The Ringer-Verse - Pricing Puzzles, 'Star Fox,' and the N64 30th-Anniversary Draft | Button Mash

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Ben, Matt James, Steve Ahlman, and Rob Mahoney plug in their trident controllers for a four-player, 30th-anniversary celebration of a classic console from their youth, the Nintendo 64. First, in Patch Notes, they play a guessing game about what 'Grand Theft Auto VI' will cost as preorders begin, discuss whether the price is wrong for Valve's Steam Machine, and react to reports about upcoming Xbox layoffs and studio closures. Then they play "Mash or Pass?" with Nintendo's Switch 2 ‘Star Fox' remake and ‘The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales,' and they share what they want and expect from the upcoming ‘Ocarina of Time' remake. Finally, they assess the N64's legacy and draft their favorite N64 games across several genres. Intro (0:00)Patch Notes (5:00)Mash or Pass?: 'Star Fox’ (27:23)Mash or Pass?: 'The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales’ (35:26)'Ocarina of Time' remake predictions (38:41)N64 Draft (47:48)Outro (2:07:13) Host: Ben LindberghGuests: Matt James, Steve Ahlman, and Rob MahoneyProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And welcome into the Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor at the Ringer, Button MASH host, and card carrying N64 Kid at Heart for Life. We have a supersized episode in store for you today. Fortunately, this podcast supports a special expansion pack for increased memory capacity. So just slap that sucker in and you should be good to go. We are lucky that LLMs hadn't happened yet in the Nintendo 64 era. or we would have had to pay through the nose for those four extra megabytes. But back then, we had instant messenger chatbots that didn't plagiarize,

destroy the environment, or raise RAM prices. Shout out to Smarter Child. We have so much to discuss today. GTA pre-orders, steam machine pricing, Xbox drama, what else is new? Brief reviews of Star Fox for Switch 2 and the Adventures of Elliot. Thoughts and hopes for Nintendo's Ocarina remake. But the biggest news of all. is that this week, the Nintendo 64 turned 30.

The latest clue in a growing body of evidence that we must be considerably older than 30, which doesn't seem possible, but dismayingly does appear to check out. So to mark the occasion, to wish N64 a happy 30th, we'll be conducting a draft of N64 games. And as a tribute to the system that popularized the practice of shipping with four built-in controller ports, we have a four-player podcast. No odd job allowed. With us, not as always, but as often, is a man who is on top of the world.

Not only did his Knicks win a championship, but he himself is a champion because this week, at long last, he beat Crimson Desert. Congrats on both counts, Mr. Matt James. Life-changing events, Ben. I'll never be the same. How would you order those in terms of their importance to you and your happiness? Yeah, I'm going to have to put the Knicks' Championship above Crimson Desert, I think. It was about 196 hours in Crimson Desert. And let me just do the quick hour conversion to 32 years of my life.

Yeah, I'm not good at math. It's the Knicks, though. The Knicks, yeah, definitely Nix. Yeah, yeah. They managed to patch the Nix finally, much as Crimson Desert has been patched repeatedly. I imagine that this game played pretty differently by the time you finished it than it did when you started. It's sort of a ship of PCS situation.

It's just an entirely new game. You have to start all over now. I legitimately recommend it to people now, not just weirdos like me. Hey, we recommended it pre-release. Not Steve, but we did. Anyway, it's on version 12 now, I think, not counting hot fixes.

So really, start all over again and experience it anew. He may not be a Knicks fan, but he is still riding high from that glimpse he got of Kingdom Hearts 4 at this month's Nintendo Direct two weeks ago. Ringer, senior audio producer, Steve Sora, Alman, congrats on the trailer and the proof of life.

It really is proof of life. And like the world economy, I too am shuffering from a memory shortage, but I'm always going to remember that Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer. I don't like the new design, but I certainly like the fact that I've got a new main menu bop to bang my head to. I will remember none of what happened in the previous Kingdom Hearts games,

including the ones that are no longer even really available to play, easily that still will pray a crucial part in Kingdom Hearts Force plot, no doubt. But that's okay. You don't have to sweat the small stuff when it comes to Kingdom Hearts. That's Sora, the Kingdom Hearts character, not the defunct AI video app. Important distinction, just to be clear. And finally, because it's such a slow news week in the NBA, and we were worried he wouldn't have any other drafts to discuss. Group chatter and senior staff writer, Rob Mahoney is here to do some drafting with us. Welcome, Rob. Thank you. No, I put in a few calls. I was like, all right, Let's get the Janus trade done.

Let's get this business taking care of. I got drafting to do it. The most important draft of my day, certainly. Oh, no doubt. And full disclosure, before I recruited you for this episode, I did invite noted Ringer and Star Fox fan Glenn Powell to join this draft. Unfortunately, he was tech unavail to be on Buttmash because he is in production on another project. But of everyone in the world who has not recently played Star Fox in a major motion picture,

you were my first choice. So happy to have you. I appreciate it. Do we know if Glenn is doing any of the voice work in the new Star Fox remake? I do not believe he is because I have played it and I will tell you about it.

And the voice work is memorable, but it's not Glenn, I'm afraid. That's tough. Okay, let's start with some patch notes, our name for video game news you can use or at least be upset about. GTA6 is real. It's possibly spectacular.

It's still slated for November. 19th. And if you can't wait until then to buy it, you've just got to give Rockstar and take two your money as quickly as possible, you can put a pre-order down the day after this podcast comes out. June 25th for an as yet unspecified price, unspecified as we record, at least. So we figured we would play a quick game. This has been the subject of much speculation, and we will provide our best guesses here. Name your GTA6 price. I have asked each of you to write down how much you think the base game will cost. So forget about special additions and pre-order bonuses and you get to play it three days early.

Just the base game for PlayStation for Xbox. What do we think it's going to cost? We have each scrawled down our number and now we're going to compare figures. But I wanted everyone to write it down to keep you all honest. Rob, you want to be first into the breach here? What do you think we'll be paying for GTA6? I would love to. I don't know if this is Price is right rules or not,

where if you overbid, you're immediately disqualified, I think it's going to be $90 U.S. for the base game. Honestly, because they can. They know they have people over a barrel. You know you have a drug in supply that the people desperately want and need. And I think this is the time where they squeeze. Yeah, there is no generic equivalent to GTA6.

Unfortunately, there are many imitators, but only one authentic article. Steve, let's see your number. Well, Rob might have beaten me to the punch, but I did go Price's Right Rules, and I took $799. Oh, all right. I'm just going to help myself. Which is, again, like the retail inclusion of like $79.

Yeah, exactly. Here's my post-it note that we're holding up for no one else to be able to see. I also have $799. But Ben wrote it bigger, and that's, and I'll give that to it. Yeah. I think $7.99 is like the absolute maximum for anybody to feasibly allow, themselves to get it for the gen pop, but knowing that the gem pop is literally everyone,

again, this is when they squeeze, this is where they set the precedent for, if there's ever going to be a game that they were ever going to have the balls to charge $80 and up for, it is this one. I think they can take that as a challenge. I think they can go higher. But Matt, will you go higher or will you go lower?

I have to agree with everything that Steve said, which is why I'm dropping a fat. 99.99. Whoa. You write the tiniest numbers. I've ever seen, but it's,

that's the biggest number and the smallest lettering. Wow. That's right. 9999. Wow. Give us the pitch. Here's the pitch.

They want to make money. People are going to buy this game no matter what. It's a good pitch. That's the pitch. It's pretty persuasive. Strauss out of taking notes right now. He's tearing up the pre-order announcement.

Wait, we can go higher. I just think people are like, you know, people are used to prices being absolutely out of control right now. Why not just say a Honda? Right. Well, in the words of, in the words of Logan Roy, congratulations on saying the biggest fucking number.

Yeah. But I would imagine that that's actually like just above what I would expect. Like I can see a deluxe version for 99, but I can't see a base for that. Oh, I can see deluxe version for, yeah, absurd. Unsponsible amounts. I see Deluxe being like 120.

We have 13 years. of development costs to recoup here. I can't physically imagine base being over 100. If they include like a Vice City nightlight in that thing, it's $500. You could gouge so quickly. Yeah. Can we do popcorn buckets? Is that a thing?

It's not too late. Yeah. It has to be a thing, though. All right. So no one, no one is saying that this will be anything below 80. But Steve and I are the optimists here that this will be within the realm of normal pre-established video game pricing. And Rob and Matt are saying, no, we are raising the bar.

And maybe the rest of the industry, I don't know, if they want GTA to say, here's how high the ceiling can be. And now everyone else looks like they're not gouging everyone. Or, hey, maybe this is a permission structure for us to raise our price at some point. Of course, there is only one GTA. So look, if they do set it at 90 or 100, people will pay. I don't think it's going to hurt the bottom line or the adoption too much. but I'm going to be an optimist.

You know, I'm not going to say that they're going to come out here, silk song style and say, here, 20 bucks, you can have DTA6. But I'm going to hope that this is not a paradigm shift, even though they could get away with it. They'll just, they'll go for the populist move. They'll try to move the most units possibly. That's my hope. Can I have a quick question for you, Ben?

Do you think this might be the one video game in this, like, probably decade or recent memory where actual reviews of this will not matter because I'm actually thinking about the fact that what if actually Rockstar really drops their nuts and just doesn't give out review codes at all? That's been as a possibility. Yeah, and look, I'd like to think that as game reviewers,

we are super important and everyone is just waiting with baited breath for us to pronounce our verdict before buying. But there are plenty of games out there that have already cleared that. I don't care what reviewers say, I'm going to pick it up, including every shooter that comes out annually, every sports game that comes out annually. But yes, GTA, I think people will be plunking down their $70 to $100 or more dollars this week and over the next few months. Sight unseen. Although, we might see some more sight seen soon.

So if and when a new trailer does drop, but Mesh will be on it. So stay tuned for that pod at some point. I have a slack thread with some of you where every time there's a GTA trailer rumor, I just like, stand by everyone. This is it. It's happening this time. We might have to just swing into action for an emergency pod. The Giannis Trade, a video video.

And like the honest trade, there will be a GTA trailer at some point. And when it does, we will be so ready because we have rehearsed for this. And we'll just, we'll get right into action as soon as it drops. One of these days, I'm not going to be the boy who cried GTA trailer. It won't be a false alarm. All right, we will know more about that quite soon. And speaking of things turning 30 this year, Valve will celebrate the big 3-0 later this summer. And by the time it does, it will be the proud parent of a new piece of hardware.

June 25th is the first day you can pre-order G-A-6. It's also the last day you can enter a lottery on Steam to possibly place a pre-order for the Steam machine. And unlike GTA6, the steam machine does have an announced price, and you're probably not going to like it. The 512 gigabyte model will retail for 1,049 U.S. smackers. And the 2-terabyte version will run you $300 more. If you want a side of steam controller with that, you can tack on another $79 to each of those prices. So, thanks to AI-driven demand for RAM, we have seen hardware price increases across the board. Steam machine's price was increasing, too.

We just didn't know what it was yet. And according to Valve, it was previously supposed to be priced at $750. But no more. So, Matt, you've crunched the numbers. You've run the math. What is your verdict on the $1,000-plus steam machine that we dreaded, but also sort of expected. That's too much money, Ben. The price is too damn high. It's true. It's too damn high. And you know what? The sad thing is from a hardware perspective,

it's not completely unreasonable. If you were to build out a comparable PC based on the specs, I think you could come in a couple hundred dollars, maybe even $300, less than this thing, if you've really tried. Now, at that point, you're building a, a much larger PC with a larger form factor. It's not going to be GameCube-sized. Right. Valve has done a nice job of managing the thermals and the noise level of this thing to be nice. But at the same time, if you are paying that little extra to get your steam machine, the thing you're sacrificing is future upgrades because the GPU and CPU and this thing are locked.

in. Those are not going to be able to be upgraded. And the biggest problem with this steam machine is that, yeah, it's expensive, but also it's kind of just a machine for now and not a machine for the future. It is comparable to a PS5 in performance at a much higher price. And yeah, it's a small use case. There aren't many people who I think I can recommend this to, unless you have a very tiny space for a computer. And you haven't maybe played any of the games of this past generation and you want to get into PC gaming and you have just more money than you know what to do with, then this is perfect for you.

Yeah. I mean, if price were no object, okay, I guess if price were no object, you'd just build yourself a supercomputer and then you could have all the specs cranked up to the mat. So it's sort of this trying to thread the needle. it's too expensive for just a casual adopter to pick up. But if you're a true PC diehard enthusiast, you might not even be in the market for this thing because you don't need a living room PC,

but also this might not satisfy your need for speed. Rob, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's a classic case of who is this for, especially I would think that the best case, the best case scenario for this kind of non-traditional console is you're hoping it can be a gateway, right? for people who are not full-fledged PC gamers who want a taste of that thing.

But at this price point, that doesn't make sense whatsoever. And Matt's absolutely right. You're not future-proofing with this kind of hardware. You don't have the customizable of a PC. It can't do anything beyond what a PC can do. And so then what are you really paying for other than a nice size box? Right.

I think that that's actually the biggest tragedy of this entire thing because the price point is actually going to be betraying the philosophy of what this console is supposed to do. because this is make no mistake a PC. You are buying a PC here. This is the openness of the platform that Valve has promised you that you can

uninstall the OS of this thing with ease and make this a desktop PC for your own potential use. You don't even need to plug this into your TV. You can make this your home computer if you want. You can do anything with this. And the entire philosophy of like, we joke about what like the PC master races. And the reason that we do is because inherently

there is a little bit more of an emotional buy-in to making a PC because not only are you researching and thinking up what your use cases for this PC are, you probably built the thing yourself or at least looked up what the things that you needed for this are.

And when you get to the steam machine, at the heartbreaking price that it is, the performance and things that it can actually do while comparable to the things that you have now, betray what a PC box is now for every person that has one now. Again, you don't have to do this, but Valve has been telegraphing this painfully for months.

And it's so sad when Valve actually kind of has their tail talk between their legs to be like, yeah, it's $1,000. And one of the greatest and most heartbreaking things that I had seen in the price reveal is that there's like a massive Q&A, not only with the price point, but with like the pre-orders and how these things will work. And at the very bottom, it says, question, if I don't get a steam machine right away, what can I do? And they basically, in paraphrasing terms, said, the beauty of the PC community means that there are a lot of resources available to you to, like, build your own. The answer is live your life.

Go outside, please. And develop, they're like, you can, like, we have this open platform of the OS. You can literally make your own at your own. at your own price, and we are not going to stop you from doing that. And I sit my hat to them for doing that. But to them tacitly being like, you really don't have to buy this is like actually insane. And that's what really breaks my heart. Yeah.

And supplies are limited because they couldn't even acquire as much stock as they wanted to due to the shortages. So it'll sell out. It'll be hard to get one even if you want one. But ultimately, the long-term sales, I just can't imagine this not continuing to be a niche product, which is unfortunate because I think the timing, aside from the Rampocalypse, was right that the market craves something like this, that I'm in that target market as someone who appreciates the convenience of console gaming, but is regularly PC curious and would be happy to just have a pre-built solution for anyone who's intimidated by the idea of building

their own thing and sourcing their own components, just to have something off the rack that worked well and was convenient and no must no fuss. It's a good proposition. It's a bad price point. And it's just going to limit the reach, unfortunately, at least for now and for the foreseeable future. So I'm sure it'll be a worthy product in some respects. But the potential for it to be a breakout one and one that could kind of reshape gaming, I think that's kind of out the window now. and it's unfortunate. And, you know, this is happening at the same time as what seems to be to be sort of an inflection point in just the public embrace of AI.

You know, film bros are reeling right now. Everyone's been betrayed by the A24 AI deal with Google DeepMind, but it's happening in gaming everywhere too. And Epic has been promoting Unreal Engine 6 and its integration with Claude and Gemini and other AI tools and even the current generation 5.8 Unreal Engine will have a plug-in that will allow developers to just connect these models directly to the engine. There's a longtime epic veteran named Shored DeYoung who has served as an evangelist for Unreal Engine. That's been his job and he just resigned because he said, this era has come to a close. We're reaching a pivotal point.

And as much as I love the old way of working, I think it would be strategic to come to terms with where this is heading. Even though he didn't specify that he was talking about AI, it was widely interpreted as being about that. So this is not changing. If anything, the resistance is being reduced and we're nowhere near the end of this shortage. So I just, I don't see an end to the current crisis of hardware prices rising. And Matt, maybe you were right to have built yourself a PC that was pretty expensive months ago, but not as expensive as it would be today. Yeah, I actually just priced out what my PC would cost today that I bought, I think, in January or February. And it's up $500, basically.

Oh, my God. Congrats to you. Your investment. My Steam deck is worth like a grand and a half now with my memory. Make sure you pop your PS5 lid off and suck the dust out of there. Yeah, make sure there's no roaches in that thing. If that thing eats and breaks, you're going to need a new mortgage. I was joking about my N64 expansion pack, but here is.

I'm holding it into the camera. This thing now, those four megabytes, it's appreciating this. You got to strip that thing like a railroad nail. Yeah, we're just going to start going garage sale to garage sale, megabyte for megabytes. This is my nest egg. This is my retirement plane. I'm turning into old gil from the symptoms. I need my parts.

I wonder what, if anything Rockstar will say about AI when GTA comes out, Strauss-Zellnick of Take 2 has sort of downplayed the potential. But it strikes me, you know, people are looking at GTA as not just a system seller, but really like an ecosystem seller, a platform seller, this is going to revitalize console gaming. If Rockstar comes out and said, yeah, we used AI to make this thing, you know, that's the end, really. If they came out and said, no, we would never, well, then everyone will say, well, no wonder, it took you 13 years. I guess they're going to openly disclose that. I think we're going to have to wait for the, you know, the,

whistleblowers to say that, but I highly doubt that. That part of it is so funny, how it's just like an open secret in the industry that so many of these developers are using AI in various respects. And it's just like, you can't talk about it, but you can do it. As long as you don't forget to remove the slap before you release the game, then you get caught. And just say you're going to get rid of it later. Or that's, yeah. Or just say, no, that's the new normal.

Anyway, I guess Rockstar can't claim that AI has sped up development for them unless it would have taken 15, 16, 17 years otherwise. Who knows? Finally, this week's or last week's sign of the Xbox eclipse, the fine folks at Xbox have made more news. There are reportedly major layoffs coming to the Xbox division next month. A few Microsoft-owned studios, including double-fine, compulsion, Ninja Theory are being shut down or spun off. Ninja Theory just had a new game. Senoa announced at the Xbox Game Showcase, but it will, apparently be a posthumous release, or at least a last gasp. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma gave studio's head Matt Booty killed the good vibes from that showcase by sending out the latest in a long

line of memos, this time to bemoan a paltry 3% profit margin and pronounce, this cannot continue. And evidently for a good number of Xbox workers, it won't. Matt, anything new here or is just the latest update on the pile of bad Xbox workers? I think the only thing new here is that, you know, we've had a recent wave of kind of good vibes coming out of Xbox. And, you know, this is the first sort of backpedaling we've seen of like, oh, you know what? Yeah, nothing's actually going to change. Yeah. We can, you know, make the letters in our name lowercase or uppercase.

We're still going to close studios that make good games that we bought. And yeah, so no, not really, nothing new. It's such a steady drumbeat of news coming out of Xbox. I'm almost sort of. Everyone's sick of it. Everybody. It's just, it's enough. It's like, you know, I feel like they're the friend who's just always mired and messy drama.

And at first, you kind of can't look away. You're rubbernecking. Just vicariously, you want to hear about, what did they get up to? But then eventually, you're just like, look, just let me know when you figure your shit out, you know? I don't need to hear about every crisis of confidence here, every memo that's leaked. They absolutely have shit to figure out because they've announced that Project Helix

is going to be a premium device, and we're just seeing the steam machine that's very non-premium device being $1,400. Yeah. So good luck selling an Xbox for $2,000 plus. Yeah. Especially when they're cleaning up their shit, Like, this has been, what, a decade plus of some version of this now, just a slow bloodletting of everything that Xbox has ever been.

It's so dispiriting to watch this all happen in slow motion and then suddenly in fast motion. Yeah, it's just, I mean, it's kind of like we've seen elsewhere with Embracer and Netties and Tencent and others, just all these companies that went all in on acquisition sprees or investment sprees when everyone was riding high during the pandemic revenue boost. And since has divested and sold off. And that's what we're seeing here, too. Maybe Xbox bit off more than it could chew. And now it's seeing that, oh, this is not profitable or not as profitable as we would like it to be. And, you know, I think Game Pass stagnated and failed to scale in part because there just aren't enough mats out there.

You know, there just aren't enough people for whom that proposition of... I mean, there are plenty of mats. There aren't enough like me. There are too many. I like that. Yeah, there's a Matt helping run Xbox, in fact. But people whose appetite for games is insatiable, people don't need that many games every year because most people don't play that many. And people don't care about the back catalog, I think, as much as they do in other media. You know, music, TV, you might check out shows or albums that you missed. In gaming, it's so often about what's new. And maybe most people don't really need a Netflix for games. because most people are kind of, you know, one or two or three games a year, that'll do it for them. And so they don't need the steady diet. And I just, I don't know that the streaming potential there was as great as Xbox hoped it was. And so maybe that just sort of puts a cap on the ambitions. So there's going to be an unfortunate correction here, as the corporate types like to say, a right sizing.

So we will see how bad it is and how many heads. have to roll to pay for some of those mistakes that were made. But I do understand the full court PR press to try to change the narrative. And hey, it's just been bad news. And we're getting back to the basics. And we're doing away with slogans and we're bringing back logos and everything. But now I just, I need to hear a little less from Xbox for a while until there's really something to celebrate. All right.

Let's talk about a couple new games. We'll do a quick Nash or Pass impressions, reviews of new releases. and one of them is very timely here. Not only does it come out on Thursday, same day as you can pre-order GTA, but it is very related to the topic of our draft today. There's a new Star Fox, but it's also sort of the old Star Fox.

Star Fox 64 remake out for Switch 2. I got access to it. I've been playing it. I have played through it. You guys are mad at least. You've played the demo. Everyone's just sort of seen what this thing, looks like and I'm here to tell you that it plays pretty much like it looks and like you would

expect it to. So there is a review embargo and so I am forbidden from mentioning certain specifics, which is kind of funny because this game is more or less like you think it would be. It is a prettified Star Fox 64, which is kind of cool and is kind of fun for a few hours for sure. It is a lot better looking than I remember it looking in 1997 or whenever that was. It looks good. It sounds good. But it is extremely faithful to the campaign that we all played back in the 90s. It is just a direct remake.

And there's new stuff. I don't mean to downplay it. There are new modes. There's multiplayer. You can play against each other in kind of a dogfight mode. you can play co-op. There is expanded storytelling. There is new non-Glen Powell voiceover work happening here, and it's very expressive, I will say that much for it. And there's a new between missions briefings and a little prologue video. And if you just wanted the story and the lore

of Star Fox 64 to be fleshed out, then I've got good news for you because there's much more of that here. But ultimately, it is what you remember it being, just looking a lot better and sounding a lot better than it did. So is that of interest to you guys? I will tell you that it'll run you $50 for the digital version and $60 for the physical version. And that is where the rubber meets the road here, because if this were a budget purchase, I would have no reservations about recommending it and saying mash. At that price point, you have to really like Starvation. You have to really like Star Fox and want to revisit the same Star Fox again. We got to stop doing this.

You can't charge that much for an effectively re-skinned game with worse voice work. It's just not acceptable. And I'm honestly shocked to hear you say that there's even energy and the delivery as far as like the little audio stings go. The trailer that went out, needless to say, the response to it has not been great. I would say Peppy in particular just seems like he's become a full-time alcoholic. And since we last saw him, like the life is gone from his eyes and the energy. from his voice. I'm like, I don't even recognize this man anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. Star Fox does not look his best in this game. There has been much criticism of the character model, which, you know, most of the time you're just shooting stuff in front of you. You don't have to be looking at Star Fox's face, but there's some questionable design decisions going on there. But the production values are good. It plays well. It controls well. You can use the mouse controls if you're so inclined. I just sort of stuck with the joystick. Served me well. But, you know, the R-wing is as agile as ever, and everything looks great and shiny and pretty, but it is, it's still quite a compact experience. If you recall Star Fox 64, you can play through that thing in a sitting and not a very long sitting, and that is still the case. You know, there's a challenge

mode where you can play through it and there are various goals, and you can rack up points and medals and so forth. And as I mentioned, there's the battle mode and everything. There are some additions and some goodies and some new shiny bubbles here. But it's basically Star Fox 64, which is a great game, but also sort of a dated one in its design, if no longer in its looks. And as people pointed out, we've kind of been remaking the same Star Fox game

over and over and over again in various forms. I mean, going back to S&S, Star Fox, basically the 64 version rehashed the same storyline from the S&E. version, and then you had Star Fox 64 3D for 3DS, and then you had Star Fox Zero, which was sort of a reimagining of the same Star Fox. So it would be nice if we could have an entirely new Star Fox adventure and maybe one that was built from the ground up in the 21st century. Is that too much to ask? Maybe if this does well between that and the movie and Mr. Powell's work, maybe there will be enough enthusiasm for Starfax that we can get a new game off the ground.

So what I'm hearing is we're getting milked for every dollar on consoles that don't have a definitive market, on giant games that are, you know, a big expansive thing that's being thrown out there into the world and also on the rescanned old games that are being, you know, repackaged and fed back to us. I don't know if you know this, Rob, but Nintendo did break the emergency glass and remake Okerina of Time. And it is time to once again go back to the well and chill up. another $70 for that remake, which I know that people will.

I'm not above that. I'm here for it. I'm interested. But also a little bit of what are we doing again? Because we've remade Star Fox five times now. And we've refused to make anything new. And Nintendo cannot get out of its own way when it comes to even stepping a little bit out of its comfort zone when it comes to their IP.

Yeah, I want to talk about Ocarina in a second. But it, you know, it is kind of demoralizing to say, the same games sold to us over and over, no matter how pretty they are. And, you know, some things stay the same. Fox's wingmen are of no use whatsoever. They're constantly riding me for not coming to their aid, but they will never come to my aid. Falco is still a jerk. And, you know, the very concept of all range mode remains ridiculous to me. It's like, they're on cruise control, I guess most of the time. They're on the mode where you can only just fly forward. and then they say all range mode

and then suddenly you can go anywhere. Why would that not be the defaults? Why would you want to be on cruise control here while you're flying your R-wing? But look, it's still a fun, pretty endearing Star Wars rip-off, you know, and R-Wings are A-wings, and we all recognize what the source material here is. And if anything, they lean into that even more.

Kind of oddly, Star Fox is in this, maybe much like Nintendo, for the money in this remake, because they very much emphasize the fact that Star Fox is a Merck, and he is just serving the highest bidder here. And even though we are helping out Cornaria and coming to the aid of the Lilat system, it's just because they're willing to meet our price, basically. And so the distinction between Star Fox and Star Wolf kind of breaks down, because I guess he's taking Andros's money.

I guess that makes him the bad guy. But I feel like this new Star Fox, if Andros would meet his price, he'd be changing sides. Yeah. Fox the bounty hunter, huh? Yeah. What I'm hearing is the most principled person in this game is, is his name Andrew, andross is like nephew who's flying against you?

Like, I mean, at least he's standing for something. He's the nepo baby of the Star Wolf crew. Yeah. Anyway, that's Star Fox. I had fun with it. You know, you could too if you want to pony up. And so can you. If you're willing to pay for the experience that I have described.

and maybe if the nostalgia is strong enough, you will be. It's a fun time. It's just not a very long time and not a very inexpensive time. I want to talk about Ocarina Matt, very briefly. Give us your verdict on a new retro Zelda-like that if we did not have so much else to discuss, we might have devoted more time to the Adventures of Elliot, the Millennium Tales, which is out now, Square Enix slash NX.

It's out for all platforms. Did you like it? I did like it. I think this is a game for a certain kind of gamer and very much not for other kinds of gamers. It is kind of like the 2D overhead Zelda kind of feel to it in terms of the combat. There's a lot of customization with the weapons.

There's some elements where you're traveling through time. I think you have to be someone who is okay with a relaxing game that is pretty saccharin, kind of cheesy. If you can stomach that kind of stuff, then this might be for you. If you like the Dragon Quest games, if you want to relax while playing a game,

sure. If you're looking for an in-depth... If you can hold your nose and put up with all the sucky stuff, then this game is for you. That's what I'm hearing. No, you like it more than that. To a degree.

I mean, I really like the gameplay. The music is incredible. I didn't think the story was as bad as some people online seem to think it is. I would have liked to see more integration with the time traveling. I think one of the big problems of this that it has

is you're going over the same area in several different timelines, and sometimes that's great and interesting, and other times you're in the same cave that you were in 100 years ago, and not much has changed in this cave, man. So that's like a common issue you come across.

Much like Starfax 64 from the StarFox remake. Also, take it up with geology, though. Like, that's just a nature. That's true. Yeah, that's, Yeah, can't blame the cave. Yeah.

I think it's a relaxing, nostalgic, feel-good kind of game that I definitely don't regret playing. I enjoyed it. But, you know, there are some voice work in here that people are just going to cringe at. And if you're susceptible to high-pitched fairy is telling you what to do in a dungeon, then this ain't for you at all. But I feel like you know if this game is for you or not. And if you are a Square Unix fan with a lot of nostalgia for this kind of thing, and you like that 2D overhead Zelda gameplay, I can definitely recommend it to you. But I don't think that people from outside of that wheelhouse are going to hop into this

and become out a changed person with new interest. It sounds a little less inventive than its predecessors, right? Octopath Traveler Live a Live. It's got sort of the same veneer, the HD2D, but a little less originality, perhaps. Well, I think it just doesn't have the story that Octopath has. I think that's the main thing. And then again, some of that backtracking can be a little bit annoying across the ages. But, you know, again, there's a lot of stuff to find in this map.

There's secrets to uncover. There's really cool weapons and modifiers and the way you kind of make your build and can switch between things on the fly. Like, combat, the bosses are great. Like, there really is a lot to like here. Okay. Okay. Well, speaking of games with annoying fairy companions, let us briefly discuss the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake because we did our summer showcase reaction prior to the Nintendo Direct.

And this was the headliner. This was the closer of that presentation. I was not blown away by that Nintendo Direct in general, even though we did have a Kingdom Hearts foresighting. We didn't get a Dust Blood's release date. We didn't get an Ocarina remake release date. We saw Some new stuff, but mostly stuff that was already out there. More HD, 2D, Final Fantasy Square Enix stuff. Not bad. Something. Yeah.

But not a ton of breathtaking, jaw-dropping new reveals. And Nintendo's Thunder has been stolen, and I'm sure Nintendo's pretty pissed about this, by leakers, Nate the Hate and others, who forecasted that the Star Fox remake and Ocarina remake were coming. And usually Nintendo likes to play things. close to the best and likes to spring these surprises on us. And so the surprise value was entirely lost because those big reveals in a year when Nintendo is sort of slacking on the flagship titles that everyone has been waiting for, they're hoping that we're going to get pumped for

Ocarina and Star Fox. Ocarina is maybe the holiday headliner. And we kind of already knew it was coming. And we didn't get much more than confirmation that it's coming in this trailer. We didn't get a great look at gameplay or anything or get a sense for the scope of the thing, didn't even get a release date. So we still don't know whether Nintendo is going to take on GTA6 head to head. Of course, GTA is not on Switch 2. So you'd think that they could just go ahead and do their own thing, but we still don't know. So based on what we've seen with Starfox, what we know about Nintendo, what are you guys hoping this will be?

And what realistically do you expect it to be, Rob? realistically, I expect a version of the same thing, which is almost identical gameplay, updated graphics. I hope that the voiceover work is not updated too much. Like the kitch of a hey, listen, is also not lost on me. So I kind of hope we stay true to it in some form with that. But what I wish it would be is I wish that there were a way to adapt. Like obviously some of the open world elements of what Zelda has become

don't just map perfectly onto Ocarina anymore. That doesn't really work. but the sort of lateral thinking of the problem solving of those games if you applied them to the temples of Ocarina I think would be really fun. I just don't think we're really going to get that. I think it's going to be more or less a port

with the visual updates, obviously, but I'm not expecting anything radical. I agree. And it's the same sort of thing where we've seen various remakes and remasters of this game already and you can play it, of course, in its original form on Switch as it is.

And so you'd think, okay, anticipating the price point, which will certainly be Star Fox or higher here, what are you bringing to the table that's new? And there are a lot of people who are saying, yeah, can we somehow meld classic ocarina with the boundary-breaking Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom? I'm not expecting that that will happen. And that's a lot to ask. And also, you know, you're revisiting an absolute classic sacred game. And so there would be people who would be pissed if you tampered with it, if you tried to Breath of the Wild ocarina and sort of translate that feeling we remember from Hyrule Field the first time we played it and now knowing that

it wasn't quite as permissive and all-encompassing as Breath of the Wilde's version was. If you tried to somehow meld those, maybe you'd end up with almost a worst of both worlds where the weaknesses, the deficiencies relative to modern Zelda would be even more apparent. Steve, what say you? Nintendo's borderline immature attitude towards these leaks that were bound to happen any way aside. I think that the thing that I would have really, really liked to see, and I'm almost certain that we will not get,

is kind of like what Rob is describing, and something that I actually, while not personally connect with, deeply respect in the work that we're seeing from the likes of Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy. And that is like a philosophical, shift in what they want to give that story and that game. Not only is there like slight departures from the story of FF7 that are like kind of ingenious, but also like the idea that they can make a modernized version of that gameplay and give us a story

fairly as we remember it. It's a delicate balance and it actually speaks to the passion not only of the community that loves that game, but the people that want to remake it. and if Starbox is any indication of that, Nintendo isn't on that kind of time. They want to make a nice, shiny thing that you remember, and it's as pretty one-to-one as those mechanics can be with some slight ease-of-use modern-day updates that we would have.

And that will be good, and people will love that, but it will ultimately be uninteresting to the likes of me. Yeah, and, you know, we don't need a new version of Akrona, that is different from the original the way that we need a new Star Fox, because we've been blessed with a lot of Zelda in recent years. We have Breath of Wild, we have Tears the Kingdom, we have echoes of wisdom, we have whatever's coming next, and we even have Link's Awakening and other remakes that have really reimagined games

that did need that treatment. And so we have been eating well with Zelda. And so it's okay if at the same time you just want to give us a spruced up version of a classic. I'm not upset about that. It's just I'm a little less excited about that than I would be for something new, as was the market, which, you know, I'm not a Nintendo shareholder. This doesn't affect me either way. But after the direct, the share price plummeted again, because everyone's saying, okay, can you at least confirm that you're making a 3D Mario? I mean, we know you are. It's not like you decided we're never making a Mario again, but you could just tell us, just throw us a bone here, but they won't do it. And people are hungering for that. So if this is the headliner and it's just more. remakes and warmed over versions of great games, but not cheap, then that's just not going to satisfy people. Matt? Yeah, no, I agree with you. I just, I really don't know to expect out of this. I would like to believe that they're weaving a lot of modern, modernity into a

ocarina of time to kind of update it in some of the ways that it might be stale. But I'm just kind of terrified because, I mean, just looking at, remember watching that Star Fox trailer and they just cut to Fox and you're like, oh, yeah, yikes. Like, that's StarFox, if they do that with like Link and Zelda and stuff, like, yeah, people are going to be bad. Yeah, there was a reaction just based on what little we saw a lot of people were dunking on. And, you know, gamers are always going to criticize everything, no matter how great it is. But people were, you know, copping this to some sort of fan, Unreal Engine,

There was a long in the making fan remake of this in progress, and the maker was just like, well, I guess that's that then. But, you know, if you've devoted a decade to remaking a Nintendo game, you know that the cease and desist was coming at some points. I'm sorry. Can I interject real quick? To all the people that are remaking, like, modern day games like this for, like, all the Okina remakers out there, don't announce that you're doing it.

Just release it. Yes. You're going to beat the DMCA every time. If you just drop it. Like, you're already doing something that the company doesn't like. So stop talking about it. Just do it. But they need that wind in their sales.

You know, they need the support through the hard-coating nights. You're going to give it away for free anyway. Like, you just love the crowd early. You need that wind in your sales, much like Wind Waker, which you can play, at least. Now on Switch 2, finally. I think a big part of the appeal of Star Fox 64 originally, it was so cool at the time because, whoa, 3D graphics. And all range mode felt.

groundbreaking at the time. And, you know, if you just wanted the best shooter or shoot-em-up or bullet-hell game, there might be better out there even on N64, but Star Fox 64 was kind of mind-blowing in what it allowed you to do at the time. And now it's not as mind-blowing because we're accustomed to that kind of thing. And so you can kind of feel the constraints, whereas back then it felt freeing. Now, Ocarina holds up. So I don't think it's going to feel dated as long as it doesn't look dated, but it's still a game that we have all played many times before. And that will probably be mentioned at least one more time on this episode, just going out on a limb there. We will see whether it's drafted by someone who says Ocarina or, in Steve's

case, Okarina, we will find out. All right, let us transition to our draft. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wideleg, A new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature... Wait, for this price?

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You're among fans. Happy birthday, N64. At least the Japanese release of N64, June 23rd, 1996. Not sure anyone noticed, because, and 64 kind of bombed in Japan, but nonetheless, that is the official 30th anniversary, didn't come out until September 29th here in North America and even later elsewhere in the world. What a wild time that was where we had console envy for months or years at a time, depending on where we were and what region we were in. But I acquired my Nintendo 64 for Christmas

of 1998, my 12th birthday, and it's all been downhill from there. I mean, it really has never gotten as good for me as that moment was. And I've had a good life. I've been blessed in many respects. I'm not complaining. It's just that everyone has a high point. And that was it for me when I got Ocureen of Time and Rogue Squadron for my 12th birthday. And in many respects, it was a cutting edge system. In others, namely its use of cartridges over discs, it was exactly the opposite. But it is extremely fondly remembered. And granted, that is because of the age group. that we're in, and everyone remembers the games they got when they were 12 and thinks they were the greatest ever. And also because we're in North America, where the N64 was disproportionately

popular, it did kind of flop in Japan and elsewhere. The lack of RPGs may have played a part in that. Nonetheless, even though you can't argue that it was the most successful system of Nintendo's or even of its console generation, for those who were there, I don't know that any system is more warmly remembered than Nintendo 64. So feel free to millennial all over me and share your versions of how happy you were when you got an N64 and how fondly you remember. I'll be the dinner first before I'm millennial. Rob, tell us about this system and what its legacy is to you and to the wider gaming

landscape. I think part of the reason it is so warmly remembered is the N64 is to me, like, the first truly community building video game console or video game apparatus of any kind, other than maybe like an arcade itself. You know, a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, all the way back to Atari, yeah, you go over to the person's house who has it

and you take your turns. But the idea of like four-person cooperative play, four-person versus play, four-person party modes, I think just exploded a lot of people's minds as far as like what a video game could even be. And certainly revolutionized the slumber party market as I understood it at the time. changed my life overnight.

And I think that's why it's so easy to map on, oh, I love playing Golden Eye onto, oh, I loved hanging out with my friends. And the fact that that's so much of what video games have become in terms of the online functionality, in terms of, you know, the clan you've been playing Wow with for 20 years now, like, I think a lot of it is indebted to like this particular moment in time. Yeah, and I do think a lot this was the era when every new console release was absolutely,

mind-blowing because the graphical leaps were just incredible, which I think about a lot with GTA, because, you know, people are scrutinizing the little bit of footage we just got, and why doesn't that Ferris wheel have a reflection in the water? And, you know, people are expecting this evolutionary leap, really, technologically, visually, graphically, which we've always gotten from previous GTAs, but that's a tall order in this era. Can even Rockstar satisfy us by pushing the medium forward in terms of interactivity or just aesthetically speaking. When the N64 came out, there was no question about that because it was completely new and different.

And I know it was not the first 3D system. And you had your Sega Saturn's and you had PlayStation and you had your Jaguar. You know, don't want to leave out the old Atari Jaguar. But just, you know, the N64, 64 bits was meaningfully different from 32, even if that is partly marketing and techno babble. It just, it looked different. And it was not just the visuals, but also the gameplay possibilities

that it really opened up. I mean, you know, talk about a few of the games that are about to be drafted very early in this draft, I imagine. They just reinvented genres. They reinvented the medium. They defined how you would go from 2D to 3D.

They set the template. And they wouldn't have worked on any other system at that time. It's also the beginning of the era where Nintendo's like, no, we're going to make this controller and you're going to like it. Because every time that they've made something since the N64, we're like, what the hell is that? And all right, we're going to play it on that thing now. But I think that my relationship with the N64, again, like Rob's was, when I got mine and when I subsequently had played it with the rest of my friends around the neighborhood, this was very much the, oh, we're going to play. this together or we're going to like share

our experiences in gaming together with one-on-one. Because I had originally gotten a PlayStation and I thought that that was like an adult thing. It felt so much more sophisticated and a lot more like an acquired taste, the very art PC type of thing that you have in your home that

looks very sleek and elegant. This was made for kids and this was made for play. And every time that I would interact with the things that Nintendo in particular was coming out with it had that philosophy in mind. And I couldn't have argued with how pivotal it was to introduce kids to a communal sense of gaming

at that early age, because it carries on through generations. Can I ask a quick question about the controller since you brought it up, Steve? A quick poll of how do you hold an N64 controller? I feel like there are a lot of varying schools of thought on this. Where do you guys come down? It depends on my hands.

Oh, well, Ben, please illustrate for the people at home, because of course you have one on your person. No one else can see, but I've got my left hand holding the central prong with the thumb of my left hand over the thumbstick just below the start button. And then I'm grasping the right prong. Not sure if this is the perfect official terminology. I've got my right hands with my thumbs up by the C buttons. What I'm hearing is you're on the right side of history as far as I'm concerned. are there people who are grasping, like, the side problems?

Well, yeah, it depends on the game. It depends on the game. That's why the design was such. They were like, it was basically Nintendo. In my interpretation of it is, you know, the N64 was Nintendo kind of guiding us all into the 3D games era. And that controller to me was them saying, like, we think we know what this is going to be like. but like, and then maybe not. And so he does the dual shock and we're like, oh, no, we did this wrong.

So it was just kind of, it was just kind of like, you can hold it like with the control stick like you would in Mario 64. Or you could, you know, you could still play your, your 2D fighting games with the D pad if you hold it the other way. And I think there might have even been a couple games that were crazy enough to do the middle and left prong grip. truly crazy absolutely insane stuff for sure it prepared us all for the JoyCon era yeah it's making me think

that even in like the Switch era that we have now I feel like they just reluctantly made the Switch pro controller like if they really had their way they would make us like pop that little tiny thing out and then flip it over and then play with those little tiny it's funny I'm jelly bean sized buttons

all the time and yet I feel like I'm disappointing Nintendo every time I pick up my pro controller because it's just like you're just a pro pro This is not, yeah, I am a pro, but it's, oh, you're a pro gamer now? I guess you need to buy like an $80 controller now. It's like, damn.

Sarcastically labeled pro controller. But no, it's, you know, it feels unimaginative. It's not wacky enough for me to be interacting with the system in such a standard way. But it's funny, if you go back and play N64, which I still often do to this day, it feels like, wait, where's my second thumbstick, though? And yet it was this crucial link in the chain from. zero thumbsticks to two. And I do think two is better, but one may be better than none.

And it definitely opened up some possibilities there. And so it was the first system or popular system to go in that direction, to give us the thumbstick. As you guys were alluding to, it's the first, you know, popular widespread mainstream system to ship with four controller ports. You know, no offense to the multi-tap adapter for the PlayStation. But it just, it hit different to have a, out of the box. It was also the Rumble Pack was technically a first, at least in the West.

You know, there are some innovations here that really did kind of reshape the default for gaming going forward. And even, you know, some tentative steps toward online connectivity with the 64D, you know, Japan-only hardware. But it was very much this kind of bridge between eras, which is something I also say about my beloved Dreamcast all the time. But N64 was earlier and also felt that way. And yeah, I mean, you know, it's partly that it's a product of the period in which we were exposed to gaming and the N64 was there. I want to acknowledge that.

Of course. Myopic perspective, nonetheless, it was a landmark system for one that, in terms of just units moved and lifespan and everything, not among the most successful, but among the most impactful. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely one of the most influential. And a lot of things that they tried didn't work. And I think that's why, you know,

if you weren't alive around this moment and part of it as it was happening and you try to revisit the N64 catalog, I think a lot of people have trouble with a lot of it because it was a time of wild experimentation. Like, how do we make these games in 3D? What are best practices for moving a character around in three dimensions?

And control schemes are sometimes crazy. And the graphics were not that great for 3D. They look like crap today compared to almost anything. But, you know, I still remember walking into a Toyser Us in September of 1996 and walking up to the little Nintendo 64 station they had playing Mario 64 and just being absolutely blown away by what was in front of it. Before I even hit like start to get into the game, just pinching Mario's face on the screen.

That's all you needed. They could have just sold that. You did like Cohn-O-Bryon Hips thing with his face. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And you better have liked that because there were only two games at launch in North America, which was part of the problem.

That was sort of a sign of things to come. You know, both the expense and the options, you think games are pricey now. Inflation adjusts those 1990s cartridge costs. And also, I think there are about 10 times more officially released games. for the original PlayStation than for N64. Yeah, it's not as deep libraries you might think of this. No, more than three times more just in North America.

So the options were more limited, but although the bench may not be as deep, the starting roster can compete with any consoles. And that is what we are here to draft today. We are drafting the best-slashed our favorite Nintendo 64 games in honor of the Systems 30th anniversary. The four of us convened about a year and a half ago to do the same for PlayStation 1.

And so we're sort of pursuing the same idea here, but we have mixed up the format a bit. We're going to be breaking this down by genre. However, we have had to change the genres a bit. And this is interesting. You know, nowadays, we think of certain consoles in terms of, okay, Nintendo systems have Nintendo games and there are certain other exclusives and everything.

But I don't tend to think of systems because there's so much more multi-platform now and less exclusivity, you can kind of get anything on any system. And back then, that was not the case. You know, if you wanted certain kinds of games, you had to get a certain system or you were kind of out of luck. So when we did our PlayStation draft, our categories were shooter, RPG, platformer, fighting game, vehicle game, stealth slash survival horror and wild card. we had to throw out three of those categories for this draft because slim pickings when it comes to RPGs, to fighting games, and to stealth slash survival horror on 64. Yeah.

Our draft boards were not deep. The race to the Resident Evil 2 port would have been fierce. Yes. So, you know, Nintendo was obviously more kiddie-coded then, even now than it is today. and between that and the lack of third party support, there were some shortages in certain genres, but also some incredible riches to be had in others. We have some stacked categories here.

So we once again have seven categories, and they are shooter. And we can take a broad definition of that. It could be first-person shooters. It could be other kinds of shooters. Platformers, which we could do an entire draft of N64 platformers, probably, and go several rounds.

Action adventure, and that's more action slash adventure than action hyphen adventure will be pretty liberal when it comes to what qualifies as action, what qualifies as adventure. Racing, another incredibly deep category for this console.

Sports, no shortage of options there. Then we also have one, just to recognize the multiplayer focus of this console, we have a multiplayer slash party game category. And obviously, as is always the case with ringer drafts, there are entries, their selections that can fit in more than one category, so we will have to specify. Obviously, there are racing and sports games that also could qualify as multiplayer party, so we will have to consider the positional scarcity and announce not only what we're picking,

but where we're picking it. And then, of course, wild card where anything goes. And our only limitation here, we considered going console exclusive N64, We're not going to be quite that restrictive. What we settled on is we are only able to draft games that made their console debut on N64. So if they were ports from PC, let's say, that's okay. If they're multi-platform releases that came to other consoles later, that's kosher 2. But it can't be a port from a previous console to N64.

In other words, no Resident Evil 2. as great an accomplishment as it was to cram that thing onto a cartridge somehow. We drafted that in our PlayStation draft. We also drafted the first two Tony Hawk games in our PlayStation draft. We didn't want to rehash that here. Those are PlayStation games

that are also available on N64. So we do kind of want to put the platform forward here. So I'm probably going to be going mostly exclusives here and I will judge anyone who doesn't, but you are able to select some games that are available on other systems. Just no PlayStation prior to N64. And we have a draft order to determine and to be announced by producer Devin Rilado, who is going to hop on the mic now to tell us the order we will be snaking in. All right. So number one goes to Steve. Number two goes to Matt. Three is Ben and I'm really sorry, Rob, but you are number four.

Dev, that's just colossally fucked. I hate this for me. I hate this. I can't. me. I don't know what to tell you. It wasn't personal. It's tough, Rob, because much like in the NBA draft this year, there's kind of a big three. And even if there's a dip, there's a pretty hard dip. Yeah. Look, there's a lot of good games. Y'all, that's the, that's where we really got cook. We'll find out. You know, I brought some props, even though we're not on video. I got my four controllers here, and some of them are better preserved than others.

So my red and green here, I'm going to give those to Steve. even Matt, because those are the most limber. They feel like they were just broken out of the box. And then we've got the grays. And these thumbsticks, a little stickier, a little stiffer than they were back in the day. And Rob, I'm going to have to symbolically hand you the one here that feels like, you know, it's just, I mean, who among us is as flexible as we were in 1996. So, you know, but I have set these aside for us, and we will do our drafting. And we will have one entry apiece in each category.

And Devin hopefully can record and recap the picks at the end of this exercise. As usual, we will pass these along to Jomi at Deneron. He will get a graphic going or Matt will maybe as the graphic expert. Yeah. Jomey will publish Matt's work. And then perhaps people will be able to vote or at least comment and criticize when they are collected. So let's get to it. this has been a long enough prelude. Steve, the best, the number one on the board,

Nintendo 64 game, you are on the clock. Right. Well, as much as it pains me to say, I'm going to make this quick and simple. As much as it pains me to say that I can't personally call this one of the greatest games of all time, I certainly have to acknowledge that it is probably one of the most important video games of all time. And that's going to be an action adventure. I'm picking Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. It's literally unignorable that legend of Zelda O'Cherine of Time is probably the thing that gets

people of our generation into video games itself and there are storied and like legends that people made that me as kids made with both ourselves and other people

of the things that we could do and discover in that game. The differences in where we found ourselves because we chose to not look at guides or tips and tricks or other things to like enable that level of self-discovery was beautiful. And the amount of times that I literally wanted to see the spectacle of picking up the master's sword and link aging into a grown man from a child was actually thrilling.

And I wanted to just see how the world changes. And seeing the things and storytelling that video games could do, nobody can deny that it was a masterful leap forward in the world and what video games can do. And I have to pick. I absolutely have to pick it. I've got good news for you, Steve. They were making this thing. Oh, great. Yeah. How topical. What a timely pick from you. No, it's, it's, I don't know, there are a few games here that could go number one without making anyone bad an eye, but can't criticize this pick at all. It is an incredible classic. Matt? Well, there's only two games that I think would go on this slot.

And it's not going to be a surprise based on the story. I told you that I'm going to choose Super Mario 64, the game that dragged the entire industry. Tiosk player into 3D. And a game that still holds up today. It does. It's insane that that was a launch title, by the way. Like, that's the first game that came out.

Yeah. Well, I mean, both of these, honestly, the idea of following up link to the past and making O'Rean of time and the idea of following up, I guess technically maybe there were like Super Mario All-Stars, or yeah, if you want to include that, but Super Mario World with 64, there was a time where it was kind of a can't-miss generation of games.

And you're just going from one of the best in the world to another of the best in the world, simply in the same franchise, we salute it. Yeah. Well, you know what I have to do here, I think, a game that was groundbreaking in its own right. In what category, though? That's a good question.

But I can't go wrong with any of the categories that this game would be eligible. And I got to go Golden I, 007, obviously. It's, you know, the standard expected pick. It's kind of the cliched pick. But cliches become cliches for a reason. We all spent many happy and sometimes frustrated hours glued to Golden Eye. And, you know, in a sense, it's a pick that's truer to the ethos of this system that we were just singing the praises of the multi-price.

player component of N64. No better expression of that than GoldenEye and the extended GoldenEye sessions that we all had. Obviously, aside from Nintendo proper rare's contributions to Nintendo 64, second to none other, at least, and had to have some rare representation early on here. And I know a lot of people will give Halo credit for helping popularize the first-person shooter on consoles, and it certainly deserves some. But GoldenEye came first. And Gold and I, you know, it's hard to flash back to the first time you played it, but we've all just memorized the layout of every single level. You know exactly where that.

I know those levels better than like my high school. Oh, yeah. Yeah. On a dark day, you can still find me in the air vents on facility. Yeah. Like, and you know the directions too. Absolutely. It's right down that hallway and then left and then you can install.

We'll get right there. Yeah. Goldnye is not a rogue like. It is not procedurally. generated. Once you have played a golden eye level, you can anticipate where that NPC will be standing and when they will be doing a very awkward somersault in order to then spring to their feet and immediately collapse because you have shot them mid-sumersault. We've all been there countless times, and the memories are great. This is another game that keeps coming out and being available in all

platforms. And you know, you go back and play it now, and it doesn't hit the same way. And if you play it right. It's absolutely brutal. It's actually like so bad. It's probably one of the worst things that you probably can remember. It is not the worst frame rate for a rare first person shooter on Nintendo 64. I will say that much. But yeah, it's not great. And when you go back and play it with one thumbstick, you are constantly feeling like a phantom limb. Where is my other thumbstick? But nonetheless, incredible game. Gotta go golden eye here. And Rob, wait, what category? Oh, yeah, good question. All right. I guess I will. go, man, I guess I'll take it in Shooter. It just, it feels, you know, it's a really deep category, but it feels like that's where

it should be. All right. Well, Rob, you can get strategic now. Yeah, y'all have really screwed me over here. I mean, there is a quite a significant dip, at least in terms of category value. I think there's still a lot of great games on board. I'm going to start, this is a pretty deep category, but I just want

to have this game on my roster. In party game, I'm going to take Super Smash Brothers. Okay, easy. A good one. I'm upset. No, that's a first rounder for sure. Definitely first round value, unimpeachable. Again, the only argument against is there's a lot of good party games still on the board.

But none of them did I invest so much time and so much anguish. And have I developed lifelong rivalries and enmity than Super Smash Brothers? Yeah. Yeah. It really would have been my first pick, but I know that I would not have been respected if I got the very first pick of this draft and didn't pick Okerina of time. I would have been yourself. I would not. It's so not the first round.

It's so not the first pick. As much time as I sank into Golden Eye, I'm pretty sure if you had my play count combined on every console, every game, no game would surpass Super Smash Bros. Did you imagine if the hours counted when we were kids and like we could just see that those like tickers? It had to have been Super Smash. I mean, the cartridge does track the number of matches you played, which I'm holding the cartridge in my hand.

And this possession. You have like a whole box of, like, what is with you? Because this is the thing about N64. It's a scrapbook pot. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, I mean, N64 has never not been with me. Anywhere I have moved, anywhere I have lived, the N64 comes with me and will continue to come with me as long as it lasts and I do. And if there were a fire in my apartment, you know, I'd check, okay, wife, daughter, dog, all present accounted for.

Steam machine. and wear smash. I have to save smash. And it's not just the original cartridge. I also, I have this fancy black cartridge, which is an Everdrive, 64, which I purchased at some expense solely for the purpose of being able to play the fan-made mods for the original smash,

which have now expanded it to the point where you got every character, you got every stage. It combines the original smash gameplay with what we have become accustomed to and spoiled by in most recent smash releases. Holy shit. Sacrilege. Match has smash mogged us right now.

And the thing is, people will say, okay, it gets points for being the first, and it blazed the trail, and we wouldn't have all the other, and brawl, and ultimate and melee, and all the rest. This is still my favorite Super Smash brothers. Amen. As great as all the others are, and they look better, and they are so much more expensive in terms of the options. And they're better. Yeah, sure. Well, no, okay.

Lay Purists, don't give me that. I mean, look, in terms of pure competitive tournament play, okay, but just the feel of Original Smash for me, the kind of floatiness of it just can't be beaten. And maybe that is just because we're all products of our times, but something about the way that game played and plays has just never been equaled for me. Another tenement to my childhood is this was the game

when I was just outright lied to about the things that I could do, where it's like, oh my God, if you could, if you like beat this certain level at a certain time with a certain character, you can play as the master hand. Yeah. And I was like doing that for like weeks and weeks and trying to figure out.

And I was like, no, you never could. Never. No. You could play as Glover in Glover, the N64 platformer who kind of looked like MasterHands. Don't spoil draft picks, Ben. Sorry, that's Rob's next pick, I know. But no, and it was also incredible at the time

to have this mashup of N64 characters, Absolutely. An extremely non-Nintendo thing to do and obviously ruffled some feathers at Nintendo HQ because it was like, this is not our brand. We can't have our mascot characters beating up on each other. You know, there's no blood or anything. But nonetheless, to have all these characters from different franchises coming together in one game. Wow.

So look, I think we took the obligatory top three and yet the amount of time we've spent talking about Super Smash Brothers, you've done well with this picture. I appreciate it. And I have to say, for that reason, the surprise factor of this game even existing in the first place, I mean, just hit me like a fucking meteor. And I first encountered it, hadn't read about it in, I guess like a Nintendo Power would be still going at that point in time. I won't do a blockbuster video. And for some reason, my local Blockbuster had a Japanese copy of Super Smash Brothers on the shelf for a U.S. release.

And I was like, what on earth is this? That's the coolest thing ever. The simpler times before we knew release dates and we knew delays, like there was something. I mean, it was sweet and pure for sure. But I'm happy to have Super Smash Brothers. Now I'm faced with sort of a philosophical dilemma. I would say there are two other great games on the board that are suspiciously close to two games that have already been selected. Are those worthy selections for the second round?

I would say in one category maybe so. And so I will be selecting the Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask. Good for you, buddy. I don't have as profound a relationship to as Ocarina of Time, but I'm simply going to do it because it's basically Ocourna of Time. Listen, buddy, I'm playing to win, and I literally think that Majora's Mask is better than O'Crina of Time. Why didn't you take Maduras Mask?

Because you can't win this path to the popular vote. Well, thank you for the praise of my pick. It sounds like I made two great picks this team, which he should have made. Is that action adventure for you? I will take it an action adventure. Yeah. Look, I mean, sometimes being blocked,

with those first picks, it forces you to get clever, to get creative, to dig deep, and come up with well-remembered picks. Now, you've put me in a difficult position here, because as you alluded to, there's another game on the board. If you had not taken Majora, I would have taken Majora. But now I can't. And so I faced the dilemma of, do I want to double up on rare first-person shooters? Can I corner the market? That would be vicious, I got to say. I mean, yeah, it would just to block you guys because there are a lot of great shooters on Nintendo 64, but I do feel like there's a top two. And if I collect both of those top two, I have sort of sealed that category for myself. I mean, and I have plenty of other categories where this can go.

So you know what? At the risk of handicapping myself in other categories, I'm just, I'm going to double up. I'm taking perfect arc. Wow, you're incredible. I'm taking Perfect Dark, and I'm going to put it in multiplayer party game. And Perfect Dark was so ahead of its time that it was almost unplayable on Nintendo 64, which is not a great argument in its favor, I will admit. But this game was so demanding that you could play like maybe a third of it without the expansion pack.

And obviously, there were some games that required the expansion pack. But this one, in order to be able to access all of it and to have anything like a playable frame rate that was not just sort of, you know, strobe-light kind of gameplay. You had to have it. But this game, you know, obviously there are a lot of games that are compared to these two and there are other shooters and you guys may have to draft some. But this felt so futuristic, both in its setting. in the fact that it was an original. It was not some license game, you know, and we had aliens and we had so many multiplayer options, just like, you know, you want a sneak preview of the online era of multiplayer shooters

and just the way that you can customize the matches and everything. Perfect Arc was that. And unlike some of these other grates, it has not really been remade and followed up on that much. I mean, a little bit, obviously. They tried, yeah. They tried, and there was a perfect dark effort that was scuttled in recent years. And maybe you just can't recapture the greatness that was that game. And look, there will probably be some haters here who say that I've cornered this category

and I've cost myself in other areas. And I'm here to say that I have options in those categories too. And so I'm ruthlessly selecting what I would believe to be the consensus top two. And also, you know, the top two shooters of my heart as well. this system. I got to do it. I felt like we neglected a very important question when Gold Knight came up in the first place, which was, and we can kind of broaden it out here,

do you have a weapon of choice in either of these games, band? I mean, you strike me as kind of a clob guy. I'm not going to lie. Don't say that. How could you? How dare you say that I'm kind of a club guy? Can't think of any worse than that. That is that is true. Yeah, I mean,

presumptuous. I'm trying, you know, RCP 90. 90 rips. Yeah, tough to top. Just the pure... Proximity mine. Yeah, throw those things all this. Like, gotta get my laptop gun from Perfect Dark.

Oh, sure. In the action here. Yeah, I don't know. Anyone else want to shout out our favorite weapons? No, RCB90 is the cool. RCB90 is great. Slappers. Sloppers only.

I mean, this really is a slapers only podcast in ethos, I would think. I think so. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, back to Matt. Speaking of Slappers. I got a game that's,

Slaps. I'm going to take Mario Kart 64. It really does slap. Yeah, it does. What can I say? This was really the moment where Mario Kart arrived. Sure, it was on SNES. But Mario Kart with the four players and the 3D and, man, this was a genre-defining game.

And, you know, Mario Card 8 Deluxe is one of the best-selling games of all times now. And that all traces back to right here with Mario 64. Yeah, I mean, there are some who will say that this is not among the best Mario Carts if we look at it kind of dispassionately, objectively, without the halo effect, the golden hue of youth, just in terms of, you know, I guess the single player experience or the level design. But it was more about the multiplayer experience. Oh, yeah. Are you taking this in racing or multiplayer?

I'm taking this in racing. Okay, which is an incredibly deep category. And yet, yeah, in terms of the funness, folks feel for Mario Card 64, just the number of multiplayer modes. I think the battle mode. Battle mode is so good. So great. Yeah, I enjoy that more than the racing itself, I think, which maybe that's just speaks to my not being a big racing guy. But yeah, I want to hit those balloons.

Knock those balloons off people. That's what I'm here for. All right, well, back to you, Steve. All right, it's back to me. Two picks. Okay. Mario Car getting off the board is a bit freeing for me because now I have a racing category that I'm more or less going to just play jazz in.

This is going to be a bit contentious for a shooter. But I would probably call this. Trying to get around. 64. That's a shooter. Yeah. No, that's okay. Yeah.

All right, cool. Yeah. Sorry. You know, the game's so nice, they made it five times. Yeah. It's a classic for a reason. It was absolutely incredible to, again, to play this with two-player was kind of insane to get to like play this with my buddy and then like explore different secrets and like do different runs as a team was kind of insane.

And it's a thrilling experience to have gotten to do this when I was a kid. I don't think that I'll ever get past being the selfish person to always insist on getting Fox instead of like the Toad, but it's not, it's not my preference. Like I got to say it. But no, this is a, again, one of the more important games of my childhood because everybody loved it. And I can't possibly imagine a like intimate time with like my best friend in the world, JT, and not play this game. It's like I'd be doing a disservice if I'd.

didn't draft this and had the time to it. It's like, it's that important to me. I love it. Yeah. You can barrel roll right into your next pick. I shall barrel roll right into my next pick. I mean, or you can be like a stupid little human running around using a rocket launcher for some reason. I never could. Why was that in this game?

I don't get it. No one wants to be on land. Star Fox. Come on. Land, Fox. Star Fox Adventures. That's another case. Exactly.

All right. Um, hmm. I'm going to zag a little bit. And I'm going to hit you with with sports. because this is this is a, it's a deeper bench, but I think I got to like, I got to claim something that's,

that's still big for me as well. And I'm going to take Mario Tennis. Okay. Elite game. Actually, like, I think this might have been one of the games that I played the most when I owned a Nintendo 64.

I, like, I cannot tell you enough how much I fell in love with the idea of tennis. I sucked at playing. tennis. But playing Mario tennis was like ecstasy for that level of gameplay. And it's still probably one of the best Mario tennis games ever made. The game that gave us Walloichi. Exactly.

Origin story of Wal Luigi. Still has yet to get his own game and we should campaign for that hard. Yeah, Mario Tennis is like an absolute arrow to my heart for great gameplay. Yes. And you could pair it with the, in my mind, superior Gameboy version of Mario Tennis. Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, there's another Mario sports game on this list that does have a superior Game Boy version.

That is true. Yes. Well, Game Boy games not eligible for this draft. We missed that anniversary, I suppose. But yeah, this was great. And it just sort of set the template for innumerable Mario tennis games to come. That franchise has perhaps become a bit stagnant. But, you know, maybe it was perfected the first time out.

It might have been. I mean, truly, I've become a real-life tennis player. And when I play, I just am trying to channel. on my inner burdo out there. So there is a truth to this game that I think transcends the genre, transcends the N64 that just has become a philosophy of life, to be honest with you. Okay.

All right. Matt, back to you. Ben, I'm sorry. Oh, oh. I'm sorry, Ben. Clutch your expansion pack. It's happening. In Shooter, I am selecting Star Wars Rogue Squadron.

I hear you. That's tough. I'm upset. Rogue Squad. Frucdren felt like a dream come true at the time. If you were a Star Wars fan, you had suffered through so many bad PC games that you tried to tell yourself we're good

to emulate what Roak Squadron actually accomplished. Rebel assault, get out of here. Tie fighter. Tyfighter is, yeah, I'm not going to. Five fighter's insane. No, it can get out too. What Rogue Squadron is here, we can put away childish things.

Right. Matt, you're going to make me, draft episode one battle for Naboo just to get some proximity. You're making my inner 12 year old on the best day of his life cry on the inside. I hope that you're satisfied.

Isn't there another bond game on N64 you can draft? I'm pretty sure there is. Isn't there another episode one game you could draft? I just named checked it. But yeah. No, I mean, even though Rogue Squadron was surpassed on the GameCube, of course, it was at the time, yeah. I mean,

as a Star Wars fan, and even just for the flying, for the actual action and the story-based, incredible game. Just, yeah, and anything that uses the expansion pack is gold in my book. Which means that I have to draft, and I can't draft Rogue Squadron. This is very upsetting. All right. I think I'm going to go sports now, and I'm going to draft 1080. Yeah, no.

Nice. Which, you know, there are. a lot of good options out there in this category, but I don't know that I have fonder memories of any sports game on this system than 1080. It just felt so good. I've kind of been searching for the feeling that 1080 gave me ever since. And, you know, there are good snowboarding games out there. You know, I'm not downplaying SSX or any of the other sort of spiritual successors to 1080. But, man, 1080 just felt so good. good. I mean, it's the Tony Hawk of skateboarding, right? So that says it right there.

So just to be clear, you trapped that in sports, right? I did. Yes. Yeah, I mean, those other like the SSXs don't exist without this, without this particular moment, 1080, you know, walked so they could Ollie or whatever. That was the, that's where I would have had to diverge and say that I was a cool boarders guy because this is where I had to say that I was in X64 Allegiance because I'm like, yeah, they don't have the snowboard. Wallum tech that they have. Yeah. Yeah.

But this was about the tricks. And, you know, I'm not such a racing guy in general, though I have many excellent racing options available to me here. And yeah, just the piece of being on that mountain. I want to go back every day in my life. Rob. In platformer, I'm going to take Banjo Cazui. Solid.

Strong. You love it. Also, I think in part because of the scarcity, I know there's a lot of beloved platformers on N64. I sunk all of my time into either Super Mario or Banjo Cazui. Like, I just need every little golden music note I can get. Oh, yeah. Banjo Cazui, a truly strange game.

And I feel like one of the appeals of the N64 for me is like, I want it to be a little weird. I want the controls to be a little bit janky sometimes. And Banjo Cazooie is just the right amount of like platforming magic that feels right. And also you might just like glitch out into a corner for a little bit. So thank you, N64. Thank you, Banjo and Kazui. This might be one of the most beloved games that has carried on through generations that they could never get right again.

Even with its sequel, I don't think that they did. It's close. It's close enough, but again, it's reaching for the same thing you already had. Yeah. Yeah. There's a big bring-back banjo contingent out there. One of these years, one of these decades, maybe. But it's a great pick.

Yeah. I mean, if you're not going to get Super Mario 64, it's the next best thing. And so I think now I have a choice of also reaching for something close to one of these other alternatives. And I'm going to say are third person shooters considered shooters? Oh, sure. I would say so. Yeah, shooters in it. I'm going to take shadows of the empire in shooter.

Wow. A game that means a lot to me. And speaking of jankiness. Yeah. Also a relic of an era gone by. And, you know, we live in a scourge of yellow paint in our games and of like comms people chiming and being like, no, you can't go in that door, go back to the start. I miss a time where I just had no idea what the fuck I was supposed to do. And I would describe a lot of Shadows

of the Empire as part of that experience. But you know what? I get a little bit of pre-rogue squadron flying of, you know, like a snow speeder, for example. Like, I get a taste of what's to come, but also I'm with my guy dash rendar. You know, like I'm really living it in the now non-canonized Star Wars universe. Yeah, we love our off-brand Han here. And, you know, the asteroid field level. That's cool, all right? He's more than off-brand Han Solo, even if he is off-brand Han Solo, all right?

He's like one of the better decanoninanized characters that we've got. I just need him back so bad. This is the game that needs to be remade. Can you imagine like the Jedi Fallen Order treatment, but for Shadows of the Empire? Some people legitimately freak out it to know if Dash Rendar was back. I mean, he is, Dash is canon, I believe, now. Oh, is he's not a Glob Shido?

No, he is canon because, you know, I mean, not the full legends experience, but yeah, Dash has at least been mentioned in various places in the current canon. So he counts. We don't have to rescue Rendar. He is back. Okay. The beloved outrider. Not enough, Rand, Lerian Falcon at all. Yeah.

Love, love Dash. Love that game. Yeah, it's, you know, like, it's remembered fondly by people who were there. And you had to be there, I think, probably. You had to. Yeah. And, you know, this is mostly a draft for people who were, I guess, we were lucky. And the reviews were not glowing or, you know, maybe it doesn't hold up that well.

But the whole Shadows of the Empire Initiative was super exciting at the time. Just, you know, that was the closest thing. We had had to a Star Wars movie while we were sentient beings and alive. And once Thrawn brought everything back and then suddenly we have this whole multimedia, media push and the centerpiece for me was that game. So good pick. Didn't see it coming, but good pick. Okay.

I know there's Star Wars off the board, man. I know. I know. A run on Star Wars, I really better pick up Battle for Naboo if I'm going to, but I don't think I am, at least not at this stage. All right. So it's back to me.

Gosh, this is tough. I guess I'm going to go with a racing game, even though there are a lot of options available. None of them makes my heart sing quite like Wave Race 64. Wow, I genuinely didn't think you were going to go with that. Really? That's incredible.

Yeah. Why would anyone pass up the chance to ride a dolphin over a wave? That's true. What are we talking about? It's true. Wave Race 64, even though this is a deep category, that was one of those games that just, It was graphically mind-blowing at the time.

I mean, when that came out, it was almost a launch title, close to a launch title. And wave water graphics slash physics era adjusted. I've never looked better than that. The music and the sound is so good. It's so great. Yeah. And this is like a Nintendo developed and published game. This was, you know, Miyamoto was all over this thing.

And so it has that Nintendo charm. I have not gone back to see how the graphics hold up, but I think in my mind's eye, it's the best-looking water that has ever happened in a video game, certainly for its era. Also, legendary arcade cabinet. Yeah. Like it's the full-blown jet ski and the like cinema right there.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the music, just the island vibes, just everything about this game just pulled you into its world. And it was just, it was really about the experience. You know, it was about the journey, not whether you won the race. We all won the wave race. I came home when I bought my N-64 with Super Mario 64 and Wave Race. And this was no question the first cartridge I reached for.

I was like, you know, a Mario can wait. Like, I need to ride these waves immediately. This is a gaming experience I've never had before. And I don't regret a thing. Another thing that sets the system apart, which became very apparent as I was prepping for this draft. I don't think any console ever has had more games that included a reference to the name of the console in the title of the game. It's not just Wave Race. It's Wave Race 64. There are so, like, what percentage of the 300-something and 64 games had 64 in the title? You had to say

64. That's how strong the brand was. And maybe in some cases it was to differentiate it from another version of the same game for another system. But you just added 64 to everything just because it conveyed something, right? Like if you knew it was for 64, you were bit bragging, right? You know, if you had 64 bits, say it with your chest, tell everyone it's 64. It doesn't ring as true as for the 360 era. It doesn't. No.

I mean, this is not 16 bit. This is not Wave Race 8. Yeah. This is not Wave Race 16. This is not Wave Race 32. This is Wave Race 64. I would say the only thing that could give it a run for its money

is all of the super games on Super Nintendo. There were a lot of Super Games. It's true. Even Star Wars was Super Star Wars, you know? That's true. Oh, man. Not eligible in this draft, unfortunately. Okay. All right. Wave Race, it is. Back to Matt.

Good pick. All right, let's stop fucking around. I'm going to pick WrestleMania 2000. Mother fuck! I'm going to pick it in multi-slash party. Oh, I mean, Okay, this is divisive because, like, we could have had a wrestling category. Yeah. You could have picked, you could have picked NWF and WCWO Revenge.

You could have picked no mercy. Still could. Wait, Steve might still take another reason. I'm just going ahead of time explain why this is the best one. Okay. It's debatable, but you can argue that, you know, no mercy has some more game modes than WrestleMania 2000. Right.

The gameplay is better in 2000. It's the speed of it. It's not bogged down like no mercy. And WCW and WRO Revenge. Wow. We are about to have a cage match between NCC4 wrestling games. I can sense it. Someone who hasn't played any of these games,

what are the variety of game modes provided? Go off, Matt. Well, there's like a gauntlet mode that wasn't in WrestleMania 2000. Anyway, if you missed out on this, basically, when I think about N64 multiplayer, for me, obviously Golden Eye comes first. And I think for a lot of people, Smash Brothers comes next.

But for me, it was these THQ wrestling games. Or Mario Kart. These THQ wrestling games that hit the N64, the way they had like a countering system, the way that you could have four people each like design their own characters and flesh out their movesets, And then you can wrestle each other in various game modes,

whether it's tag team or Royal Rumble or the chaos, the absolute sheer chaos of these wrestling games on N64. Like, you couldn't play these games in your friend's house without, like, a parent coming to check to see if everything was okay. Like, it would get loud. Yes, and crazy. Like, if you wanted to make kids all borderline, like, get into Fistakuffs themselves,

it was these WWF games, like especially this one. Like it gets insane and very, very competitive. I've had the exact same experience. It's incredible. So this is the peak. Use the broom handle to tap the ceiling to tell your kids to quiet down up their game.

Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, hard to argue with that. Or tap the floor because we were in the basement probably. Could be. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Well, Steve, are you going to have no mercy on Matt? No, because Matt just sucked up all the vibes for this, and I don't want to do it now. So you're just conceding the entire wrestling category to Matt? I am, actually. Like, because that's fine.

Like, I, no, I genuinely think that there's more room to get some more representation of the things that I would like here. So, I mean, you could take NWO revenge and no mercy if you want. You know, you can be like, man, you just got two picks right now. But no, I think for this is, this is going to go in, I know that this could also go into sports. But wait a minute. Again, my multiplayer party board is very deep. Yeah.

Okay. So for multiplayer party, this could also have gone into sports, but this will be a multiplayer party for me. I'm picking Wayne Gretzky's 3D hockey. What do you bastards know? It took one from me. He finally one friend's three-d hockey. This is like bar for bar, like almost as loud as the, like,

in the basement of my friend's house as this could have gotten. This was when I was absolutely like entrenched in playing hockey for the better part of like 15 years of my life. And this, I got this like the first year I started to play hockey. And picking all of the teams that I loved with all the players that I loved with this incredible three-on-three arcade action. Like this is the precursor for all of the EA big series for NBA streets, NFL Street, etc. Like Wayne Gretzky's 3D hockey is the blueprint for arcade sports titles. and this is an incredible experience.

Watching the gameplay of this today still makes my heart sing. And I cannot deny how amazing this game has been in my life. Such as its power that I do not and have never given a damn about hockey. And I'm just like, this is the greatest game I've ever played in real time when I would pop that cartridge in. And I don't know why, but making the puck like multicolored and highlighted like they did in the 90s in broadcasts, like I don't know why it just actually. like neuron activation to a child and making it all the more thrilling. I don't know what it did.

And you got the fucking NBA jam commentator to still do the, he's heating up like that stuff. Incredible. Yeah. Okay. I absolutely was going to take that. So we basically had the same fix here.

Yeah. We went to both the bar. And you know what? Respect to WWF and respect to Wayne Gretzky. A man who I do not actually respect. It's good to go on the record All right. Is it another Steve now?

Yeah, you can go against you. Oh, yes, yes. I still have Wildcard platformer and wildcard, yes? And racing. Okay, so I guess for racing, from one excellent vibe to another, I've got to go with F0X for racing.

A title that to me started the genre of like racing so fast you actually can't control anything. Yep. But it doesn't care because you don't care because it feels incredible. When I played Super Smash Brothers, I'm like, what's this guy Captain Falcon from? And then I got his game, which is F0X. And I'm like, oh, Captain Falcons awesome. We need to have more games with him.

Nintendo. We need to have more games with him. What the hell are we doing? Yeah. Incredible game. Great racing. This was a thing that I actually didn't play that much multiplayer in, but I loved it so much. Okay.

Matt, you're up. Okay. Well, great, great picks there, Steve. I mean, the racing category is just absurd on N64. It's so deep. It's so, so, so fun. Okay, well, I have a few things left to do, and I think that the best move for me here is to go to the wildcard category

and to take Paper Mario. Good one. Good stuff. Yeah. Fantastic, fantastic game. You just thought that, like, Super Mario RPG couldn't get any better. and then Paper Mario hits on N64. And for me, absolutely, absolutely was.

It's a good thing we didn't have the RPG category because you all would really be hurting right now. Top race. Matt, I would have taken Quest 64, three rounds ago. I've never made it out of the first 20 minutes of that game, but I'm told it is a game. There is another RPG that I also considered here. And it's not a couple contenders.

Yeah, okay. All right. Well, I still need a platformer, and I'm just going to vault right over Banjo-Tui, and I'm going to take Conquers Bad Fur Day. It's just a run-on rare. I'm collecting rare games. That seems to be the theme of my draft here. It's a great game, and it also was transgressive at the time that we would have a hard-drinking, cursing squirrel on a Nintendo platform. from a Nintendo-affiliated developer. And, you know, it kind of originally was more of a Banjo-Kazoo-type game, and then Banjo-Kazoo-e came out. And they figured, well, we sort of got our lunch stolen here. We better pivot. And who would have expected the pivot into an adult-themed, cute, mascot character? And that's what we got with Conquer's Bad for a Day,

which, you know, came out a little later in the life cycle and probably didn't have the same sales figures and everything, but it was really fondly remembered. I think we don't have enough humor in video games in general. And just the whole idea of kind of taking the piss, you know, just a little spoof, a little satire, and poking fun at the conventions of this category that were really sort of cemented, solidified during this generation.

I really appreciate Conquer for that. So bring back Conquer while we're bringing back Banjo and F0 and everything else. Well, let me, I have the next pick, right? Yes. I'm just going to take up the mantle right there, Ben. And I'm going to pick Conquer up, and I'm going to select Diddy Kong Racing in racing.

A game in which Conquer, I would say, is largely unrecognizable from the version you just described. But, you know, why settle for Mario Card gameplay when you could also be in a little hovercraft and you could also be in a little plane? You know, I'm just, I'm diversifying the modes of transport. I'm expanding our cast of characters. I think I've cornered the banjo market as well,

so I'm feeling great about Diddy Kong Racing, aka Diddy Kong Racing. Wow, never do that voice again. But yeah, you got it. This came out like holiday season 97, which was a tough time because a lot of games had gotten delayed, like Akarina and everything was pushed to 98, and they were just like, what do we have on hand,

Didi Kong Racing? And maybe it was miscast as the flagship holiday title, but there are people, out there, Didi con truthers who do prefer it to Mario Kart. So, you know, I'm not defending that point of view, but I'm kind of upset that you, you stole a rare game from me because I was working on a lineup here, but it's a solid pick. I know how you feel about just being faithful to corporations in general. So maybe there'll still be an opportunity for you to do that.

What else you got? I'm feeling okay about sports. And I think my sports pick is still going to be there for me on the turn. So I also am going to jump to wild car. and I will be selecting Pokemon Snap in Wildcard. Hell yeah. Yeah. For one, just for diversity of gameplay.

You know, we got our shooters, we got our racing games, we got all the cute archetypes of what we thought a video game was. What if we just throw apples at a Charmander and just, like, lure it out into a little crater and take pictures of it? And then somehow I go to Blockbuster video and I print out a tiny sticker version of the photos that I have taken on my video game. Changed my life, Pokemon, Snap. Incredible stuff.

I love to print those stickers. Oh, yeah. What a great idea of an application for this game. And I mean, maybe that's another claim to fame for the N64 too. It's just like the idea that you could do something in a game that could transcend into a physical object. Yeah. And again, like, you all don't know about the marketing things that were deployed on us as children in the 90s to get us to go to from one physical location to another for the sake of a video game to, again, participate us again in renting that same video game. Like, it was some nasty capital.

It was, I will say. Yeah. And, you know, this was the era where the flagship mainline Pokemon games were on Game Boy, but N64 really experimented with Pokemon, you know, not just Snap, but stadium, puzzle league, et cetera. You know, really redefined what Pokemon could be in this era. Absolutely. Okay. Back to me.

Man, I am really torn by what to do here because I still have action. and I still have Wildcard. And my goodness, there are a lot of games that I could cram into these categories. What am I going to do? I kind of want to think a little bit more about my action-adventure pick. And so, you know what?

I'm going to go Mario Golf in Wildcard. Hell yeah. Taking Mario Golf. You know, it's another one where the Game Boy game is incredible, and I still wish that they would go in that RPG direction, and they just will not quite give me what I want. But much like Mario Tennis, it just kind of nailed it right out of the gate.

This is what Mario Golf is and ever shall be. Great game. Yeah, no arguments there. That's a good one. Yeah, no, the Game Boy coloring version of that is quite superior. I will have to admit. Yeah. All right.

Matt. Okay, I got a little bit of a choice here about what I'm going to do. there's a chance I might make Rob upset here but there's a chance I might not so let's see I'm just going to do it I'm going to pick in the sports category I'm going to pick a game that is near and dear to my heart

NBA Courtside 2 featuring Kobe Bobboh God damn it Universal Ballmower Matt Jane How was NBA Courtside not safe I thought this would be the safest possible pick bro, you're not safe against me, come on. Nobody's safe, brother.

Wait until you see my last pick. Wait till you see my last pick that I know is safe. This franchise changed my life because, at least in my memory, in my experience, this was the first basketball game that ever had an intentional foul button. And so the degree to which every game became Hackashack in my house was uncanny. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there were definitely plenty of great basketball games before and after this,

but there's something about that particular mechanic that really opened up a cano worms when you're playing against a real-life other player. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, this also incorporated some hard and fast rules in the NBA because intentionally fouling does result in a free throw, right? In this game? Yeah, yeah.

You do shoot free throws. It's just you completely stop game play. You can just like absolutely wail on people and like there's no foul at all. Yes. that's just the steel button in NBA jam. Right, yeah, exactly. That's an incredible pick because it's also one of those things

where, like, graphics were getting, like, kind of more realistic as they got on. And this was one of those where I was just like, oh, wow, they got, like, actual little JPEGs of Kobe Bryant in here. And I can, like, play against Michael Jordan and all that stuff. Like, it was a really, like, well, we can't play against Michael Jordan for likeness reasons, but you can play, I believe, against player number 98.

Yes, correct, correct. No, that's an incredible pick. Okay. Steve. Okay. If I'm not mistaken, I still have Platformer and then... Wild card. Wild card.

Correct. Okay. So for Platformer, I know that we've been focusing a lot more on 3D platforms, but the N64 actually still has quite a good amount of 2D platformers that were actually kind of like really beautiful and innovative for the time. And I'm going to pick Yoshi's story for platform. Oh, okay. An incredibly fun game.

And really, like, one of the best Yoshi games that has ever come out. I loved collecting the eggs. I think the art is beautiful. I think the environments are great. And the story is very cute and fun. And I had played this in one of my friends' basements before I would go to school. And this was the game that, like, people would get mad at me before because it was only single player. And not that many people would want to play that.

And then they would just want to play other games. but I love Yoshi Story and I'm going to pick that for Platformer. So you monopolized the console and made people watch you play Yoshi's Story. I was, okay, you probably would have hated me. I was a very selfish gamer

when it came to my time on the couch. It was like, I learned my lesson in time, but you know, things had to be learned the hard way sometimes. And then for Wildcard, my God. Half of this is like playing with my heart

and then half of this is like, what the hell is Matt going to pick that I could possibly take from him. You can. You're not going to get it. You're not getting it. It's possible that I won't. Like, you're not going to pick Superman the new Superman adventures.

No, that is, that is horrific. Yeah. Final pick, wild card. Something that I got to, I got to represent a bit more of is party games. So I'm going to take Mario Party 2. Okay. Mario Party 2. Classic.

Like, the invention of these games and like a theme. in the boards that were, again, introduced in one, but really kind of perfected in two, made for hours of gameplay. This was in the same house that I played Yoshi's story and monopolized that time, when we actually had fun as a team was playing Mario Party 2. I was going to attempt to take this in sports.

Would that have been an allowable thing? I mean, you play basketball. I would imagine, like, you know, making a giant knitting thing as a sport. Yeah. It is the most physical game on the system because of how much. much you grind your hand into the control stick.

The release of the mandatory we have to give you this glove to avoid liability. What a time to be alive. Yeah. I'm glad that Mario Party got invited to the party game category because it would have felt wrong to snub. It's literally called Party. I was worried. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Back to Matt, your final pick? My final pick in Action Adventure and a Deep Cut. and one of my favorite games on the system that I don't think gets enough it's enough talk. It's a mystical ninja starring Goaemon.

That was not it. Okay. What? The actual hell are you talking about? I'm talking about mystical ninja starring Goemann. Ah, right. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, I know this guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. The sound you just heard is three adult men Googling on N-60. Right. This game,

is so much fun. There are multiple characters. You're walking around, beating things up. It's like extremely kooky. You fight as giant silly robots occasionally. It is like so Japanese that you wonder how it even got

an American release. And as such, the translation is horrendous for the most part. But this was just one of the most memorable and unique and joyful experiences I had on N64.

And I feel like a lot of people have never even heard of this game, as you can tell. But shout out to all my mystical ninja starring Gorman fans. It might be listening to the Ben, this point you know that I'm not trying to win these drafts. And I love it. I respect it so much. People appreciate your sincerity. That's me picking Brave Fencer Musashi in PlayStation. No.

In PlayStation. I feel like this is fringier than that. It might be. It might be. Okay. I'm going to go with one that I think is also underappreciated, though, perhaps not as underappreciated as that. And in my quest to collect all the rare games, I'm going to go with the first one for

the system, Blastcore. Yeah. Which I'm pretty sure I pronounce BlastCorpse for the first, I don't know, 20, 30 years of my life. But now I know better. It's BlastCore. and this was the first of, I think, seven rare games for this system. It's like Rob Reiner's first seven films, Rare's first seven games for N64,

just unimpeachable run. Some of the best ever. Of course, Gemini. Still out there, considered taking that one too. But I'm going to go with Blaskore, the one that started it all on that system. You know, single player game, which I guess you could ding it for, but it's all about blast and stuff. It says it right in the name.

You know, you're controlling vehicles. You're just knocking stuff down. Everything's blowing up. It's from this kind of isometric perspective, you know, three quarters overhead a little bit. Great game. Very satisfying. Yeah.

Incredibly. I think, you know, not as big as Matt's pick maybe. But yeah, this is a great game. I'm big game for me personally, too. I would say this for me was the first truly open world game in that I know there are objectives you're supposed to do. I couldn't tell you what they are. I just kind of drove around the map,

demolishing buildings, as was my whim. And then when it was ready to turn the game off, it was ready to turn the game off. I will not be taking a game that is quite so big in Japan. In fact, it's quite so small in Japan. They didn't even release it there. And that's NFL Blitz 2000 in sports. My favorite entry in the series,

what is there to say about arcade football? We have Wayne Gretzky, we have the hockey representation, but I want a full-body dive at somebody in the end zone and then stunt on them, returning a fumble by just sliding all the way back down the field. And so long as I can do that, I'm going to sleep well at night. Yeah, you know, we've learned a lot about concussions, about CTE, about player safety in the NFL.

We're more enlightened in certain ways. But have we improved as a society if we do not have NFL blitz, you know, if our football games don't have ambulances driving onto the field to pick up, just prone prostrate, just NFL players who have been floored and flattened. I suggest that perhaps we have lost something personally. I'm glad that the players have better helmets now and safer rules. But the games, won't anyone think about the games. Seriously. Yeah. Yeah, this was the era of just being able to like, you know, have violent arcade sports games. Obviously, there are, you know, hits and Blitz and just all the different varieties of that. But that was very much of its time.

And I missed that aspect of that time. Another odd evolution of the Blitz series. Does anybody remember Blitz the League? I do. They really tried to make it happen. That's like a genuinely like offensive like entry in that football where like you have to give people CTE and steroids. And like there was a very edge lord time that the Blitz League took the

took a bit of a dark turn in that series. It was like, let's take this amazing as Benz an arcade game and like give it a gritty reboot for a no reason. Yeah, why are we doing that? See the x-ray visions of like the like spinal injuries that you can give your tight ends. No, thank you. All right, have we come to the end of this exercise?

We have. We have. Okay. Well, we have snubbed many a great game. So I'll just, I'll read out a few from my draft board that I considered, that at least merited, consideration. In that stacked shooter category, I thought about sin and punishment. You know, speaking of on-rails shooters, we snubbed Turok entirely. Yep. Turox coming back. Rage wars.

Yeah, that would have been for multiplayer. The other bond game, the world is not enough, which was solid. It was just it had the misfortune of being compared to Golden knife and perfect arc, which was tough. But good game. Right. Win back, win back covert operations, trailblazing cover shooter, you know? Third person. Good multiplayer, too. Great game. Yeah, we all owe a deep debt to win back.

Even Doom 64, you know, which was not just a port. It was an original Doom game. It was still a Doom game, so it might as well have been a port. But it wasn't. Jet Force Gemini, as you mentioned. I thought about another bullet hell kind of shoot him up, Bangai-O, which was another, you know, big in Japan, probably. But I didn't go there. I have more.

Anyone else want to shout out some? I've got some honorable mentions, yeah. What you got? Gex 3 deep cover Gecko. That was a good thing that was near and dear to my heart. Very, very silly game. All the game schemes.

Oh, boy. Gex 3 in particular, A, because it was 3D, and you would go into like different TVs that would spoof different movies and he was really into like spoofing like Austin Powers, which was a bit of a hat on a hat, but still, I loved it. Yeah. Ken Griffey Jr. Slugfest.

Yes. That was another great one. And Major League Baseball featuring Ken Griffey Jr. Yes, yes. NBA hang time. Love hang time. Which was like my... It's like, yeah, the NBA jam of the console.

And then I had WWF No Mercy, but then my vibes were eviscerated by that. Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2, Rampage World Tour, and then Toy Story 2. I had that because my sister loved it. And it was actually a fun little adventure where you plays Buzz Lightier. Never played that? Yeah. Some other platform rocket robot on wheels from Sucker Punch. There were some other great, some, from DMA to Zubmah.

design a little company that would one day be known as Rockstar and would go on to make GTA, Space Station, Silicon Valley, body harvest. Body harvest. Body harvest. Yeah. Donkey Kong 64, I know reputationalally has not eaged well, but no more bang for the buck and banana for the buck than Donkey Kong 64, which is, I think, what people remember about it. The purest expression of the collectathon, you know, it was impressive technologically.

It was a grind. For sure. It does have the rap in it, right? The Donkey Kong wrap? It does. So that alone. It contributed to the culture. It's still endearing.

Yep. Kirby 64, the Crystal Shards. Sure. Rayman 2. Great Escape. What else? I mean, the racing category, we could do a whole redraft.

Oh, shout out Rebolt. I love that one. Yeah. Yeah. It's really not good, but I played it and that was good enough for me. What about Beatle Adventure racing? Yeah. A game where you just race Spokxerkeg and Beatles.

It's really good. It's really good. What a time the 90s were. Extreme. What extreme G? We love Beatles so much. Extreme G. Yeah.

Extreme G was very good. Both San Francisco Rush games. Star Wars Episode 1. Racer. Yeah. I almost selected it. I mean, Subalba can't always win.

Like, you've got to take him down. Listen, if we were, if we had an arcade cabinet draft, this is a first round draft pick because that's got to be one of the most legendary arcade cabinets ever. Yeah. Well, have we said the words cruising USA? I think it needs to at least be acknowledged. It's a lot of a prison world.

Yeah. If we talked about snowboard kids, all the 64s, Ridge Racer 64, Excite Byte 64, wipeout 64, Ridge Racer, I just said that. There's so many 60, we could have done a racing games with 64 title, and I still would have taken Wave Race. Yeah. Okay. What else? People forget that Ready to Rumble boxing was on N64 before Dreamcast.

I definitely did not realize that. Yeah. Right. That happened. But you weren't, you weren't around for the, for the PlayStation version that had Michael Jackson,

and that was the better one. Okay. First thing is that. Yeah. Yeah. A few more 64s. Dr. Mario 64.

Destruction Derby, 64. Ogre Battle, 64. That's the one for me. I almost drafted Ogre Battle. It's a thin RPG category. Pilot wings,

64. I just want a hang glide. Yeah. Who doesn't? Another vibe. Also, All right. Incredibly vibes-based.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I'm sort of surprised no one took Harvest Moon 64. Absolute classic. Animal Crossing, right? Originally came out for N64

under a different name. Dobuzzo no morey. But it did come out. No one played it really here until Gabe Cube, but nonetheless it existed. Oh, and Battle Tanks. And Battle Tanks Global Assault.

Great games. I consider that in multiplayer. to some of my favorites at the time. Bomberman 64 was an incredible party. The multiplayer was so good. Yeah. Well, we've now named every game released for Nintendo 64. Except for the Castlevania games.

We don't mention those. Which everyone says are bad, but I like them. We don't speak that evil. Superman 64. No. All right. Dev, have you been able to track this mess? Can you recap our picks for us?

Let's run it back. So in our shooter category, Ben, you picked Golden Eye, 007. I did. Steve, you had Star Fox. Matt went with Star Wars Rogue Squadron, and Robpicked Shadows of the Empire. We moved to Platformer where Rob took Banjo Cazooey. Ben had Conquer's Bad Fur Day. Matt went with Super Mario 64 and Steve picked Yoshi's story.

Action Adventure. Steve went with Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. Matt went with mystical ninja starting Goaemon. Rob, I can't believe this is my job. The spikes dripping from your voice, as you said. If you know, you know. We don't know, clearly. Nobody knew.

Rob went with Legend of Zelda, Majora's mask. Should win for that alone. And Ben went with Blasport racing. Matt went with Mario Kart 64. Ben Wave Race 64. Steve went with F0X. Rob with Diddy Kong racing, and I'm not going to do the voice. Sports, Steve, Mario, tennis, Ben, 1080 snowboarding,

Matt, NBA courtside two, and Rob went with NFL Blitz 2000. We make our way to multiplayer slash party where Rob took Super Smash Bros. Ben went with Perfect Dark. Matt went with WrestleMania 2000, and Steve went with Wayne, Gretsky 3D hockey. And last but not least, in our wild card category, Matt went with Paper Mario. Rob went with Pokemon Snap. Ben went with Mario Golf, and Steve went with Mario Party 2, and that closes us all the way out.

Wow. What a wealth of gaming goodness. We truly, we had it good. We didn't even know how good we had it. Actually, we did. We were well aware of how good it was, and it really was good. Well, please do write in if we omitted anything, which seems impossible, because I think we did name a very...

There's another Go-a-Mond game on the system, actually. People are going to write in, you drafted the wrong Go-a-Mond game. No, no. Right idea, wrong game. Yeah. Well, if we somehow omitted anything, despite drafting a high percentage of the N64 library, do let us know at RingiverseGaming at gmail.com.

Look on the Ringiverse social channels eventually for Matt's beautifully rendered graphic in which he depicts all the games that we picked and you can weigh in on how we did. Guys, this has been a joy. It has brought me back to a more innocent time and it may be a more simple last time. It's been a delight.

Matt, I would also, I would implore you in making the graphic. You have a lot of power here. All of these games could look so janky. I'm going to see a box art. I'm going back. I'm going back. I'm going borging everything else. I appreciate it.

I just don't want Dash Rindar looking into like a mud wall. It would be fair. A little more scenic. Thank you. Thank you. No wampas involved, please. Never could find that wampa. All right.

This has been a joy. This has been Butmash 64. We will be back later this month. We'll talk a little bit about the games of the first half of the year and maybe an Assassin's Creed remake, re-sinct, because everything is remakes and remasters these days. Thank you to Devin Romado for keeping track of all of those picks and also producing the podcast.

You know it was a good draft episode when my battery died during it. So we passed that test. Thank you also to Arjuna Remgapal for his senior podcast, And I have held off on inflicting this on everyone until the very end, but I have to share my best inner Nintendo 64 kid. Thank you all very much for joining us for the 30th anniversary draft of the That was amazing. That was, it's like you just played the YouTube clip. You might not mean, where's the voice box?

I know did your Diddy Kong impression? Oh my God. I have range. I can go high for an N64 kid, and I can go low for 1080.