by Greggory Delman

Created on: July 10, 2009

Nintendo has always been a company about creativity and breaking new grounds in video games. They created the concept of side scrolling games, they introduced the concept of portable video game systems with changeable games and they've made genre defining games. What has allowed them to do all of this, is their home video game consoles, from the NES to the SNES to the Nintendo 64. The NES and the SNES will always be considered to be the top of their generation, so how does the Nintendo 64 (N64) stack up?

As with most Nintendo systems, the N64 is really a forward looking system in a lot of ways. Sony's Playstation was built for both 2-D and 3-D games, and the 3-D games were getting a lot of attention from gamers and the press. As the Nintendo first system that was built from the ground up as a 3-D system, Nintendo was trying to show Sony that they were the best. 3-D was a huge departure from Nintendo's norm, this was a risky move for them. They were known for 2-D game play, and no one knew how their games would translate to the third dimension. Not only did their games work well in 3-D, they became the archetypes for other games in the same genre. Mario 64 and Zelda:Toot's control schemes became the norm for their genre.

Nintendo was also determined to make game playing a social activity. In order to facilitate this, their console had four controller ports on the front of it. Moving up from the now standard two ports, this meant that four players could enjoy a game together, and many of the nintendo first party games did. This later was copied by the Dreamcast and Xbox, as well as Nintendo's Gamecube, and today connecting 4 controllers is pretty standard.

The N64's controller was also revolutionary. When developing games in 3-D they noticed a need for more nuanced control scheme, and recreated the analog control stick. This allowed players to make more subtle moves then the digital pad before it allowed. Soon after this came out both Sony and Sega created analog controllers to keep up with Nintendo. With the release of Starfox 64, Nintendo cause another revolution in game controllers by adding rumble to it. Sony actually went ahead and redesigned their analog controller a second time, refining it and turning it into the first Dual Shock. Now a days both analog and rumble are standard features and when they are missing, controversy ensues.

About the only thing that was not forward thinking on the system was the media. Instead of moving on to the CD format that Sega and Sony used, they stuck with the proprietary cart rage. This allowed for quicker load times then CD's, but it also meant that the size of the games had to be much smaller. It also meant that a lot of multi-platform games could not come out on the system because of the media format and Nintendo's control over it. CD's did not make inherently better games, but it limited the storage space designers had for more levels, better graphic textures and profit margins.

Ultimately a video game system is only as good as the games on it. The N64 had a ton of great games, many genre defining, but it just was missing the third party support that the other consoles had. Nintendo and Rare games are fantastic, but there just didn't seem to be any other publisher making consistently great games for the system. It was a shame because it had a lot of potential. Overall it was a good system that added a lot of innovation into the field, but with less classic games then other Nintendo systems, it was missing some of the magic that made those systems timeless.

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