Do it in this format.
Moment: Short summary ie First time playing Mario 64
Game: (Could include Multiple games)
Single Player/Multiplayer: (Can be both in some cases)
Year: 1995 - 2008 ;)
Description: More in depth of description.
I'll go first!
Number 5
Moment: Winning a Goldeneye Tournament
Game: Goldeneye
Single Player/Multiplayer: Multi!
Year: 2008
Description: I traveled to Adelaide for a big LAN event, cause I heard there was an GoldeneyeN64 tourny on! It also helped that a number of my friends were going for a Smash Melee tournament ( I was in that too). Anyway before the event (which was scheduled at 6am! :eek: ) I set up my N64 on a big (2 metre widescreen!) TV and had random multiplayer encounters with random people. It was so much fun, games included NBA Hangtime, Snowboard Kids, Bomberman 64 and of course Goldeneye. So many people had such fond memories of the N64, and I met some great people.
Come 4am i was a bit tired so I had some sorta double espresso coffee and as such was pumped for the Goldeneye Tourny. There was some semi close games in the semi finals but I absolutely slaughtered them in the final. I think I must of just got up early got some nice breaks and just shattered their confidence early. I think the final score was 22-14-3 (3 way final).
Number 4
Moment: Summer of 2000/01
Game: Majora's Mask/Banjo-Tooie mostly
Single Player/Multiplayer: Single Player
Year: 2001
Description: Where I used to live the summer days were long and we got 8 weeks of consecutive holiday. This meant getting up, playing some N64 for a bit, spending most of the day outside at the beach or riding and then coming back and playing N64 well into the night.
I just remember the excited feeling of coming home and wanting to explore/progress more in Majora's Mask and sharing the awesome humour of Banjo-Tooie with my mates.
F-Zero X and Tony Hawks (the original!) had brief cameos in this summer too!
Number 3
Moment: Co-op International Superstar Soccer 64
Game: International Superstar Soccer 64
Single Player/Multiplayer: Multi
Year: 2004-06
Description: This game works SO very well as a co-op game, and with up to 4 players. Its all on the one screen, and the feeling of being in the team together is great.
Not only that but making your own characters and watching them progress and scoring a goal as "your" character. Its great!
Going through the International League and winning the final was a great feeling and it was so much better seeing how you improve as you go and working better as a team.
On top of that, there is some things about that game that are just so classic, from the wacky menu music to the over the top (and i mean SERIOUSLY over the top) commentator, that keeps us coming back from more.
OK, i'm very tired now, the other 2 can come later, feel free to add your own, or suggest a different format etc, have fun. :D
ok, i'll give this a shot, but keep in mind it's not in any real order
1
Moment: Experiencing Ocarina of Time for the first time
Game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Single Player/Multiplayer: Single... but with other people
Year: 1998
Description: Step brothers come over in late 1998. Bring OoT, brand new, just came out. They've both gotten a bit into the game, but are inexperienced enough that I still manage to find surprises and keep things interesting for them to watch as they let me play pretty much all that Friday night. Going through the Deku Tree for the first time. Exploring that ridiculously awesome world map of Hyrule Field. The battles. The FREAKING ENORMOUS TERRIFYING PEAHATS. It was all good.
2
Moment: Mastering Bomberman 64
Game: Bomberman 64
Single Player/Multiplayer: Single/Multi
Year: ~1997-1998
Description: My favorite N64 title for awhile, the first 3D iteration of a series I loved dearly on the NES/SNES, and RIDICULOUSLY challenging, this thing was a gem. Now, just playing it and beating the bosses was a brutal undertaking in itself, but where some people I knew who owned the game gave up after beating Altair or even before that, I collected every single Gold Card, unlocked the way to Rainbow Road, and found a huge amount of the custom parts for multiplayer (speaking of which, the multiplayer was quite awesome as well). Perhaps most satisfying was revealing the true ending of the game to my step brother, who loathed it terribly as he quite liked the character Sirius.
3
Moment: Click Clock Woods
Game: Banjo-Kazooie
Single Player/Multiplayer: Single
Year: 1998
Description: Now, this game overall is extremely well-made and satisfying in many ways. This game is loaded with mindblowingly well-designed and interesting stages and settings. This game has many, many great moments and times alotted for you to just sit back and go "Ahhhh, now this is what a platform/adventure is meant to be" or somesuch. But.. Click Clock Wood. Close to the end of the quest, the last major 'normal' area in the game, I was tucked in my warm upstairs bedroom bent for hours on end to put a stop to the actions of the evil (if not awesome and one of my favorite video game villains of all time by far) witch Gruntilda. As of unlocking and reaching this wonderful tidbit of 3D adventure gaming, I entered the stage... and... whoa.
It's FOUR stages in one; four iterations of one stage, one for each season. Extremely satisfying to explore them all and examine the span of an entire year in this little neck of the woods.
The music is absolutely awesome.
It's full of interesting characters like the beaver, squirrel and bees. The squirrel is adorable, and you basically get to see a big episode of his life take place, ending in him snug in bed with a pink mate. What was his name? Nabnut?
You get to use the bee form, at least in spring, which is easily the coolest in the game (though some others are cuter [croc] or more intereting [washing machine]); you get to fly infinitely in 3D space.
Aaaaaand not to mention that beating it leads to Grunty's awesome quiz game and the epic final battle, two other utterly genius pieces of this already wonderful game.
4
Moment: The early days
Game: Super Mario 64, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Mario Kart 64, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, Star Fox 64, etc
Single Player/Multiplayer: Both
Year: ~1996-1997
Description: The birth of the legendary system. My brother and I grew up absolutely obsessed with the Super NES, and here came a video with my brother's subscription to Nintendo Power about the new Nintendo ULTRA 64. Oh. My. ***. A fully 3D, voiced Mario throwing Bowser by the tail into exploding bombs. A rougher, tougher, gruffer version of Han Solo speeding down an alien town in one of the baddest *** bikes I'd ever seen in an epic-looking Star Wars game. Demos of a 3D Link having a sword duel with a Stalfos. It was almost too much to bear. We needed one. We were meant to have one.
Between popping it in for the first time, family gathered around to hear Princess Toadstool--err, wait, now she's known as Peach?--'s little cheesy letter at the beginning of Super Mario 64, running around and getting the hang of Mario's many, MANY moves... experiencing Turok, the first FPS I was ever truly interested in, as my brother mowed down dinos with flaming Tek arrows... Speeding down the raceways in a game I, at the time, held on a much higher pedastal than its predecessor on the SNES, Super Mario 64... holding in my hands the very first game ever designed for rumble technology (to my knowledge) as I blasted down giant robots and fleets of ships as a fox in a fighter plane in Star Fox 64... The whole experience for the first few months was mindblowing. Of course, later games still made the cut, but those first moments of experiencing the N64 were something only those of us who happened to get one and play it at that ripe young age when it was brand new can ever truly understand. It was breathtaking.
5
Moment: Super Smash Bros. All of it.
Game: Super Smash Bros.
Single Player/Multiplayer: Both, but mostly multi
Year: ~1999-2001
Description: This. Game.
No.
It's the best thing ever.
The best idea ever.
EVER.
You're born in the mid 80s to a middle-class family. You grow up as a nerd force-fed Nintendo from the get-go by a game-loving (at least back then) father and uncle and an older brother who couldn't go a day without playing his NES (and showing off to you). You spend just about every waking moment that you're not actually playing a video game or watching a cartoon, thinking about how cool it would be if Mario, Link and Kid Icarus (which I thought his name was for ages, no help from Captain N) were in the same game. You watch Captain N on TV and SEE many such characters exist in the same universe, and wonder why there's not a GAME of it.
Years later, fresh into 12-year-old pre-puberty, you get your issue of Ninetendo Power (subscription having been passed down from older to younger brother) and see some cute little image on the cover with a few Nintendo characters and something called 'Super Smash Bros'. You flip curiously to the designated page, pondering that surely it must only be some puzzle game with a funny name with various Nintendo characters in the background. You find the page, and are... pleasantly surprised. Very, very, very pleasantly surprised.
Could this be true?
You pre-order the game at Electronics Boutique. You let your mind fill with all manner of wonderful ideas as you await the release date. You finally get the game.
You are blown *away*.
It's just a simple, simple, SIMPLE little fighting game. Interesting, unique fighting mechanic. Just a few small stages. A very simple, predictable single player mode.
But holy @#($. Link is beating the crap out of Mario. Pikachu and Yoshi are locked in combat with ray guns and beam swords. I'm unlocking--Captain Falcon?! You mean the guy from F-Zero, my brother used to have those comics of?!
HOLY @#)#, NESS? FROM EARTHBOUND?
Enter months and months of SSB being *THE* game to play when you go to anyone's house or anyone has a birthday. Totally replacing Goldeneye and such, though it had its heyday, with my group of friends at least. Possibly happening in the *VERY* best part of my youth, around 6th grade-ish, in which I had more friends than I ever did before or since. This stuff was wild. Around that time--1998-2001 ish, between Smash Bros. and Pokemon, myself and everyone I knew was a Nintendo maniac. And it was good. Oh, so good.
Not to mention, even single player, I had a blast with SSB by doing things such as fighting 3 computer players on a high difficulty with 200% damage and nothing but bob-ombs and mines. Good times.
And then there's the whole 'playing it online for years before Brawl was released' via Kaillera, but that's another story.
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Now, here's a ton of other awesome N64 moments I can think of, such as first experiencing Adult Link climbing out of the Temple of Time and into a place very reminiscent of Link to the Past's Dark World, if not even darker--or exploring Jet Force Gemini, especially some of the later, absolutely awesome planets that game had to offer. But these are five of the best memories from that era I have to think about -- though I will always love the SNES era, those late-90s years with the N64 didn't leave me wishing for more, that's for sure.
And, holy crap, first mega-huge post I've made here in years. Grats, DJ, on unleashing the rant-monster.
Good thread.