.

[soup10]

It was the first console with 3D, and it was the last generation before 3d games started to become very expensive to make. This caused an explosion of new gameplay ideas.

[joshschreuder]

Wasn't that Perfect Dark with the 'face in the game' code?

[DanBC]

Yes! Thank you. My faulty memory.