ONM Remembered – Pack-In Week, day 4
“Reset Button: This button resets your N64 if, for instance, you’re fed up to the back teeth with the somewhat lengthy ‘congratulations’ sequence in Mario Kart 64.”
from The Nintendo 64 Companion (pack-in with N64 Magazine issue 11, January 1998)
I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but this is easily one of the most nifty pack-ins from N64 Magazine: a beefy little booklet written by Jes Bickham that covers the Nintendo 64 in fair detail, offering a timeline of its development history, a run-down of its features, summaries of every game and accessory reviewed in its first year… and the phone numbers and websites of every known games developer on the console.
A lot of the details are probably well-known online by now, but having all this handy information in one pocket-sized book must’ve been mighty novel at the time. The amount of reviews is probably a little bit excessive – the book is nearly 100 pages long! – especially when it comes to the accessories, but it’s a neat ol’ read that’s a good resource to have: it makes for a good buyer’s guide, it’s got all that technical info to impress your friends, and you can phone up Gremlin Interactive and ask them if their refrigerator’s running.
