Video Gamers Podcast - Video Games Quick Take - N64 Racing Games

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

From video games hosts Josh, Paul, and Ryan we're bringing you even more video games content each week.  Video Games Quick Takes are a short series of game recommendations, funny moments, off-topic chat and more. A small dose of gaming to brighten your Saturdays! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We cover things on this show like first impressions on new releases, deep dives, gaming news, and tournaments like figuring out the best gaming dad of all time. And on Saturdays we have these Quick Take episodes. These are a little bit older. They were recorded by us back in the day under our old name, the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. And the Quick Take episodes were initially only available to Patreon and Apple supporters, although there was a little bit of demand that people were requesting to hear them as they got a little bit older. So we started releasing these to the public for everybody to enjoy. These episodes are pretty short.

They are generally about 10 to 12 minutes long, and they are recorded by just one of us at a time. Usually it's us wanting to talk about something that just didn't really fit the format of the main show. So it always gave us an opportunity to maybe record just a few minutes about something that we've always wanted to talk about. Just keep in mind that as you listen to this episode, if you hear any announcements or upcoming dates, plans, anything like that, just take that with a grain of salt because you're listening to this quite a bit delayed. All right, I think that covers everything here. We hope that you'll enjoy this episode. Let's do it. All right, guys, Paul here with another Quick Take episode.

Very excited to have you guys here today. Before we jump in, as always, I want to say thank you to all of our Patreon and Apple supporters. We really appreciate you guys helping fund the show. We would not exist appreciate you guys helping fund the show. We would not exist without you guys. We appreciate each and every one of you, and we really just want to say thank you to all of you. We really do appreciate the fact that we are able to run this show because of support from listeners like you, so thank you so much. All right, so I was kind of racking my brain

trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about today, and what I ended up landing on is racing games that existed on Nintendo 64. And I know that that might sound a little specific and maybe not terribly universal to everybody, but the Nintendo 64 console was just so much fun. I feel like it kind of had its heyday with racing games because this was when you started seeing really inventive racing games that were not just simply get into a car and then you've got gas and brakes and just go to the finish line. I feel like they got really creative on the 64 and it really had some amazing offerings that kind of changed the genre in the future. So I basically made a list of my top 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Top 7 racing games on 64. So we're not going to get too specific into any of these, but we are going to touch on each one for about a minute or so. But number one, no question, Mario Kart 64.

That was the best racing game on the 64, in my opinion. I think most people would agree with me. I think it's also the best Mario Kart game that has come out to date. I really enjoyed that one the most. Basically, the Mario Kart on Super Nintendo was a lot of fun, but it was relatively limited. Moving up with the graphics into the more realized 3D world of Mario Kart 64 was awesome. The Rainbow Road map in particular, anyone who played a lot of that on 64 remembers that right off the bat, you could

basically move forward for about 10 seconds and then try to jump off the track to the left. And you could actually land on the track and get a huge shortcut. But of course, inevitably, anytime I would race against friends, I would miss the shortcut and I would end up trying it two, three times. And ultimately, it would end up just setting me back. But I just couldn't, I could never give up the opportunity of trying to get that shortcut. I also think of the beach map. I don't remember the exact name, but that was the one where if you had a mushroom, you could hang on to it because there was a ramp that led into a really narrow cave tunneled out of the rocks. And you would always hang on to it because there was a ramp that led into a really narrow cave tunneled out of the rocks. And you would always hang on to a mushroom if you got it,

and you would try to hit that boost and line it up perfect, fly into that cavern, and it was a huge shortcut in Mario Kart 64. Fantastic multiplayer. The four-person battle mode where you would try to hit the balloons off of your enemies was awesome. There was the one multiplayer map that had the four corners that were like towers, and then it was kind of cut out in the middle. And I just remember so often playing that with my buddies, and you would sometimes try to hide if you only had one balloon left, and you would hide with that one red shell, try to nail someone as they'd come around the corner while trying to stay alive. What a fantastic Mario Kart game. That one's one of my all-time favorite games,

full stop, not even just racing games, one of my top favorites. So that one had to come in number one. All right, number two racing game on the 64, I've got F-Zero X. F-Zero, I think, is a series that some people have just never played. It's actually the game series that Captain Falcon comes out of, if you've ever played Smash Brothers. So if you've ever heard that, Falcon Punch! We're talking about F-Zero, which is actually a racing game. So F-Zero0 what really made that game stand apart is that oftentimes you would race where the track would almost be like magnetic and you you would go upside down and things of that nature so you would be on a track but if you could hold the left button down and you could go like all the way to where you were almost like underneath the track but

from your perspective you still looked upright but then like the whole world would shift upside down it's kind of hard to explain unless you actually play it but f-zero had that ability to be like full 360 degrees in that regard so even though you were stuck on a track you could go on the bottom side and be upside down. It also moved incredibly fast. So whereas sometimes Mario Kart, you felt like you were going somewhat fast, but not terribly fast, F-Zero, things are whipping by you at like 200 miles an hour. The game felt really quickly paced, and I think that really made it stand apart. The third one I have on my list is Star Wars Pod Racer. That was one of the best games to race on 64. I remember the first time playing it where you

would get to that really narrow part out in the desert and you would have to flip your vehicle vertically. That way you could slide through that cutout in the wall. And it was just so neat that they were able to copy that out of the movie and to put that into the game. Last time that my wife and I took a vacation, we went with a couple of friends to Las Vegas. And one of the really cool things that they have there is a pinball hall of fame and what they have is really old vintage pinball machines but they also have a lot of old school arcade machines and so one of the things that they had was one of the very first like giant i don't even really know what to call it but nowadays you know how they'll have like

a Star Wars game where you sit inside a giant bubble and you play that? It was kind of the first one that was like that, where you would sit on top of a pod racer. And instead of just having like a joystick or like a stick and buttons, you actually could move the left and right in order to steer exactly like what you see in Star Wars Episode I. So you could put it on full throttle, and then basically you would have to push forward with your left hand and then back with your right, and that would make you turn really sharp to the right. And so being able to play that was really fun because I remember that being out, you know, back around, you know, I don't know, 1999 or whenever Star Wars Episode One came out. And so being able to play that again as an adult was actually really nostalgic and a lot of fun.

But I mean, come on, Star Wars, Podracer, forget about it. It was a blast. Number four on my list is Road Rash 64. I remember Josh and I talking about this on one of our episodes, but Road Rash was a wild game. It was basically where you were like a biker thug, and so you would race against other people, and you could pick up things like chains or bats, and you could swing it and hit other people next to you. And so instead of like the Mario Kart method where you would have an item that you would shoot, this was almost exclusively Melee weapons. So not only are you racing, but you're trying to knock your buddy off of their bike, which would of course set them back. And so Road Rash 64 is very hilarious, even today, to go back and watch what the multiplayer was like. I think that was really inventive. It really kept things fresh instead of just racing. All right, number five on my list is Diddy Kong Racing. I think some people really love this game

and might be surprised that I have it this low. I think one of the reasons why it didn't totally grip me as much as some other people is that it just had a lot of overlap with Mario Kart. The graphical style was very similar, and in a lot of ways, it felt like a Mario Kart ripoff. Now, the difference with Diddy Kong Racing is that there were sections where you would fly. So it was not just exclusively in a car, but you would actually have to fly through the air and you could choose different vehicles. And I do think that that was really neat. And I really enjoyed Diddy Kong Racing, but I never bought it. I would only play it if I went to friends' houses. I would rather just play Mario Kart personally.

So it's no shade thrown at Diddy Kong Racing. I just liked Mario Kart more and felt like they were 90% the same game and Mario Kart just did it better. The sixth game that I have on my list is Cruisin' USA. So this is where we just get a good old school racing game. Really no special frills or features in this one. Cruisin' USA was just good old fashioned racing. It was always my favorite racing series at arcades. So if I was going to do a racing game with a couple of friends, we would always pick Cruisin' USA,

Cruisin' the World. I know that they had like several installments, but Cruisin' USA was an absolute blast. And so I have to include that one here on my list. And number seven, the last one that I'm going to talk about here today is Wave Race 64. Now Wave Race, I remember first playing in the arcade as well. This was where you would race on jet skis. I feel like in a way they were kind of thinking like, okay, so we've got racing games. Well, now we've got racing games with combat by using, you know, items like banana peels and turtle shells. All right, well, now let's do racing, but it's like fast and it's in space and let's do that. Well, now let's do racing, but now it's got, you know, elements where you fly. Well, now let's do racing, but now it's got elements where you fly.

Well, Wave Race was like, well, let's do a racing game where you're in a jet ski. So it's a little bit of an odd pick because when you're in a jet ski and you're in the water, you can't turn fast. And that was one of the things that kind of held Wave Race back a little bit is that you couldn't do any sharp turns. You know, you'd kind of have to look at the map and the turns would be a little bit more wide angle. And it was always more fun to play in the arcade because you actually sat on top of a jet ski and you would actually, you know, turn the handle almost, it was like a bike handle attached to the jet ski. And that's what you would use to steer. And so it was always more fun and

more immersive to sit on top of that in the arcade playing it on the 64 was not nearly as fun but it was still a blast so wave race i do remember owning i think i owned all of these games on the list with the exception of diddy kong racing uh but i i just felt like there were so many racing games i didn't just want to pick one to talk about. I thought it would be best just to kind of do a survey here of my top seven. But what a fun console, man. 64, granted, it came out at that time when I was in junior high. So I think for most people, those days of gaming with junior high and high school always are going to stand out. So having the 64,

having so many fun games of every genre, but especially racing, I just feel like they really kicked it up a notch. They were not just releasing boring racing games. You know, no shade to the games that come out today, but I just don't really have an interest in playing Forza or Midnight Club or Need for Speed. Maybe there are some game modes and stuff that I'm just not aware of. But for me, what made the racing games fun was going up multiplayer and having some element on top of just simply being a racing game. And I feel like these other games really delivered that. And so that's kind of what kicked those games up a notch for me. All right. Well, if

there's any racing games that I missed, it's very possible. I just went off of my memory. I didn't try looking anything up. But if there are any other racing games that you want to hit us up about, come let us know on Discord. Totally free. Come join us. If you haven't already, you know, come hit us up. We would love to hear from you guys. We want to hear suggestions for future shows. Even suggestions for quick takes are great. Oftentimes, Josh and I joke about how we've already talked about every game we've ever played. And so sometimes he and I, we kind of struggle thinking about what to cover and what to talk about. So we always appreciate getting some questions or tips on what you guys want to hear. All right. Well, that's everything that we have here for today.

We will see you guys next time. Until then, happy gaming.