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15 years ago today, the Nintendo 64 was released in America

Wario64

works for Gamestop (lol)
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Woooooooooooooooooooooooooow.
 

andymcc

Banned
remember like it was yesterday. the EB in my town broke street date on the N64, so i had it a few days earlier. ;p

super mario 64 was my 12 year-old life.
 
What is that? Looks like crap.
Nintendo will be third party by the end of the year.

Also, WOW! So many colors! Looks so awful!
 

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
Yep remember trading in my SNES for a Nintendo 64, I choice a came to regret in the intervening years.
 

Kazerei

Banned
The N64 era is when I seriously started to become a gamer.

The best part was that a few of my friends had N64s too, and they would bring their controllers over for 4-player awesomeness like Mario Kart, Mario Party, Smash Bros, etc.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I actually remember this day pretty clearly. I liked video games at that point but didn't follow them too closely (since I was 7 at the time) and one of my friends got it on launch day. I had no idea what it was and it totally blew my mind when I saw the controller and 3D graphics.
 

GQman2121

Banned
I remember the launch games were like $60-70. Silly Nintendo...wait a minute.......


The best games on the system were still the AKI wrestlers
 

luka

Loves Robotech S1
Wario64 said:
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooow.
Indeed. :p

Mario 64 still looks strangely appealing. Simple, smooth, abstract shapes and designs never lose their charm.
 

Afrikan

Member
man, those $80 games scared me off during the initial launch......loved the system though.

PilotWings still one of my favorite games of all time.

*sigh* PilotWings, San Francisco Rush, WCW World Tour, etc good times.
 
All this makes me think is...dang I'm getting old...

Seriously though Mario64 was a freaking revelation then. I hated pretty much everything 3D up until that was released. The first game to come close to really getting the 3D movement, look and feel all nailed. The flat shaded graphics actually hold up pretty well even today.
 
My launch 64 still works and is plugged into my HDTV.

I actually got mine a day early. I think. We had it pre-ordered at Toys R Us (oh, the good ol' days when there weren't long lines for console pre-orders/launches), and we were driving by the store the day before launch, so my parents were like what the hell, let's see if they have them. Went in and got a console and Super Mario 64.

Looking back that sounds somewhat unlikely to have actually happened, as they may have just gotten the day mixed up, but at the time consoles launches weren't taken quite as seriously as they are now, so I could see Toys R Us of all places doing that. All I know is my 8 y/o self was like "Hell yeah, got this early!"
 

Biggzy

Member
So many great memory's, which mainly revolve around a certain game called Goldeneye. However I never actually brought one and to this day I don't know why. I think it might have been because I played a lot of it at a friends house and so I didn't see a reason why I should buy one. I regret it now though lol.
 

Madao

Member
the system that gave us F-Zero X and many other great games (few of them but very worth it)

i still have mine hooked up just to play F-Zero X with the Expansion Kit because nintendo was dumb and didn't release the game with the expansion kit stuff integrated on VC. hurry and release the game complete and with new graphics on 3DS so i can put away the console.
 

Takao

Banned
Happy birthday N64. You had games that busted many of my controllers. Had games that cost too much, and never went down in price. Heck, you only had a few games, but you still aren't the worst console I own.
 
I love how the system has few games in total compared to other systems, but the games it has are held in very high regard.

I love my N64, though. My personal favorite system. All I need to make it complete is the 64DD and its games.
 
Actually, Nintendo's decision to go with cartridges instead of CD's is what turned me forever into a Sony console/portable fan.

I still bought an N64, and still have it to this day (cant play Ogre Battle 64 otherwise), but it will be forever remembered by me as the 'good console that could have been great'.
 
damn, has it really been that long? I remember playing Mario 64 in fred meyers at a kiosk back then. it was demoed way before the actual system launched! man, I miss that. I'd spend every chance I could get to go to the store and play it. it wasn't a demo like we have now, it was the full retail version. I beat the whole game piece by piece at that electronics department! I was so amazed with how it played compared to every other game on the market. they really nailed the 3d platformer with that game. it changed everything. I finally got it home and I played every day until all the hidden stars where mine. there will always be a special place in my heart for nintendo with all of the great gaming experiences they innovated.
 

Sophia

Member
I still remember the first time I played Super Mario 64 in a Toys R Us. That was magical...
... and I'm never getting that feeling back, am i? ;_;
 
Marrshu said:
I still remember the first time I played Super Mario 64 in a Toys R Us. That was magical...
... and I'm never getting that feeling back, am i? ;_;
This.

The combination of it being an amazing game + me being a young, impressionable boy who liked to play games more than I'll ever do again = best gaming experience ever.

Just running around in the castle alone made me all giddy.
 

Wario64

works for Gamestop (lol)
Strange enough, the purchase date was written on my N64 box. I remember Toys R Us breaking street date a few days early and my box confirms it.

jNTr6.jpg
 

Kazerei

Banned
Quality Over Quantity

I frequently visited the GameFAQs message boards back then, and Ninty fans often used that phrase, heh. I was too young to remember the 16-bit system wars, but the N64 vs PSX era was fun.
 

StarEye

The Amiga Brotherhood
15 years ago today
Miyamoto taught us all to play
Super Mario Bros in full 3D
And showed us stuff we never thought we'd see

Happy birthday, little ugly duckling 64.
 
goldeneye eventually became my most played game on the system, but nothing wowed me as much as mario 64. the gravity of playing in a fully realized 3d world that controlled extremely well and had a camera system that worked great 98% of the time... I will never forget how excited I started becoming with the actual hardware.
 
I bought a N64 about a year after it came out. I actually traded in my PS1 towards it because I was short of cash.

I had a blast with Mario 64, Wave Rave, and Zelda OOT, but my enthusiasm for the system was a short lived affair. I only bought a handful of games for it. After I lost interest, I became a PC exclusive gamer until the PS2 came along.
 
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