Oh yeah agree, he has the reverse Midas touch at the mo. Might add it coincided with the media flipping sides when they saw it was a foregone conclusion.

One of the admittedly minor things I dislike about his tetchy interview answers is when he starts going “blah blah blah…that’s why we’ve done things such as…” and then proceeds to list the one and only example of said thing.

Nowadays?!

We are just recovering from a similar situation here but the Overton window has shifted so far the supposed left-wing workers’ party now look like centre-right conservatives.

Right on cue, the descent into fascism begins ahead of the impending climate disasters.

It’s so depressing to see France like this, I always held it up as a prominent antifa nation.

Cavity protection ain’t gonna cut it where they’re going.

Hard disagree. Most trailblazing console ever with one of the strongest lineups of first/second party games we’ve ever seen. Yes there were some shoddy third party ports but you didn’t buy it for those.

People moan about the controller but forget it was the first time a joystick was used and the only real issue was the redundant left prong. Loved the feel of the Z button for shooting games coupled with the Rumble Pak.

🇺🇸 “Baadel a waader” 🇺🇸

Oh right I see it’s like a quality vs quantity thing. To me I’d pick quality (as that is what triggers my nostalgia).

If I want quantity there are thousands of modern indie games I’d rather play.

I agree, not common, which is why I don’t understand the “only 20 or so great games” take.

Can you list 20 great first party games on any platform?

Yep, chuck Rumble Pak in there too.

Did platform fighters exist before Smash?

Did proper 3D platforming with free camera exist before Mario 64?

Did third person adventure games exist before OoT and has anything drastically changed the formula since?

Not to mention all these games shipped fully built with no updates and amazingly few bugs.

It seems as though OP didn’t actually experience these things at the time so making a post about nostalgia for them is strange. Firing up an emulator and going “These games don’t hold up now.” is entirely missing the point.

Pretty sure the aforementioned list makes up for one mid Castlvania game.

We referred to Rare as a “second-party” developer at the time. So sad when they got bought by M$.

To answer your question on third-party games, some of my favourites were…

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

Vigilante 8

Extreme-G

Snowboard Kids

Turok

Bomberman 64

Resident Evil 2

San Francisco Rush

Probably because it’s down. I for one am surprised they have no failover for when Bing goes down.

This doesn’t track, Rare were banging out so many good games and as others have mentioned the Star Wars games were also awesome.

I feel you are also still missing the point about trailblazing. There was more gameplay innovation than anything since.

Yes my list was not exhaustive either and tried to focus on exclusives to make the point.

Good point.

Unlikely many of the games of the current gen will hold up in 25-30 years…

Many of the first party games on those systems broke new ground and much of modern gaming wouldn’t exist without them.

Woodwork dweller here, you seem to have forgotten:

Majora’s Mask

Star Fox 64

Jet Force Gemini

Donkey Kong 64

Diddy Kong Racing

Excite Bike 64

Paper Mario

Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door

Pokémon Stadium

Yoshi’s Story

Pokémon Snap

Mario Party

Felt at the time that there was always a high quality “AAA” release on the horizon interspersed with some of the greatest games ever made. Many of the gameplay techniques these games pioneered during the transition from 2D to 3D are still used to this day.

Obviously a lot of them don’t stand the test of time a quarter of a century on but we haven’t had a system with the same consistent quality of games for a long time, if ever, IMO.