Offerman was actually IN a video game but no one noticed until like a year ago (it wasn’t listed on imdb or wikipedia or anything). he probably doesn’t even remember working on it.
timestamped to his first appearance
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Fun story: Many years ago I was looking through the used games the local Blockbuster was selling (which were just old rental inventory they were trying to get rid of) and I saw that Ogre Battle 64 was one of them. My brain had the feeling this was an uncommon game so I decided it was worth picking up for the $15-18 or so they were asking for it. I brought it up to the counter to purchase and the older teen/young adult at the register looked at it and somewhat dejectedly went “…I didn’t know we had this here”. He 100% wanted to just keep it for himself but did his job and sold it to me.
I never played the game so this story is a tragedy, he’d have likely at least sold it or something.
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its tangential but i liked the tangent
i find this so soothing. i remember my ex once telling me they used to put it on and use it to fall asleep lol i could see it
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i used to sleep to the dreamcast bios…
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i have the ps2 theme on my ps4 and i leave the ambience playing in the background constantly
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I slept in a drunken stupor while the MvC2 character select music played all night once does that count
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I missed this because of course, I miss everything lol.
On OOT:
Ive put on a few zelda playthrough as background a few months ago and the one thing that got me is how little people play with the game’s systems. You can beat a whole dungeon killing everything with the hammer, you can throw a fish princess to clear a room of monsters like a pinball, blow up some monsters on a ledge youll be at in the future with a well timed bombachu. You can shoot down crows from enormous distances with a little practice. There are so many little challenges you can do with all these weird mechanics. I cant recall goofing off trying stuff and just having it work like that untill BOTW made that a feature. The other game that does this really well is Link to the Past. (If only OOT had bees.) I really recommend playing as much of OOT/Master Quest with only 4 hearts, as you can. You really end up using your resources to the maximum and trying out new things.
I also get that none of what I sad matters if you dont find the world interesting or find the beginning too much of a slog (it kinda is).
Ive always wanted to get into MM and have tried several times but I just HATE the way it does time pressure. Its like my anxiety and ADD has been manifested as a giant grimacing ever present moon. I love the weird jank and colors but oof no thanks. (also the transformations all look doofy)
Mystical Ninja is so full of unique segments, its a very rewarding and not very hard game. Its my #1 rec. Its so joyful.
If you wanna have a fun time with N64 try playing all the racing games emulated with a wheel, some of them become really fun. Even Mario kart if you limit the wheel to like 70 degrees. The Rush franchise feels very much like the arcade game at I think 120 degrees. Its also easier on a lot of tracks.
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The castle market is great. I love this when you first enter
I think OoT benefited from being the first in line and basically figuring out how to represent itself. You get these fixed camera angles for no reason at all, like with this overhead shot coming into the castle, and it makes the castle look impossibly tall and Link like a little ant.
I think I’ve seen a few people describe the game as more ambitious than what it could pull off, but that might be why I like Ocarina. It can’t have a giant castle even though it wants to, so it uses this quick camera shot to create that impression of hugeness instead. It was allowed to do creative stuff like this because nothing was really sorted out yet. That’s kind of the essence of the 64 to me probably, creative sometimes ugly solutions to 3D spaces.
Another game I want to post about is Rush 2. Rush has a stunt mode hidden inside of it that means more to me than most entire games.
The whole area feels like you’ve broken out of bounds but you still actually have something to do. Like you went through a wall or something and now you’re in the black void that surrounds the normal game, but they were nice enough to put some ramps out here for you to drive on. There’s even a little tricks point counter if you want to have something to do while you explore the mystery abyss.
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Might have to emulate some N64 on my Series S…
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i played so much of that stunt mode in Rush 2. not so much the actual racing mode. it’s a fun black void with random colorful shapes. maybe this is why Mario 64 works so well to me - it’s a void with a bunch of colorful shapes. especially those Bowser levels in Mario 64 are basically just a little obstacle course. it’s so abstract you just kind of project meaning onto it. and the stunt mode of Rush 2 is definitely one of those places. that goes back to what i said about these kinds of spaces basically not existing at all outside this era/generation of games.
also there’s two red hills that are joined up with each other in it i called “the boobs” because they look like giant boobs. tho i didn’t call them that around any family member who i played the game around because i didn’t want them to get mad at me. i had great shame about the boobs. and now they’re the primary thing i think about whenever i think about this course.
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Same with Rush 2. Also the “Danger” track. And the Obstacle Course and stunt tracks in Rush 2049
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One of my friends in college had a summer internship with SGI, and he got an N64 as a signing bonus. The following summer, him and his girlfriend were going to spend it traveling across Europe, so in return for putting a bunch of boxes in our basement, he gave me custody of his $5,000 electrostatic speakers and his N64.
(The speakers were great, I remember Stay Down by Two Lone Swordsmen came out that year and maaaaaaaaaan that sounded good.)
Let’s see if I can remember the games that he had. Definitely Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and Wave Race. I think that he also had Quest 64; I’m not sure because there isn’t really a difference between “I played Quest 64 once or twice at his place when he rented it” and “I had a copy of Quest 64 sitting in my possession for three months” because, ah, I wasn’t going to spend that much more time with it.
(Playing that game with other people is fun because of the MST3K-esque nature of the experience (this is a hugely underrated way to play games); playing it by yourself is like watching Space Mutiny by yourself.)
Anyway, I had a real good time with Zelda and Mario, the game that I spent the most time with was definitely Wave Race. What really endeared the game to me was that it was both challenging yet consistent to be able to achieve a flow state in the game, and that the experience was markedly different with the different racers. The cherry on the sundae was how the actual waves interacted with the racing, whether you were going into them, against them, how close together they were, how heavy they were, etc. – it added a novel element that you never got from any other racing game (including Blue Storm, playing that for the first time was one of the most profoundly disappointing moments I’ve had with a game).
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Blue Storm is such an odd game. It’s quite good and miles ahead of just about every other wave-racer but the water is a hard cutting slab and demands constant attention unlike the soft, slow anticipation of Wave Race 64, which feels like reading 4 rally turns ahead and prepping for them all gently and simultaneously.
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I bought blue storm at launch after having only ever rented wave race 64 multiple times and just could not figure out what it was missing
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I loved Blue Storm and played it a ton back in the day, but I also had barely any proper experience with WR64 as a point of comparison. The amount of finesse the game allows for (and later requires) is absolutely mind-boggling. I could never manage to complete some of the later races on higher difficulties — just absolute sicko-level kaizo stuff if my memory is to be trusted (like any good racing game imo).
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That’s what feels unique about Wave Race 64, to me – somehow it never really loses its chill even at the limits of your skill. I think it’s because of the kind of slow movement, gentle reaction (if you don’t want to lose speed), and layering of a wave, an upcoming wave, a couple buoys, a turn, and other racers at the same time. You have to practice a gentle touch no matter how tight it is.
Blue Storm, if I’m remembering right, has much more straightforward sharp turn maneuvers that need to be executed with good timing. It gives it a more mechanical feel.
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I would like to add to the Wave Race love by saying that I really like the buoy system. It’s very open ended and I like the freedom of making wide turns if I’m having trouble or I can stick close to the buoys if I think I’m pretty good at the level. Contrasted to a game having rings or something and forcing you to be in one specific spot only
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when the announcer says “no misses, beautiful!” it sounds like he’s saying “your missus is beautiful!” and it always makes me laugh
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I definitely complained about Blue Storm a lot in the insert credit days because if you made one mistake that was the end of the race. Now I realize it was probably asking for me to pay more attention and make decisions ahead of time instead of pure reaction and I was just fussy.
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