ONM Remembered – #64
“WHEN I’M 64”
(from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 64 (January 1998)
Oh, crumbs, has this silly thing really been going on for sixty four entries already? If that’s the case, let’s commemorate the 64th entry of ONM Remembered with a feature from Official Nintendo Magazine’s sixty fourth issue touting sixty four reasons why the Nintendo 64 is tops.
Because it sounded like a cute idea at the time.
It’s an amusing idea for a feature, except for three major flaws.
1) The Nintendo 64 had only been out for nine months by this point.
2) Official Nintendo Magazine were writing the feature.
And 3) THE NINTENDO 64 HAD ONLY BEEN OUT FOR NINE MONTHS GUYS ARE YOU SERIOUS
Usually, consoles often have so many publishers and developers supporting them that nine months is more than enough time to get an adequate supply of games on shelves. By the end of 1997, how many games had actually been released in PAL regions yet? Like, thirty? No more than forty, certainly.
After wetting your pants over Super Mario 64 and Blast Corps, there wasn’t exactly much else to shout about on the console. As such, a lot of this feature is just the crew going, “look at these announcements! In like a year’s time we might have a winning console on our hands!” It’s kind of hilarious and cripplingly disappointing how they hyped so much over the 64DD, and the bloody thing was left to die in Japanese mail order catalogues. You might want to have waited until all these games and peripherals were out (and proven to be good, preferably) before shouting “OI OI LOOK HOW BOFFO OUR VIDYA CON IS”.
Also, yeah, it’s early-days ONM. As such, it’s puerile, childish, and didn’t do them any favours in coming across as being above immature name calling…
For the completists out there, this feature had a box on the bottom of each page highlighting important issues in the magazine’s history, but most of them got chopped off by wonky scanning. Not much interest to me, but figure I’d keep you posted.
Let’s talk snarky about the entries!
“1) You get to read the Official Nintendo Magazine and find out everything first!”
Or you can read N64 Magazine and have something that’s still worthwhile reading material after ten years!
“2) The 64-bit spec gives us power!”
GIMME ALL THE BITS. No, for reals, the whole bit talk is just meaningless jargon, right? For the most part, certainly.
“3) The 64DD pushes games further”
Third reason in and it’s gotten hilariously vague. Making your own textures will push games to the next level, you guys.
“6) The Sniper Rifle in Goldneye 007”
The really crap weak sniper rifle that also replaces your kickass karate chop with a big dumb rifle butt? Great!
“9) You’ll be able to download Game Boy games to your N64”
This is rich. Now we’re misinterpreting gaming news to give us us something to look forward to?
“10) It’s under a ton! What a bargain”
Only for the late-adopters, though. Early bird buyers? Sucks to be them! (yes, we were among the hundreds of saps who paid £300 for the N64 when it was brand new)
“13) Shigeru Miyamoto makes our games”
I don’t care if Chip Shop Charlie makes the games.
“18) The cool 3D stick”
Oh, yeah, gotta love that unbelievably sensitive and easy-to-bust stick.
“20) You can shoot people up the bum in Rare’s Goldeneye 007”
I’ll admit that is feature of the goddamned century. Why have no more games capitalised on popping caps into botties?
“25) You can really fly in Pilotwings 64”
As opposed to fake flying.
“26) No kisses off Gran. N64 techno-fear”
Did Neil from The Young Ones write this?
27) “The Battle of Hoth in Shadows of the Empire”
Haha, woof. It hasn’t aged well.
“28) Carts don’t jump. CDs do!”
Try it outdoors, then.
“30) Rare ONLY write games for Nintendo”
Enjoy it while you can, suckers!
“34) Nintendo doesn’t do boring games”
Hahaha! Ha!
“39) Your machine’s still gonna be sexy in the next century”
Well, we’re about eighty something years away from verifying. It hasn’t yellowed yet, I can credit it for that much.
“42) Hypnotic choons that slip seamlessly into your ears”
PET PEEVE ALERT – people who can’t write “tunes”, but have to misspell it as “toons” or “choons” or some other textual abomination. Write the bloody word and be done with it.
“44) You can be in games with Mario Artist and the Capture Cassette”
That would have been neat, but…
“45) Capcom and the 64DD”
Yes. … and?
“46) The Pocket Camera looks likely to work with the 64DD disk drive”
Oh boy, only now are they saying “looks likely”. You can only keep up your blind enthusiasm for so long, boys!
“47) We don’t have to rely on women’s bits to make good games”
But if we can sell more mags by talking about them, we’re game!
“49) The laydeez love Mario Kart 64”
From my experience they vastly prefer Mario Tennis. Funny, that.
“50) Playing N64’s like being in a movie!”
A movie starring geometric monstrosities!
“51) You’ll be the envy of all your mates”
Until someone says they have the Nintendo 65, and then you’ll be demoted to second banana.
“54) In F-Zero X you can race on your own custom courses”
If you don’t mind shelling out for the doomed Japan-only peripheral, first.
“62) Advanced virtual pets can live in your 64DD”
That sounds like a good reason why you should RUN AWAY from the N64.
“63) Total interaction with your machine. Talk on a mic to your pet”
In only one game. With only one animal. Really using those accessories to the max, Ninty!
“64) Super Mario 64 2”
Oh, only in five years time.
And it’ll be nothing like the first one.
And it’ll be really, really disappointing.
Thanks, Nintendo!
Sonic is a blue squirrel? Or is this one of NOM’s hilarious in-jokes?
I get that it’s meant to be “we don’t care about SEGA so much that we don’t even know what animal their mascot is!”, but it’s an outstandingly lousy joke. I don’t think a hedgehog would be terribly offended if you called it a squirrel.