This E3 1996 Treehouse Demo of Mario 64 really shows how mind-blowing the game was for the everyman

[Lady Bow]

Being three years old when Mario 64 released: seeing how people lost their shit in the video when Mario started running 360 in a circle at 1:40 is so surreal and amazing. Super Mario 64 still blew my mind as a kid when I eventually got it with a N64 in 1999; I can't even imagine what was going through your guy's heads that grew up with the Atari/NES/SNES. The presenter describing the analog stick and controls to the audience like it's some alien foreign concept, boasting about the crisp clear graphics with perspective correction and real-time anti-aliasing...what Mario 64 revolutionized with 3D game design, fluid controls, camera systems, it's all just crazy how influential it was and still is.

This demo is such a great watch as a time capsule and landmark moment. I think we really take for granted how far we've come with technology in gaming. What was your experience with the game pre-release and post?

 

[Deleted member 21709]

I'll never forget that first time playing the N64 launch titles. This is a great watch. I.. never knew there was a shortcut on the ice level slide.

 

[DeeDogg]

treehouse?

 

[Deleted member 11018]

Well, i had great 3D games on PC when this came, and sega did so much more in then-popular arcades.... So, no, it was not mind blowing, far from it, at least where i lived. However at release it proved a very refined experience... having ease of move in the 3D world was darn fine.

 

[Whitemex]

I was pretty blown away as an 8 year old playing it at a Blockbuster kiosk......

Spoiler

I feel old

 

[Video Games Are Dumb]

treehouse?

Click to shrink...

Of course. Who could forget these classic 1996 livestreams.

 

[Deleted member 11018]

(sorry editing that went wrong on mobile)

 

[Veliladon]

"The image is crisp, super clean"

What a difference twenty years makes.

 

[Lady Bow]

treehouse?

Click to shrink...

The Treehouse was a division that dates back to the early 90s when it was used for localization and QA testing. The guys demoing the game in the video were part of the Treehouse group.

Fun fact: The presenter in video, Ken "Klobb" Lobb, was the person the infamous Klobb gun from Goldeneye was named after.

 

[Deleted member 21709]

Well, i had great 3D games on PC when this came, and sega did so much more in then-popular arcades.... So, no, it was not mind blowing, far from it, at least where i lived. However at release it proved a very refined... having ease of move in the 3D world was darn fine.

Click to shrink...

I was also playing PC/Mac games at the time. And visited the Arcade. But Mario 64 still stood out. The fluidity, open level design and analog controls were game changing.

 

[Deleted member 4346]

It was a revelation, for sure. I can remember how hyped I was. Real talk though the camera had some struggles but Nintendo did a great job overall and it defined 3rd person 3d gameplay for a long time.

 

[DeeDogg]

The Treehouse was a division that dates back to the early 90s when it was used for localization and QA testing. The guys demoing the game in the video were part of the Treehouse group.

Click to shrink...

oh kool. the more you know

 

[Deleted member 2145]

that's cool

hearing people lose their shit when mario climbs the tree and does a hand stand or chuckle when he smacks into the wall trying to jump into the painting is pretty funny. things that we just take for granted decades later

 

[Deleted member 11018]

I was also playing PC/Mac games at the time. And visited the Arcade. But Mario 64 still stood out. The fluidity, open level design and analog controls were game changing.

Click to shrink...

I guess we were too much in love with our Duke 3D and Quake during the press announcement xD
it came late as well here, spring 97, i had a 3DFX at the time then, and that made an enormous dent in the N64 appeal over here.

 

[Mugman]

I was 6 when the game came out, so in my mind the jump from SNES to this was unbelievable. I still remember playing it all night for the first time at my best friend's house when his dad got a 64; my hands were so small I couldn't hold the N64 controller by the middle prong, so I had to hold it like an SNES controller and stretch my thumb over. The closest I've ever felt to this amount of wonder in a game again was playing Rez Infinite's Area X in VR.

 

[ReyVGM]

Being three years old when Mario 64 released: seeing how people lost their shit in the video when Mario started running 360 in a circle at 1:40 is so surreal and amazing. Super Mario 64 still blew my mind as a kid when I eventually got it with a N64 in 1999; I can't even imagine what was going through your guy's heads that grew up with the Atari/NES/SNES. The presenter describing the analog stick and controls to the audience like it's some alien foreign concept, boasting about the crisp clear graphics with perspective correction and real-time anti-aliasing...what Mario 64 revolutionized with 3D game design, fluid controls, camera systems, it's all just crazy how influential it was and still is.

This demo is such a great watch as a time capsule and landmark moment. I think we really take for granted how far we've come with technology in gaming. What was your experience with the game pre-release and post?

Click to shrink...

I was 17 when the N64 came out. I spent 2 years (since I was 15) dreaming about Mario 64, praying I didn't die before the game came out, and pouring every single screenshot on every single magazine every single day.

 

[Dooble]

Klobb kind of a weird guy

 

[jchap]

When I first played the demo at Toys R Us my mind was blown

 

[Xbox Live Mike]

The analog controls made it a perfect 3d experience. Things like tomb raider came out before but Mario 64 nailed it.

 

[Vylder]

Wow I love how that guy is spoiling the game as much as he can during the demo haha

 

[Phendrift]

Oh wow, didn't know treehouse existed back then

 

[ASaiyan]

"100 hours of gameplay"

Such sweet lies. [EDIT: Okay, point conceded, lol. 3D games took longer when they were brand new.]

Quite a treat to see people in awe of the Z-axis though. It's like that guy's trying to explain things at a mile a minute and they're just completely off in dreamland, lol.

 

[Yang Xiao Long]

I was pretty blown away as an 8 year old playing it at a Blockbuster kiosk......

Spoiler

I feel old

Click to shrink...

Hahaha, I was 14 and had roughly the same experience. I begged my Dad to stay at Blockbuster just a little while longer because I could barely process the 3D Mario glory I was seeing. Looking back on it, it's funny to think that all I did was run around outside of Peach's castle and that was enough to floor me!

 

[Opa-Pa]

That's some pretty nice footage, really puts into perspective how amazing the game was at the time. I remember playing Banjo-Kazooie first so the novelty of full 3D movement wasn't that big, but I don't know what it was that Mario 64 had that it still felt revolutionary when I finally tried it out.

I remember spending hours and hours at a classmate's place playing it and being amazed at the way levels were organized in the castle and how different and vast all of them felt.

 

[massoluk]

To this day, it still is hard to register to me that SM64 is whopping 8mb.

 

[Mistle]

I love when Mario hops off the tree into the chimney, and a person in the audience raises his hands in disbelief

 

[ReyVGM]

"100 hours of gameplay"

Such sweet lies.
.

Click to shrink...

Not a lie. Those times you posted are from people that already know how to beat the game. Back then, being the first real 3D platformer, with so many secrets you could easely spend 100+ hours looking for everything. I remember that people spent weeks looking for the last star, which is usually the one hidden behind a secret window in the castle.

Nowadays, even if you have never played Mario 64, you would find everything faster just by the experience you already have from other 3D platformers.
But back then? We played Mario 64 for MONTHS and still hadn't found everything.

 

[Cipherr]

For me it was a Toys R Us kiosk. But yeah... damn. The flat colored textures were so damn "clean" in comparison to the warping textures we were accustomed to elsewhere. And the analog stick felt great.

The transition of so many games from 2d gameplay to 3d gameplay was hard on a lot of franchises, but some of them fucking nailed it that gen. Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear leading the way. Some of them never really made it. Like Castlevania and Megaman etc.

 

[Deleted member 4034]

Wait wait wait, people actually attended th we presentations and watched them without constantly cheering and trying to be the loudest person in the room. And waited until a section was done to clap? Mind blown.

 

[QisTopTier]

"100 hours of gameplay"

Such sweet lies.

Quite a treat to see people in awe of the Z-axis though. It's like that guy's trying to explain things at a mile a minute and they're just completely off in dreamland, lol.

Click to shrink...

When this was new people did not 100% it in 24 hours lol People had to learn how to move in the game a good deal back then and there wasnt much overlap from other games

 

[Cipherr]

When this was new people did not 100% it in 24 hours lol People had to learn how to move in the game a good deal back then and there wasnt much overlap from other games

Click to shrink...

Still wasn't 100 hours tho, lol.

 

[QisTopTier]

Still wasn't 100 hours tho, lol.

Click to shrink...

You'd be shocked how close it probably got for a lot of people

 

[ASaiyan]

Not a lie. Those times you posted are from people that already know how to beat the game. Back then, being the first real 3D platformer, with so many secrets you could easely spend 100+ hours looking for everything. I remember that people spent weeks looking for the last star, which is usually the one hidden behind a secret window in the castle.

Nowadays, even if you have never played Mario 64, you would find everything faster just by the experience you already have from other 3D platformers.
But back then? We played Mario 64 for MONTHS and still hadn't found everything.

Click to shrink...

Fair enough, haha. I never had Mario 64 growing up. But I do remember my original DK64 file being at something like 144 hours. I was like 5 years old, and I made it to the final boss, but I couldn't beat him. Good times.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

Well, i had great 3D games on PC when this came, and sega did so much more in then-popular arcades.... So, no, it was not mind blowing, far from it, at least where i lived. However at release it proved a very refined experience... having ease of move in the 3D world was darn fine.

Click to shrink...

In terms of graphics, it was very good but yeah, I saw better looking games back then. But seeing it on a console was really awesome but this was not what blew my mind: what blew my mind was the fact that Nintendo managed to put Mario in a 3d environment and it just worked wonderfully. It felt natural and was way beyond what other devs did back then with 3d.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

To this day, it still is hard to register to me that SM64 is whopping 8mb.

Click to shrink...

Savestates are bigger than that today...

 

[Tilt_shift]

I was 17 when the N64 came out. I spent 2 years (since I was 15) dreaming about Mario 64, praying I didn't die before the game came out, and pouring every single screenshot on every single magazine every single day.

Click to shrink...

We must be twins, because that how old I was and exactly what I was doing too!

Add to that, I spent well over a year saving all my pocket money and pre-ordered the console day 1 at my local EB Games.

 

[ReyVGM]

Still wasn't 100 hours tho, lol.

Click to shrink...

Who said people didn't spend 100 hours finding everything?

I spent months playing the game. Back then there was no gamefaqs or youtube. If you didn't buy guides, you had to find out everything by yourself.

When this game came out, you had to LEARN how to even walk or move the camera.

And note that no one is saying 100 hours to "beat the game", but 100 hours to find everything. And that's an accurate time for any kid back then playing a 3D platformer for the first time, and one filled with so many secrets as this one. Remember that the time you spend just running around trying and searching for stuff counts towards those 100 hours.

Obviously you wouldn't spend 100 hours finding everything the second time you play the game.

 

[Green Mario]

Still wasn't 100 hours tho, lol.

Click to shrink...

It didn't take me 100 hours to beat, but I'm willing to bet that Super Mario 64 is one of my most played games of all-time.
So it's technically correct in my case, I guess.

 

[ReyVGM]

We must be twins, because that how old I was and exactly what I was doing too!

Add to that, I spent well over a year saving all my pocket money and pre-ordered the console day 1 at my local EB Games.

Click to shrink...

I literally prayed, on my bed, that I didn't die before Mario 64 came out :P

There was a videogame club near my house that got the Japanese N64 in June 1996, so I spent those 3 months until September playing bits of mario 64 until I managed to buy my own system.

 

[Deleted member 19782]

Those people did not react to that reveal at all...

Such different times.

 

[Samanosuke Akechi]

I'll never forget that first time playing the N64 launch titles. This is a great watch. I.. never knew there was a shortcut on the ice level slide.

Click to shrink...

Wow really? Lol I remember an old commercial in 1996 advertising n64 and Mario and one of the things they show is the shortcut. :)

Edit: Here it is.

 

[BigDes]

I remember wandering around the the front of Toronto near the CN Tower and there was this small hut that had a few N64s in them

Honestly thinking about it I am fairly sure that I managed to wander into a closed press event and everyone was cool about this little kid staring mouth agape at the brand new console and its games

Anyway I remember struggling for like two minutes because I could not get Mario to do anything, then a kindly member of staff came and moved my hands from the dpad to the analog stick and it was fucking mind blowing

 

[ReyVGM]

Wow really? Lol I remember an old commercial in 1996 advertising n64 and Mario and one of the things they show is the shortcut. :)

Click to shrink...

Nowadays people would riot for showing such spoiler!

 

[TheThirstyPrisoner]

Not to be a negative Nancy, but I recall being distinctly unimpressed by Mario 64 as a seventeen year old in 1996 so it certainly wasn't mind blowing to everyone.
Though I thought the game looked really cool in pictures (I remember an EGM or Gamefan blowout with tons of screenshots of the first few levels), I was really disappointed when I first played it at a Toys R Us (RIP) kiosk. The 3D world didn't seem like a big enough payoff for losing the awesome pixel art of Super Mario Bros. 3 and World. I also much preferred the overall style of the earlier games.
That being said, the game has grown on me immensely over the years, and I find myself coming back to it more than the others as i've yet to truly 100% the game. Here's hoping for a Switch release sometime soon.

 

[ReyVGM]

Not to be a negative Nancy, but I recall being distinctly unimpressed by Mario 64 as a seventeen year old in 1996 so it certainly wasn't mind blowing to everyone.
Though I thought the game looked really cool in pictures (I remember an EGM or Gamefan blowout with tons of screenshots of the first few levels), I was really disappointed when I first played it at a Toys R Us (RIP) kiosk. The 3D world didn't seem like a big enough payoff for losing the awesome pixel art of Super Mario Bros. 3 and World. I also much preferred the overall style of the earlier games.
That being said, the game has grown on me immensely over the years, and I find myself coming back to it more than the others as i've yet to truly 100% the game. Here's hoping for a Switch release sometime soon.

Click to shrink...

Maybe it was a case of overyhype?

It happened to me with Ocarina of Time. I spent since 1995 obsessing over what would eventually become OoT that by the time the game came out, I was unimpressed. I'm talking about obsessed to the point of making a scrapbook with every single screenshot and info released about the game since 1995 to 1998. If this was about a person, I would have been declared insane, or a stalker.

I still played and enjoyed the game of course, but it wasn't mind blowing.

 

[Samanosuke Akechi]

Not to be a negative Nancy, but I recall being distinctly unimpressed by Mario 64 as a seventeen year old in 1996 so it certainly wasn't mind blowing to everyone.
Though I thought the game looked really cool in pictures (I remember an EGM or Gamefan blowout with tons of screenshots of the first few levels), I was really disappointed when I first played it at a Toys R Us (RIP) kiosk. The 3D world didn't seem like a big enough payoff for losing the awesome pixel art of Super Mario Bros. 3 and World.
That being said, the game has grown on me immensely over the years, and I find myself coming back to it more than the others as i've yet to truly 100% the game. Here's hoping for a Switch release sometime soon.

Click to shrink...

Wow. I was 14 in 96 and my hype levels were thru the roof. We got the n64 that Christmas but Mario 64 was sold out everywhere. Our parents looked everywhere and as soon as stores got stock, they sold out. Even our local area blockbuster and Hollywood video stores never had it.

Then a year later ffvii blew mind yet again. Ahh to be young growing up during that era. Was such an amazing time. Games don't feel like that to me anymore sadly.

 

[ReyVGM]

Games don't feel like that to me anymore sadly.

Click to shrink...

Completely normal. As we grow older, we stop being impressed by things.

 

[aerie]

"100 hours of gameplay"

Such sweet lies.

Quite a treat to see people in awe of the Z-axis though. It's like that guy's trying to explain things at a mile a minute and they're just completely off in dreamland, lol.

Click to shrink...

Its probably quite accurate to most peoples experiences when it released, took me and my friends around 100 hours. We weren't used to this type of game, the internet was limited, looking up guides to help with stars wasn't a thing. We truly had to explore and learn, we were in no rush to finish it, few of us had backlogs, the release window was fairly thin, and the game was just a pleasure to spend time in. It was a different time, and it was an incredible experience.

I still remember my first 10 minutes of Mario 64 and my brain almost having to adjust to it, my first Mario game was Super on the NES. I was a big DOS gamer prior too, i'd played Quake and plenty others 3D/psudo-3d games, its not like 3D gaming was new to me, 64 was just unlike anything else.

edit: typo

 

[srtrestre]

Truly a one of a kind moment in gaming. I'm glad I was there to witness the mind-melting awesomeness that were Mario 64 and then Ocarina of Time only a couple years later.

 

[maximumzero]

I remember seeing Star Fox at a Sears kiosk in 1993 for the first time. Goddamn that shit was amazing.