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Nintendo 64 Console Review – the 64 bit beast lives on

Hey Star Struck fans and welcome to another vintage console review. We have arrived at Nintendo Headquarters, it is March 2001 and they are about to unveil the most powerful console to date -the Nintendo 64.

Nintendo 64 – the 64-bit beast

The N64 was at the time the beast of the console world as nothing else was running at 64 bit, with Sega sticking with 32 bit and we all know how that ended. Big things were expected from this console and even though it didn’t quite rock the gaming world as the SNES did it still had its fair share of brilliant games that were designed well, took full advantage of the power and were designed well to work with the M shaped controller.

The controller in itself had a feature which allowed you to insert a rumble pak in the back for what is now known as force feedback making the games that little bit more involving and Drawing you in.

A wealth of titles to boast

Mario 64 was one of the first games to be released to rave reviews it was colourful, huge and a joy to play with various worlds and amazing boss battles. All of Nintendo’s beloved characters got the 64 bit treatment.

We were treated to Amazing Zelda games such as Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of time, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong were given their own critically acclaimed platformer, and even a Diddy Kong Racing game which involved karts, planes and even a hovercraft.

Eventually all these characters were thrown together for Super Smash Bros and to really cash in on the trends of the time Pokémon Stadium was released at the height of the Pokémon craze.

      

Nintendo’s marketing team were nothing short of brilliant.

Not just for the younger audience

Nintendo knew that it was all well having games aimed at the younger generation but was well aware of the adult following they had, this lead them to release games such as Turok Dinosaur Hunter and the more than impressive Turok 2 that came with a 4Mb expansion pak that allowed the game to run at a higher frame rate and much smoother.

Goldeneye and perfect Dark were massive successes and Nintendo still hold the rights to Goldeneye which infuriatingly means it cannot be released on anything else at this time.

Were cartridges the way to go?

The N64 was produced until May 2006 and had sold a healthy 32 million units in its time, some say the main problem for the N64 was it took so long to produce cartridges and the fact the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn were using CDs. Publishers had to constantly guess what game would be a success and pre plan development and shipment, so this lead to either a shortage in a popular game or a warehouse full of expensive cartridges. The price of these cartridges was also passed onto the customer with some cartridges being £10 more than other console game releases.

Star Struck Gaming Rating

So as we come to the end of this Vintage review I hope I have sparked off some good memories of epic 4 player battles on Goldeneye, late night races on Mario Kart, and gaming in to the early hours looking for the next tune for the Ocarina. The N64 is a quality machine and again as I always stress would be brilliant for new gamers.

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