Please enjoy today’s public post. I hope you’ll consider joining with a paid subscription to see new posts every weekday.
The paintings from today’s post are available for purchase. See the shop for details.
I didn’t think I was going to get a Nintendo 64 when it came out. I wasn’t sold on early polygonal gaming since I thought it was a step backward compared to the honed 2d sprite based games that were around back then, including pre-rendered sprite based games like Diablo. I was also having my first retro game renaissance via the PC around that time.
It was 2 years after its release when Zelda: Ocarina of Time would appear. I had the opportunity to see a lot of the game for some work-related stuff that we may talk about at another time, some 6 months or so before it released. And that basically broke my brain so that in early 1999, I picked one up.
So in that era I divided my time between PC and N64. The dearth of games that were the chief complaint (compared to the Playstation) was a feature for me, as I didn’t have as much time to play as I used to. But yes, I played Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask and loved them both.
There are a few cultural touchstones this system generated which I did not participate in. No Goldeneye for me, for instance. But there was a lot of Mario Kart and NFL Blitz 2000, as far as multiplayer games went. Apart from the Zeldas, Ogre Battle 64 was another favorite of mine.
The N64 was the first 4-player console I owned, and having to pick up and store a basket full of controllers and memory packs was a bit burdensome compared to earlier times. But the overall memories were worth it.
