Really cool time capsule. Man I love the hub world of 64. I hope the Universal studio Peach castle has some rooms like in 64.
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This E3 1996 Treehouse Demo of Mario 64 really shows how mind-blowing the game was for the everyman
- Thread starter Lady Bow
- Start date
My first experience of it was Violet Berlin's preview of it at Shoshinkai 95 for Bad Influence
I first played it shortly after nintendo shock-reduced the price of it to £150 in the uk. Would have been June 97. The game was everything I ever expected of it. Didn't only live up to the hype, it far exceeded it.
I first played it shortly after nintendo shock-reduced the price of it to £150 in the uk. Would have been June 97. The game was everything I ever expected of it. Didn't only live up to the hype, it far exceeded it.
Playing Mario 64 for the first time blew my mind. I had such a hard time moving in 3D. It was definitely a revelation for me.
While that is true, younger people these days will never know the sense of awe and mystery that surrounded games in the pre- and early internet days. I'd never give up what we have now, but I'd be lying if I said we haven't lost something. Besides, I'm 39 and I still get impressed by games on a regular basis.
I was 11 but man I was the same. That was the first time the reality of death reared it's ugly head and I begged God to let me live long enough to play SM64 haha.
Mario 64 was never a graphical showstopper (as others have already pointed out, contemporary arcades and PCs offered much more on that front), but the game was still a revolution just for its 3D control. Super Mario Bros didn't invent the 2D platformer, but it definitely codified the genre and set the template for everything that followed it. Mario 64 was much the same for 3D platformers.
I still think Mario 64 holds up better than most N64 games, too. It doesn't stress the system nearly as much as some other games do (which results in annoyances like low framerates and egregious "fog" to mask pop-in), and its more cartoony aesthetic suffers less from the system's limitations than the games that strove for more realism. The N64 controller also feels like it was built entirely around this one game.
And the polish in the game is still easy to see, despite its relative primitiveness today. I can still appreciate the little touches like how Mario leans into his run when you make him run circles and such. There's still plenty of "AAA" games these days that are jankier than that when it comes to basic stuff.
I still think Mario 64 holds up better than most N64 games, too. It doesn't stress the system nearly as much as some other games do (which results in annoyances like low framerates and egregious "fog" to mask pop-in), and its more cartoony aesthetic suffers less from the system's limitations than the games that strove for more realism. The N64 controller also feels like it was built entirely around this one game.
And the polish in the game is still easy to see, despite its relative primitiveness today. I can still appreciate the little touches like how Mario leans into his run when you make him run circles and such. There's still plenty of "AAA" games these days that are jankier than that when it comes to basic stuff.
GameFAQs existed before Mario 64.
Yup. And Wave Race 64 looked more like an F-Zero game at this point.
True, but I reckon most people didn't even know it existed. I discovered it in 1999 or something.
I had a very similar experience with Quake, though even from the screenshots i was oddly apprehensive (remember the PC Gamer mag w/ the hammer on it? QUAKE!). It looks so drab, all the awesome artwork and sprite animations from Doom and its enemies, their fantastic gory deaths were gone, the weapon animations were all so static, it felt kind of lifeless in a way despite the 3D tech being really impressive. I still enjoyed Quake 1 back then, and honestly love it way more now, but i was disappointed initially. I felt we gave up too much character and personality from Doom in the pursuit of 3D.
Me too, constantly impressed with games, still having new and fun experiences, but its a different kind of 'impressed' than when we were younger, and the medium has changed so much, especially with how we consume information about it.
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Actually, it looked like the Game Boy original that used boats instead of jet skis.
OP
OP
You absolute mad man. That was the first N64 emulator. The history behind the development of it is pretty sketchy. (similar to CEMU) Remember Nemu?
Also advanced flight simulators like Super EF2000. I was more impressed with Zelda OoT that also combined unique story telling. PC had its own Mario and Zelda combined back then, which was better than both: Twinsen's Odyssey
Oh really, haha, I never played that. Waverace GB reviews were awful when it came out.
My Favourite, F22:ADF, came in 97 ;) The JANES companion manual was fantastic... what production values... that's lost nowadays :'(
Oh yes, I finished OOT on UltraHLE on a Pentium II with 266 MHz back then...
I played Tomb Raider just before Mario 64 and I remember hating it so much because of the terrible controls. I even thought if 3d gaming was going to be like that then count me out. But then I played Mario 64 and it was a joy to play. To me it will always be the game that made 3D games make sense to me.
I remember getting a N64 and Mario when I was maybe 6ish. Completely mind blowing, kinda embarrassing I had to go to a much older neighbors house just to figure out how beat the first boss.
My favorite was Flying Corps, that also came with a manual written by a Royal Air Force pilot in 1912. I'll keep this as long as I live
Outside of Quake nothing on PC came close to this in terms of 3d graphics, and as far as gameplay goes, this pretty much invented proper 3d thirdperson traversal and this sort of gameplay. It was nothing short of mind blowing at the time and as someone who's lived through it I have to also add that while arcades were graphically more impressive, the games were vastly different experiences so direct comparisons aren't even appropriate.
The game was mind blowing at the time for not only finding a great fun way to do a platformer in full 3D, but also creating an "open world" environment filled with secrets and exploration. The 3D graphics weren't new (there was much better graphics on pc and in arcades, and some PSX and Saturn games), the analogue controls weren't new (analogue joysticks were a staple of PC gaming), the camera wasn't new, but the way Nintendo put it all together, polished it, and managed to take Mario to the next level...it was jaw-dropping. I spent many many hours playing Mario 64, unable/unwilling to stop.
Ya, I started using it around 98 or 99. It may have started in 95, but it wasn't in widespread use for a while.
Cool video, thanks for sharing OP.
Same here, one of my favorite gaming memories. Don't think I'll ever be able to replicate that feeling.
Same here, one of my favorite gaming memories. Don't think I'll ever be able to replicate that feeling.
Super Mario 64 was incredibly impressive when it released. I recall those days...
"Mario can move in any direction!?"
"I can go anywhere in this huge world!?"
It was absolutely unreal. The true first mind-blowing video game for me.
"Mario can move in any direction!?"
"I can go anywhere in this huge world!?"
It was absolutely unreal. The true first mind-blowing video game for me.
Playing this on launch day remains my seminal game experience. I was fifteen and so hyped. I think I'd only ever seen pictures in games mags and so seeing it moving was mind blowing.
I was 13 the first time I played it at a Kiosk in a Comet while my parents were buying a new washing machine.
I was just in absolute awe. The leap from 2D to 3D is hard to get across to people who never experienced the technological advancement at the time.
I was lucky enough to get an N64 eventually not long after release but strangely I only ever rented Mario 64 but loved it. The games were soooooo expensive in the U.K and I had Shadows of the Empire, Mario Kart and Goldeneye early on then eventually the WCW/NWO wrestling games.
I'd love a remake of the game using the Odyssey engine.
I was just in absolute awe. The leap from 2D to 3D is hard to get across to people who never experienced the technological advancement at the time.
I was lucky enough to get an N64 eventually not long after release but strangely I only ever rented Mario 64 but loved it. The games were soooooo expensive in the U.K and I had Shadows of the Empire, Mario Kart and Goldeneye early on then eventually the WCW/NWO wrestling games.
I'd love a remake of the game using the Odyssey engine.
I was already an old hand by the time I heard anything about Ultra 64 / Nintendo 64.
Mario64 looked real good in a lot of ways, but it wasn't mind shattering or anything. PlayStation 1 had been out a while. Stuff like WipEout looked astounding. The big thing N64 brought to the table was bilinear filtering (I just knew I didn't see pixels (texels) all over anymore) and the analog stick.
PlayStation blew me the fuck away when I first saw it, because it was the first of that generation I saw in person. It was unbelievable. If somehow I'd hidden from all current PC & console stuff up to N64 release the N64 would have had the same impact.
But that generational jump was quite something, and it kept going with 3dfx on PC shortly after.
Still was very excited to get Mario64, because it did appear to be real good, and it was / is.
I don't recall UltraHLE trying to get money out of people during development. But UltraHLE was really limited in its capacity for a long time. It was amazing to play a recent console game on PC.
(One of?) the first NES emulator was strictly a paying affair. Those were the real shady & dark days. But thankfully decent NES emulators (Nesticle for one) popped up for free pretty soon after.
Mario64 looked real good in a lot of ways, but it wasn't mind shattering or anything. PlayStation 1 had been out a while. Stuff like WipEout looked astounding. The big thing N64 brought to the table was bilinear filtering (I just knew I didn't see pixels (texels) all over anymore) and the analog stick.
PlayStation blew me the fuck away when I first saw it, because it was the first of that generation I saw in person. It was unbelievable. If somehow I'd hidden from all current PC & console stuff up to N64 release the N64 would have had the same impact.
But that generational jump was quite something, and it kept going with 3dfx on PC shortly after.
Still was very excited to get Mario64, because it did appear to be real good, and it was / is.
I don't recall UltraHLE trying to get money out of people during development. But UltraHLE was really limited in its capacity for a long time. It was amazing to play a recent console game on PC.
(One of?) the first NES emulator was strictly a paying affair. Those were the real shady & dark days. But thankfully decent NES emulators (Nesticle for one) popped up for free pretty soon after.
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I remember seeing a Mario 64 demo running in a small local game shop and selling my PlayStation to be able to buy the game. It was such a blast at the time also with Rare's games. Then I read the EDGE 10 out of 10 Gran Turismo review and sold my N64 to buy a Playstation back. :D
I just remember crying happily the first time I held that controller and experienced the game myself in a Toys R Us. Just magical. It wasn't even as much how it looked but how it felt. It revolutionized the entire videogame form.
We played that game for months. Easily got 100 hours out of it.
It's one of the most important and groundbreaking videogames ever made.
We played that game for months. Easily got 100 hours out of it.
It's one of the most important and groundbreaking videogames ever made.
I saw it at the first E3 in '95 and I thought it was so amazing that I held off playing it (though I did watch it for at least 30min) so that I could play it "complete"... (but I ended getting the Japanese version that wasn't quite finished compared to the US launch version - I eventually got the JP Shindou version so it was all good).
They are still going actually. They do all the Nintendo live streams at E3.
On a keyboard no less. Never heard of Nemu though and quick Googling didn't help.
Same! Though I gave up in the water temple... still haven't beaten the game.
I came from a PC gamer background but I was incredibly impressed and blown away when I first played Super Mario 64 at my local Blockbuster at the time. I was only 12 years old so I kept getting kicked out from the store due to my age but I kept sneaking back in to keep playing it. LOL
Me neither. As far as I remember the emulator was available for free and had no nag screens or required a key to function. It was impressive for its quick development, mainly due to "cheating" and instead simulating function calls with custom implementations instead of emulating the low-level details (hence the name, Ultra High Level Emulator). It meant that support was on a game-by-game basis generally, but games that were supported functioned very well on reasonably poor hardware.
I was 17 when I first played Mario 64 and it was the single most magical entertainment moment I have ever had. It felt like magic. Breathable Magic.
Wow, entering this thread and this is like the first time ever that I've heard people being unimpressed by this game back then.
I on the other hand was so hyped after playing a few minutes at a friend's house that I even made a N64 out of cardboard and painted screenshots of the game onto my cardboard "display" - I was around 6 years old then. I was truly obsessed and never experienced something that magical again in terms of videogames. A truly defining experience.
I on the other hand was so hyped after playing a few minutes at a friend's house that I even made a N64 out of cardboard and painted screenshots of the game onto my cardboard "display" - I was around 6 years old then. I was truly obsessed and never experienced something that magical again in terms of videogames. A truly defining experience.
