Of all the consoles I owned, the N64 is the one I was most excited about. During the jump from 16-bit to 32-bit, Nintendo decided to one-up the competition and go 64-bit. I was like, "Oh, snap!". It's too bad that Nintendo stuck with the cartridge format, because it is was what eventually lead to it's downfall in terms of market share. CD's are much more affordable to produce, and Nintendo's cartridge licensing fees proved costly enough to discourage developers from embracing it.
The N64 era also solidified Nintendo's reputation as a first-party oreinted platform. While Mario, Zelda, Star Fox and company shined on the N64, other franchises struggled. That's okay with me, though, because Nintendo's best releases are usually better than the rest.
"Zelda: The Ocarina of Time" is widely hailed as the best N64 game, if not best game ever overall, and so I will refrain from choosing that as my favorite. The game I've chosen is Rare's follow-up to the incredible "GoldenEye 007": "Perfect Dark".
I was reminded of PD's greatness when I downloaded the enhanced HD version from Xbox Live. While the graphics are somewhat blocky by today's standard, they aren't that bad. The gameplay still holds up, and the soundtrack adds to the feeling of tension that all good FPS's employ. It's coop feature allowed you and a buddy to play through the game together, a first at that time, and I always prefer multiplayer coop over single player.
It's multiplayer vs mode was the cream of the crop at that time. One of my favorite things to do was team up with a pal versus a brigade of aggresive bots, turn on slow-motion, sit back and pick them off one after another. I'm not sure if this enforced or released sadistic tension within our hearts, but it sure was a hoot!
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