Andi Hamilton's Videogame Newsletter - Issue #55 [N64 Exclusive Sports Games]

Author

Andi Hamilton
February 24, 2023

Alright lads, bit of a niche one this week but I don’t imagine you’ve signed up to this thing for anything less. Here’s my thoughts on ten N64 exclusive sports titles - there’s some real gold in here!

Apologies for another listicle but I’m still cracking through a couple of games that I intend to do deeper dives on. I’m almost finished with one and that will likely feature soon enough in an issue!

64 Ozumo

I think this might be shit? I’m not sure! Every time I have tried to play it it has been a fairly bad experience, with the language barrier being completely inpenetrable so the story mode is a write-off and the actual mechanics appear to be quite confusing, with pushing the inputs that appear on screen offering no instant feedback but instead triggering specific animations. It seems to be a game of guessing what your opponent’s next move is going to be and inputting a command to counter it, or push your own offense for them to counter. I should just fuck this off and wait for a fan translation but honestly, I love the way it looks, sumo wrestling is rad as hell and apparently the story mode sees you trying to stop some corrupt stable of sumos taking over the honourable competition, so I’ll keep trying. I want to ‘get’ it. Someone, anyone, help me?

Centre Court Tennis

This one is such a weird one! It’s basically a knock-off of the brilliant Smash Court/Anna Kournikova’s Tennis on the PS1, even down to trying to ape the signature art style of those games. It’s an intitially simplistic but actually very deep tennis game, a bit stiffer and more realistic than a Mario Tennis but still very much in the pick-up-and-play arcade camp. It lacks the content and rad secret characters of the PS1 games it clearly borrows from but, due to the N64 console hardware, is a much easier game to play a quickfire four player game of tennis doubles. Weirdly, I think this only came out in Europe and Japan, missing the US completely.

International Superstar Soccer ‘98

If you want an idea of how good Konami’s three ISS games on the N64 are, when asked how third-party games on the system compared to those developed by Nintendo the big man himself Shigeru Miyamoto once said “I can’t officially rate them, but Konami’s soccer game may be better than our games”. BETTER than. The highest of high praise from a legitimate legend. All three are excellent but I personally choose ISS ‘98, a game that game out right in the thick of World Cup ‘98 fever, England again doing their characteristic glorious failure on the biggest stage and that era of top tier International football kits. A wonderful blend of the arcade and the realistic ensures that ISS is still great fun but holds up as an exceptional representation of the beautiful game.

Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr.

I fell in love with baseball videogames on the N64. A mate of mine got All-Star Baseball and I got completely hooked on the career mode, learning the ins-and-outs of the sport on the fly. This was one of the Nintendo published sports games release for the system and a slightly more arcade-y take on things than Acclaim’s All-Star line. However, I was left a bit wanting by this one. You see, for arcade baseball thrills on the N64, you are spoiled for choice, with the Japan-exclusive Power Pros games being an exceptional standout. I had played one on import and it was a regular multiplayer hit among my friends and I. This fell between the realism and arcade worlds and never really excelled at either.

NBA Courtside 2 featuring Kobe Bryant

I don’t get Basketball. There’s something about the whole supporting players over teams and a few of the rules that don’t sit well with me. I swear, the first time I was punished for ‘goal-tending’ I knew it wasn’t for me. I was trying to stop the ball going in the net, isn’t that the point??? Anyway, another Nintendo published joint, this was a proper visual treat at launch and, for all intents and purposes, a fantastic, realistic basketball simulation. I got very little out of it but it is an undeniably good game and one of the best sports games overall on the Nintendo 64. I’m just personally not going to be into anything other than NBA Jam: Tournament Edition, I’m afraid.

NFL Quarterback Club 99

Another of Acclaim’s sports titles on the N64 and you can basically cut and paste my experience with All-Star Baseball for this one. Same friend bought it, same friend loaned me their copy and I got properly addicted to the career mode, learning the sport as I played and starting a good fifteen or so years of attempts to get into the real life sport. A realism focused American Football game that was far ahead of the Madden games at the time - the Pro Evo to Madden’s FIFA, if you will. A cool feature was how all of the players you could throw the ball to were bound to different face buttons on the N64 controller, so you could react to players finding space during a play. Still stands up, still plays an excellent game of Gridiron.

Olympic Hockey Nagano '98

An Olympic branded version of the brilliant Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey - essentially NBA Jam on ice - a fast-paced arcade version of a sport that seems to be custom made to fit this style of game. They toned things down a little because of the Olympic license but its still packs a punch, being extremely easy to pick up and offering a brilliant four player knock around. The sport itself is fairly arcade-y in reality, so the difference between this and a more realistic interpretation is the way it prioritises offense over defense and end-to-end action. It’s like playing a ‘best of’ ice hockey. Still a lot of fun but I feel the original Wayne Gretzky endorsed release to JUST edge this out.

Rally Challenge 2000

Genki released a bunch of racing games on the N64 but this is a bit of an underrated gem. Three difficulty modes, each with three unique stages set across the globe, Rally Challenge 2000 has you racing to finish first across the three stages rather than the traditional time trial style rally. Remind you of anything? Yep, this is a pound shop version of Sega Rally, only with some pretty rubbish music. It’s fairly barebones, but an arcade rally game lives or dies on this inexplicable ‘feeling’ you get when you’re controlling a car while it is sliding around a bend, and the N64’s analog stick and rumble pak combine to make it feel pretty damn good.

Virtual Pool 64

Look, Virtual Pool 64 might not have the most exciting presentation but it really is all you could possibly want from a pool game. It has a load of different versions of the rules, tournament, quick match and multiplayer modes and the ability to fine tune and tweak every conceivable aspect of the way the game plays to your specific wants. it’s one of those weird games where you couldn’t say it is a ten out of ten video game without getting laughed at but honestly, it’s about as perfect a pool game as you can imagine. Really cool use of the N64 analog stick to control shot power too, which adds a nice sense of mastery to the whole thing and feels fantastic once you’ve gotten the hang of it.

Virtual Pro Wrestling 2

The greatest sport of all and still the best wrestling game of all-time. Never bettered. The ebb-and-flow of a perfectly paced wrestling match that gets the crowd right in the palm of the wrestler’s hands is captured completely in the momentum based system that dictates who is winning and losing. There’s little comeback mechanics hidden within this that not only simulate that wrestler fighting his way back from the brink but are done in such a way they can bring that real life excitement out of the player actually controlling them too. Flawless animation, a great, N64 chunky polygon look and the greatest roster of wrestlers to grace a single videogame, Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 has earned its place at the top of the pile and it is a shame that very few wrestling games that followed learned from it.

THANKS FOR READING.

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