The damn thing redefined rail shooters for me. and possibly my top fave in the library so far, Sin and Punishment. I haven't even experienced the most talked-about icons like SM64, Ocarina/Mask dilogy or Banjo-Kazooie, but this was the platform I discovered 1080° Snowboarding, Body Harvest, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Cruis'n series (one of the recent Direct's most wowing comebacks), Diddy Kong Racing, Mega Man Legends (aka 64), Mischief Makers, Nightmare Creatures and Nuclear Strike, Pokemon Snap, Star Wars Racer, Turok, Wonder Project J2. The three-pronged lump of plastic bundled with each machine has never seen its design repeated since, and it still divides player opinion to this day.Īs with most Nintendo hardware of the time, I only discovered it in emulated form later. The successor to the SNES, the N64 caught the attention of gaming fans thanks to its jump to 3D graphics – who could forget running around Super Mario 64 or Zelda: Ocarina of Time's worlds for the first time? – as well as its, erm, unique controller design. Further Reading: Best Nintendo 64 Games.

It landed on store shelves alongside Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64, and Saikyō Habu Shōgi in Japan North America and Europe had to wait several more months before it was available overseas, but were also treated to Mario and Pilotwings on launch day (European players could also grab Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter).

Boasting a 64-bit processing unit and good old clunky cartridges (incidentally, the N64 would go on to be the last home console to use game cartridges until the Switch), the system has become one of the most iconic consoles in gaming history. On 23rd June 1996, Nintendo launched its latest home console, the Nintendo 64, in Japan.

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