I still remember the Christmas I got the N64 from my parents. I ran downstairs, hooked that shit up and spent my entire morning playing Mario 64 and having a grand old time. Later I was given copies of Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye and Zelda: Ocarina of Time and I remember playing these games with friends and having quite a bit of fun. However, despite the fond memories, looking at the N64 now and even thinking back to how it was back then, the system was actually just a bit shit.
First of all the hardware itself was just a bit shit. The N64 is home to what is probably one of the worst controllers I've ever had to use to play a game with. Sure, we all got used to it and in the end it was fine but that doesn't change the fact that it's clearly designed for a weird species of Octopus people that live on the ocean floor. Plus the addons can also suck a fat one the expansion pack can suck an especially large fat one. I remember my friend coming to my house after school and bringing Majoras Mask with him but he forgot his expansion pack so we were just up shit creek and I had to wait another 2 weeks for him to come over again before I got a chance to play it.
Which leads nicely into the next issue which was pricing of the damn games. Literally nobody that I knew growing up who also had an N64 had more than about 3 or 4 games because the carts were quite literally DOUBLE the price of anything else at the time. You would walk into a game store and all the new games were about 30 Pounds and then there were the N64 games in their stupid ugly rectangular cardboard boxes demanding that you fork out 50 or 60 Pounds. On a side note, the SNES boxes can also suck a fat one but that system was actually good so I'm not as bitter about it.
But all of that shit is in the past, all that REALLY matters are the games. Well, it's not much better in this department. The lifespan of the N64 according to Wikipedia was 6 years and whenever anyone talks about the system the same games always come up; Zelda: OoT, Goldeneye, Banjo, Mario 64, Lylat Wars (sometimes Mario Kart, sometimes Mario Party) and that's fucking IT. 6 years of life and the number of games people actually give a shit about can be counted on one hand. There are a few more games than that, but not many and even of those most of them feel like utter shit to play now. Have you tried actually playing Goldeneye 64 today? It's grueling. Granted it was cool as all hell at the time but playing it now is the gaming equivalent of putting toothpicks under your fingernails. The Dreamcast, again according to Wikipedia, had half the lifespan of the N64 and yet there are significantly more games on that system that were good and still feel good to play even today.
I understand people having fond memories of the thing and I have to admit that despite it's absolutely embarrassing library the games that were good were VERY good (except Goldeneye, fuck off) but lets stop looking back on the system like it was some overall landmark of gaming quality. It was an overpriced piece of shit that mad a fat man in overalls go "wa-hoo" and that's all it was ever good for
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