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"Nintendo 64"

Here a question.

How long do people think the N64 has left to live?

With games like Perfect Dark, Zelda: The Continuing Sage, Turok 3, A Resident Evil game, Top Gear Rally 2, and a bunch of other wicked games this year. How long will the N64 live for? Specially with the PS2 and Dolphin on the horizon how much longer can the N64 last?

Cooky

International Track and Field 2000
N64

Unlock Secret Events:
In Trial Mode get at least a bronze medal in each event to unlock the Triple Jump and the 100m Breaststroke.
Get at least a Silver medal in the Triple Jump and 100m Breaststroke to unlock the Vault.

Different People:
When you enter your name, enter it as L.A to get a silver metallic guy. Enter your name as Roma to get a bronze guy. (note: This only works in Trial Mode)


Gold Competitor (Works only in Trial Mode):
When you enter your name, put "Helsinki" or "Sydney" or "Montreal" or "Moscow"

White Metallic Competitor (Works only in Trial Mode):
When you enter your name, put "Munich".


Green Metallic Competitor (Works only in Trial Mode):
When you enter your name, put "Mexico".


Red Metallic Competitor (Works only in Trial Mode):
When you enter your name, put "Tokyo" .


Blue Metallic Competitor (Works only in Trial Mode):
When you enter your name, put "L.A" in as your name for any country.

Bronze Competitor (Works only in Trial Mode):
When you enter your name, put "Roma".

The N64 still has many great games in the works at the moment and will not bow out without a fight. I've listed some titles to look forward to below and writen a quick explanation of what they are:

First person Shooters:

1. The World Is Not Enough (TWINE) (october release)

TWINE is reportedly very similar to goldeneye but with amazing graphics and brilliant levels and is due for a october release date. Developed by Eurocom/EA its shaping up to be a brilliant game it may not be a perfect dark beater but looks set to easily surpass Goldeneye graphically and at least equal it in gameplay if not pass it. In either case even a game which is like Goldeneye an expansion of Goldeneye is still an exciting prospect.

2.Turok 3 (T3)(September release)

T3 is also looking brilliant game also of the first person shooter genre. Following in the footsteps of the immensely popupular first Turok games this Game has amazing graphics and the ability to play with two different charachters and apparently with varying tasks in accordance with whichever charachter you choose. One of the most amazing features is T3s cutscenes reported to be superior to Perfect darks it features features such as moving mouths when people speak and amazing graphics. Whole brilliant interacive cities huge and challenging monsters and the traditionally huge arsenal at your disposal this is a game to look forward to.

Both games are looking good and are suppose to feature amazing details and great multiplayer features.

Platformers:

1. Banjo Tooie (BT)(November)

Banjo 2 looks to be another Rare stunner which should improve on its predecessor in every way. Probably the most noticable new feature is the fact that Banjo and Kazooie can now seperate from each other this opens up the game compleely with both charachters using their abilities to solve the puzzles when appropriate you can join the duo together again and use the old moves again. The levels look huge and graphically brilliant with loads of new challenges. You can also use Mumbo as a playable charachter. BT also includes a multiplayer and the best new game is a 4 way football match but there are plenty of other games to play in multiplayer.

2. Conkers Bad Fur Day (conkers BFD) (December)

Conkers Bad Fur Day started of life as a friendly little game aimed for younger gamer with a constantly smiling squirrel (Do not start that squirrel thread again please!!!) but has since evolved into a game aimed for older people it is rumoured that it will carry a 15 or 18 certificate because unlike Banjo Kazooie which is a nice game and looks to be very similar conkers BFD the later is filled with bad language and violence. The actual game looks very impressive with its new more nasty looking squirrel the puzzles seem very challenging and the graphics are once again brilliant this is a platform older gamers may look forward to.

RPGs

Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. (Zelda 2) (November release)

Another Nintendo stunner improving on the on the original this game has been clouded in confusion. Originally rumour had it that the game only lasted 72 minutes and if you failed you had to start again. I have been reliaby informed that the game involves massive amounts of time travel and is far larger than the original. The game focuses on a new ability link has to change forms by putting on masks. By utilising different masks link can change into a Goron a deku shrub or a Zoran and he has to use the various masks to aid him in his quest to stop Ganondorf making the sky fall in. This game will use the Expansion Pak and will no doubt surpass the original which is a serious contender for the best game of all time in all ways.

If that wasn't enough to satisfy even the greediest of gamers there is also 3 other brilliant looking games currently being developed which are:

1.Eternal Darkness: A Nintendo RPG featuring almost twenty playable charachters and it has been said that it will be by far the biggest game that will be brought ot on the N64.

2. Excite Bike 64: The long awaited sequel to the popular snes game and could turn out to be one of the best racers ever.

3.Indiana Jones. This did not do terribly well on the PC but it has been completely remodeled and restructured for the N64 and looks brilliant and is definitely worth looking forward to.

4. Riqa. Details about Riqa are are extremely sketchy but this is the game that I think will be one for everyone to when the N64 does eventually go into retirement it is supposedly a mainly stealth based game following the female whose name is the title. It looks like it maybe the great surprise of the N64.

Anyway This E mail is supposed to give N64 owners something to look forward to and to silence those who say it is already dead these titles are probably the most promising but who knows what else might turn up and hopefully surprise all gamers.

Hands down, second to none, the N64 is probally one of the best consoles ever designed. Browsing through magazines with " the best 100 games ever," I come across not one, but three N64 games in the top position. The usual suspects are Mario 64, Golden Eye, and Zelda 64....its no surprise why. Nintendo and Rare have contributed in gaming history, producing WICKED gameplay, excellent graphics... the key to a succesful game. Playstation in my eyes have never produced a game even near to the likes of Golden Eye, most playstation developers just turn out some crappy game inspired by a film or event, and it sells. N64 games have to be worked at, and when it comes off, it gives a very adrenaline rush to the player. So when the likes of PS2 and X-box, just remember the good old days.... the N64.

Supposedly the n64 is dying yet it is the best selling console in the States (even though it doesn't break like the PSX which needs replacing every 2 years or so). Its produced chart busters with Pokemon and Perfect Dark, the latter being a good enough reason to get the console.
In short don't worry, the n64 is going to hold out until the dolphnis arrival.

The AI is amazing the enemies are very intelligent especially on perfect. But even on agent you can't wait around a corner and blow them away they wo't come around it they wait for you . In multiplayer the Sims are amazing if set on hard or better and especially when teamed up. To make this statement you could only be playing agent mode or easy sims.

back to the squirals talk
its about time that we crossed a squiral with a pigeon thus creating
SQUIlGEON terror of the ground and skys.
Think of the possibilitys the pigeon could fly through the air and the squiral could hold nuts in its mouth ready to bombard the enemy.
or perhaps we could cross a badger and an albertross......

Long Time no...Message folks but I am back now and raring to go.

I don't know about anyone else but i thik that this game looks ace...get it, anyway there are a good few screenshots accessible through http://www.nintendo.com and from what i have read and heard, this game is gonna be big, there are 16 playable charachters veterans like mario to history makers like Birdo and the all new Waluigi, as you would expect this game is very much cartoon based and this is well reinforced by cool words on the screen that pop up and let you know that you have done well 'nice' and 'smashing' will occasionally come up to give you a little confidence boost but the players themselves need no help as they will go nuts and celebrate after every point they win.

The learning curve should take about 15 mins to pass and believe me the way the game is shaping up that will fly by. The ring/hoop mode from Mario Golf is back and other mini-game-like challenges give you the chance to polish up on your tennis skills. As with many other Mario Titles such as Mario Kart, The player that you pick has a great effect on the strategy you must use to survive, Baby Mario is fast but is he fast enough to compete with Bowser's Power, we will have to wait and see.

Meet Waluigi is one of the roads you can take when looking around the mario tennis section on the nintendo website, Waluigi , as you can imagine HATES Luigi, we don't quite know why but he does all the same, He is a very thin tall Luigi like charachter with Wario colours Purple and Yellow. He is a good all rounder and would probably be suitable for beginners but with the all round skill he has could be mastered by a number of people.

Mario
Luigi
Peach
Bowser
Wario
Birdo
Yoshi
Baby Mario
Koopa Trooper
Dk
DK Jr.
Waluigi
Boo
and Peaches cousin Maria are some of the 16 charachters you can use to smash your opponents. Winning tournament mode with some of these charachters can win you other charachters and special courts that boost the fun of Mario Tennis. Overall the Game loks great and the screen shots and other prieview prove that this is exactly right.

If you buy 1 game this summer/autumn...forget your Perfect Darks with the gradually dying out crappy storylines and Look to the best, Nintendo have done it again with Mario Tennis Definately sure to serve up fun in 2000


The Game

At first glance, Iggy's Reckin' Balls (IRB) may look like one of those sickeningly cutsie Nintendo games. Well it is, though there's still a pretty good game amidst all that cuteness.
The game takes place in the Cho-Dama kingdom where the inhabitants have "no worries and no bills to pay." Where is this place and how do I get there? Oh yeah, there's also these Sacred Towers there, too. Enter Iggy and his friends, whose sole purpose is to race up each and every one of these towers therby destroying (reckin') it.

Iggy's Reckin' Balls is sort of a cross between a cute racing game like DK Racing and a platform/puzzle game. You'll need to run and jump your way up the towers, avoiding traps and hazards while trying to figure out how to get to the next platform and staying in the lead. You have at your disposal the use of a grappling hook that allows you to climb up ledges as well as grabbing your opponents and throwing them off the track.

There are 10 races in each level with the standings based on a point system. Whoever has the most points at the end of 10 races wins that level. The individual track design is excellent, keeping the pace of each race really frantic. Modes include regular racing, a battle mode which is kind of a free-for-all brawl where the last ball standing ... er, rolling...wins, and a time trial mode.

Graphics are first-rate. There's some incidental pop-up during the game, but nothing really blatant. The track textures look good, but you'll be begging for some variety after a few levels. The backgrounds are fabulous and everything else looks clean and is drawn beautifully.

Music comes courtesy of a pseudo-techno soundtrack which isn't all that bad but gives the game more of the cutsie-kiddie feel. Sound effects are decent, much like Diddy Kong where each character's speech is limited to whoops, cheers, and taunts. And like Diddy Kong, the female character's taunts get really annoying after a while and you wish you could go into the game and grab that silly wench and...well, you get the idea. (Been watchin' a little too much South Park.

The depth in this game is surprising and welcome. First off, mastering special grappling techniques requires a bit of practice as well as some fancy joystick- twirling. There are loads of cool ways to grab, chuck, spin, and throw your opponent off the towers, but most of these take practice, practice, practice. The tracks themselves can be tricky too, with numerous shortcuts and hidden paths to find in order to gain an advantage. Add to this nine secret characters and six hidden tracks and you've got quite a formidable game on your hands.

Iggy's Reckin' Balls is a lot more difficult than it looks. Part of this is because the game has a lot of depth with loads of special moves and powerups. Also contributing to IRB's difficulty are the weak controls. Basically, the analog stick moves your character as well as aiming your grappling hook. This pretty much rules out moving right to advance your position and grappling left to slow down an opponent. The controls aren't absolute so you'll have to do a lot of adjustments on the stick as the camera pans to different perspectives as you scale the towers.

Multiplayer is a bit more fun than solo play, but the controls are so unintuitive and the gameplay so challenging that novice players may give up in frustration easily. Perhaps the best part of multiplay is throwing an opponent off the track at a particularly difficult section of the course, thus insuring victory. However, a lot of games end without you ever getting close enough to the other player to screw them up. Pretty much a mixed bag here.

Acclaim has done an excellent job putting out first-rate titles for the N64 over a long period f time now, i.e WWF War Zone + attitude, NFL Quarterback Club, and Bust-a-Move 2 are just a few of their successes. However, Acclaim is running the risk of experiencing "Midway Syndrome" - when a company puts out an average game and puts so many secrets in that you end up shelling out a lot of extra money just to try and find them all. In the arcades, I've seen people shell out £30-£40 a day on a game just trying to find all the secret characters and power-ups and for home systems you get gouged with those "strategy guides." But I digress...

Iggy's Reckin' Balls is one of those games you'll either love or hate. I suggest a rental first and if you like it, IRB will provide you with hours of enjoyment and solid gameplay.

Imagine the bleakest, dustiest and driest of monotonous wastelands. A wasteland complete with gigantic, half sub-terranean skeletons and a searing hot wind that blows black clouds across a white, featureless sky. "Where the hell is the story, the drama," whispers the wind. You scream "I don't know, I've been looking and looking, but the void stretches endlessly forever. There is no God! And the only N64 game I've got on hand to play is (sob).. Wrestlemania 2000."
Wrestlemania 2000 isn't a totally featureless game; in fact, parts of it represent the real-world thing pretty well. However, the wrestlers on TV do stuff other than just fight matches. The endearingly phony fights exist to further involving and interesting stories. On TV the wrestlers have personalities (which are as obviously contrived as the matches), and some of them are pretty interesting. There are good guys and bad guys, and you always want the good guys to win, but then the bad guys pull something sneaky, and it's injustice, and it makes you give a damn...

But there's nothing like that in Wrestlemania 2000. Just match after match after match after match. The wrestlers look different, and there are different kinds of matches, but nothing is ever really on the line except your record and possibly a belt.

For the most part, this game is just an update to WCW/NWO Revenge. The graphics are fine. The wrestlers look like themselves in most cases, and they are superbly animated with nice textures. The only visual blemishes are the character intros. Every single intro is comprised of several horribly defined images strung together in a mockery of ingenuity and creativity. They add nothing to the game other than disappointment.

Wrestlemania's music is weak. The track that plays during the actual matches is short and extremely repetitive. This would be aggravating even if the riffs kicked ***. But Wrestlemania's music is awful from the start. It sounds like SNES music, and by today's standards, it's rubbish

In spite of the sub-standard music, the sound effects add to the game tremendously. The muffled "biff" as you strike someone's head and the resounding "chop" that corresponds to a well-executed counter are sufficiently satisfying, and create an impact more real than the "actual" punches thrown at "real" wrestling matches.

The ability to edit and customize wrestlers looks cool, but turns out to be boring and insignificant. Stone Cold looks sort of like Stone Cold, but he is really no different than any other wrestler in the game. With the editing command, you can make moves and characters look different, but the consequences of these changes are merely visual.

The one power contained in the editing command is handicapping. The only way one wrestler can be distinguished from another is if he is made weaker or stronger. You can give a wrestler all knockout moves and make him really fast and tough, or you can give him all lame moves, but he is always essentially the same wrestler as every other.

The reason behind the limitations of the wrestlers and the editing system lies in Wrestlemania's combat system. There are two things horribly wrong with the combat. First is the fact that every wrestler has the exact same moves. They may look different, but all punches, kicks, grabs, and specials are executed in exactly the same way for every wrestler. There are truly only about 30 moves in Wrestlemania 2000 (there are about 200 appearances). The upside is that you can play with any wrestler, and, if you know the moves, can play with them well. But this only appears to be an upside; the fact that every wrestler is identical is really quite a downside.

Wrestlemania's second fighting flaw has to do with the fact that every move can be countered, and that the counters take absolutely no skill to pull off. In fact, no moves in Wrestlemania take any skill to pull off. The counters are only difficult because they have to be executed at a certain time. To become good at Wrestlemania is not to master a fighting style or a series of difficult combos, but instead is to have the deepest knowledge of when to press the "R" button. Such a counter-based combat system makes for some extremely dull fights, since there is no reason to ever attack the other player. Wrestlemania 2000 is a defensively oriented game, and is, because of this, boring.

There is, alas, one tooth without a cavity in Wrestlemania 2000's contaminated mouth, and that is the multiplayer fighting. Now, not all of the multiplayer fighting is good - only the really chaotic stuff like four-player Summer Slam and Royal Rumble. Such matches make no allowance for skill (as soon as "skill" enters a match, excitement leaves), and are best described as totally violent and crazy. They're a lot of fun, but you have to be able to scrape together four players.

WWF Wrestlemania 2000 looks like a solid game, and is chock full of nifty little details. But in this case, the details only accentuate the game's ultimate lack of character, and outline the space that should be filled by good gameplay.

In 1997, the best console first-person shooter of all time was released. Of course, I'm talking about Goldeneye. While it still had some problems, it was just a great game. From the great graphics to the sniper rifle to the death throes of the enemies, Goldeneye continued to be a best seller for years. When E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) 1998 came around, everybody got their first glimpse of Perfect Dark. Then, silence. E3 1999 arrived, and people got to play a few levels. Then, silence once again. Vowing not to be shown at more than three E3's.

Perfect Dark hit the shelves just in time for the latest expo, and in many ways, it was worth the wait. Though not the revolutionary title we might have longed for, Perfect Dark is an exceptional game that builds on the Goldeneye foundation and outshines its predecessor.

The graphics are top notch. However, you should know that you NEED a RAM expansion pack in order to play this game. Though a few minor features work without the pack, the bulk of the game suffers dramatically and you can't play most of it (including all single player missions). So, go buy an expansion pack, or even Donkey Kong 64, which comes with one.

That having been said, the pack logically makes the graphics better than Goldeneye. Instead of using the extra power to improve the textures and resolution, the developers (Rare) lengthened the viewable area and kept some RAM free for the enemy AI. There is occasional slowdown and the flying objects have a few polygonal glitches, but they are easily ignored. Sacrificing graphics for gameplay - a good decision in my opinion, especially when the game still looks great.

Gameplay-wise, Perfect Dark is really good. Unlike Goldeneye, where you had to see the movie to know what to do, Perfect Dark introduces and ends many levels with audio events and in-game cut-scenes. If you still don't know what to do, there's a briefing you can read at the beginning of each mission. While the briefing does seem a bit long, it tells you all you need to know - in many ways, too much.

The different gameplay modes in Perfect Dark vary mainly by enemy count and mission objectives. The basic Agent mode is easy, perfect for those who just want to run through the levels shooting things. The Secret Agent mode gives you a bit more to do and makes things a little tougher, but not too bad. Unless you get easily frustrated, play as the Secret Agent, because the Agent mode is just too easy. For perfectionists, there's Perfect Agent mode. As with Goldeneye, the more levels you beat at various times in the different modes open up new cheats.

The AI, unfortunately, is fairly unintelligent. Adopting the age-old rush-at-her-with-as-many-people-as-possible ploy, the number of times you have a hallway filled with dead people is a little ridiculous. Fans of FPS games on the PC may be disappointed in this respect, but for the more action-oriented console gamer, this type of AI may have been the best way to go. I do wish they'd aim a bit better, though.

The level design is just amazing. The complex, sprawling levels are as varied as they are semi-realistic. With most futuristic FPS games throwing any sort of legitimate architecture out the window (then blowing it up with a BFG), it's good to be in an office building that looks like an office building. When the location looks realistic, it adds to the depth and addiction of the game.

Add to that forty different weapons, including one that can both shoot through and look through walls, and you've got a long time ahead of you uncovering everything Perfect Dark has to offer.

Since good multiplayer is one of the things that made Goldeneye so popular, it's not surprising that there's extensive multiplayer support in Perfect Dark. All the same old modes are there for you Deathmatch junkies, with a few new ones for kicks. Don't like playing on your own? Try Co-operative and run the missions with a friend. Think the enemy AI is too easy? Try Counter-operative where one of your friends plays on the enemy side. Every time he dies, he jumps to another enemy's body. These different playing modes drastically extend the amount of gameplay you'll get from Perfect Dark.

When the game is over and the lights come up, Perfect Dark shines out as one of the best N64 games and a must-have for anyone who liked Goldeneye. Though some problems hold it back from true greatness, we all can't be perfect . . . can we?

Overall perfect dark is one excellent game, lush levels, speech, mad multiplayer, go buy it today,