The Nintendo 64 was released in North America in 1996,and, over its lifespan, 296 games would be released. When compared to the PlayStation’s 1100 games and the Sega Saturn’s 600 games, that number looks downright minuscule. One would think that with such a small library, Nintendo 64 games were painstakingly curated to make sure that every release would set a new standard in their respective genre or, at the very least, that they were worth their customers’ money. Unfortunately, making a video game is a difficult balancing act where all parts must come together perfectly to create an enjoyable product. Several outside factors can single-handedly ruin a game. Sometimes it is simply bad timing. Sometimes it is a lack of production value. While it is true that classics like Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Banjo-Kazooie have marked gaming history in their own way, ꦿlet us not forget that these games only represente🍸d the cream of the crop.
Today, we are going to look at a different kind of games. We are going to look at the bottom of the barrel. We are going to see the games that never made it to any “best of the year” li𝔍st, the ones that forever stayed on the shelves at your local Blockbuster. Every single game on this list has offended gamers for one reason or another. These are the forgotten horrors of their generation.
These are the 25 worst games on the Nintendo 64.
25 Hexen
Originally a critically successful PC game, Hexen was ported to the Nintendo 64 in 1997. In the process, it was stripped of anything that made it remarkable or different: Gone were the haunting soundtrack or the story-explaining cut scenes. Players were left to navigate confusing levels with one of three characters, one of which did not even have any projectile-based weapon. Why does it matter? Because this game was designed as a first-person shooter, in the same style of Doom or Duke Nukem 3D.
To make matters worse, the game was already a year and a half years old by the time it was released on Nintendo 64. While the cardboard-style sprites representing the enemies were all the rage in the early 90s, the game looked downright dated next to Turok or Goldeneye, both released mere months before or after. Hexen was simply too little, too late.
24 Earthworm Jim ℱ3D
Earthworm Jim and Earthworm Jim 2 were both beloved platformers of the 16-bits era known for their off-beat humour and challenging levels. Shiny Entertainment, developers of the original games, were sold to Interplay Entertainment shortly after the release of the second games. Development of the series was from that moment on handled by a completely different developer, who then spent nearly four years working on a new Earthworm Jim.
The results were less than stellar. The humour, which had been a trademark of the series, was replaced by out-of-context call-backs and random references to the TV series. An erratic camera made exploring the tedious levels a chore. Earthworm Jim 3D was the antithesis of everything that made the originals famous. Itꦦ is no surprise that the series has been inactive since then, save🎀 for a remastered version which was made without the approval of the character’s creator.
23 Dark Rift
Released in 1997, Dark Rift was definitely pretty for its time. The sleek graphics were enough to wow anyone who would see preview screenshots in GamePro or Nintendo Power. Those who were duped into buying the game were then confronted by an uninspired cast of characters, most of which were a variation on “demon” or “tough guy with a big weapon.” The gameplay was nothing to write home about, feeling like a second rate Mortal Kombat or Virtua Fighter.
The lack of originality was such that Dark Rift, along with two other fighting games developed by the same company, were christened “The Trilogy of Terror." While the three ♚games were released on different systems, they were all uniformly panned 🍸for their lack of personality and derivative nature.
22 Quest 64
Where to start? This was touted as the first role-playing game released in North America for the Nintendo 64. With an audience which was craving anything in the genre, it would have been easy for Quest 64 to set the standard and find some measure of success. Instead, the game was just as blℱand an uninspired as its title.
The fact that the main character has the same haircut as Cameron Diaz in There’s Something About Mary could be bad enough. The biggest problem however comes from the combat system, which tries to fuse turn-based with action-based gameplay. Your character is constantly surrounded by a white octagon, which limits where you can go to dodge your enemies’ attacks. It looks more like a low-resolution UFC fight in the middle of a school production of Lord of the Rings than a real RPG.
21 Deadly Arts 😼
As we keep going down this list, you will realize that one of the biggest problem with the Nintendo 64 was the astonishing number of disappointing fighting games plaguing the system. Deadly Arts had many faults, the biggest of which was that it looked soft. The characters floated through their fights, with their punches and kicks landing with♓ all the impact of a marshmallow landing on a fluffy pillow.
Furthermore, this is a game which has Deadly in its title and yet no one dies, sheds blood, or even faints. The game was indeed originally (and ridiculously) titled G.A.S.P!! Fighters’ NEXTream in Japan and Europe. It is understandable that the North American publisher would want to find a more palatable title which could evoke memories of popular games such as Mortal Kombat or Fatal Fury, but th𒀰ey landed on something which is both 𓂃inaccurate and generic.
20 Mike Piazza’s Strike Z✃one
Mike Piazza’s Strike Zone played like an approximation of an approximation of baseball. It was as if someone read the rule book and decided to make a video game about it without ever watching a ball game live. The pitching is unresponsive. The hits are so soft that you would think it’s a game of tee-ball. The animations of the players, from the moment they walk to the plate to their “swing,” are robotic at best. The players themselves are faceless, giving the game an eerie feel. It looks like Field of Dreams if it was made by Guillermo Del Toro.
On a console that already had MLB Featuring Ken Griffey Jr. and All-Star Baseball, Strike Zone never really stood a chance. A third series of good-to-great baseball games would have been oversaturation at best. A mediocre one was never going to be anything more than a footnote. As it is, Strike Zone’s only merit is to make Bottom of the 9th, the othe꧑r forgotten baseball game on Nintendo 64, seem competent ꧃in comparison.
19 War Gods
Another sub-par fighting game! While Dark Rift was brought down by its bland cast of characters, War Gods decided to go the other way entirely. Every fighter available here 🌃is more laughable than the last. There’s Voodoo, the witch doctor! Tak, the statue come to life! Warhead, the radioactive soldier! Everybody is clad in neon and/or loud primary colours. You fight in the jungle, on a volcano, even in space! This game took the attitude of the 90s and made it a mission to show us just how 👍bad it could get.
The game was released as a test drive of sort for Midway’s newest 3D engine before it was unleashed on the Mortal Kombat series. Unfortunately, the developers forgot to change everything but the ridiculous characters. The fatalities are still there, the announcer is still the same, even the actors are shared! Indeed, Brian Glynn and Kerri Hoskins, who appear as Shao Khan and Sonya Blade in MK, 😼portray Warhead and Vallah here.
18 🔯 Polaris SnoCross 🃏
In the late 90s and early 2000s, everything had to be extreme: the sports, the wrestling, even the Ghostbusters. After a while, it was only natural that even snowmobiles would be taken to the extreme. That is how we ended up with Polaris SnoCross, a game designed for the wide-reachi꧒ng audience of snowmobile racing. A sport which is no doubt fun to do, but which is sandwiched on ESPN 3 (or TSN 2 in Canada) at 4am, between poker and darts.
Polaris SnoCross was a terrible ambassador for its sport: the game is glitchy in the worst way, with some jumps sending you crashing through the scenery and leaving you stuck. The walls, the trees and the track itself appear and disappear on a whim. The sky in the distance looks like a picture of the actual sky filtered through the screen of a broken smart phone. If Polaris SnoCross was supposed to broaden the sport’s audience, I would call the ꦺexperiment a big miss.
17 ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ 🍃 Big Mountain 2000
1080 Snowboarding was well-received by critics originally. It was praised for the quality of its controls, its graphics and its solid physics. Its one glaring issue, however, was the available number of tracks. With only six mountains to play on, one had to find every available shortcut to get the most out of their game. Now what if a similar game was released, only two years later, with worse graphics and even less tracks? This is exactly what you get with Big Mountain 2000.
The one thing the game had goi♐ng for it was the addition of skiing on top of snowboarding, which would have been a fun way to extend the life of the game’s four courses. Having to master a second discipline would effectively double the replay value, if only the developers had bothered to make snowboardไing and skiing play differently in any way.
16 🎃Razor Freestyle Scooter
One of the last games released on Nintendo 64, Razor Freestyle Scooter was basically nothing more than a clone of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, but wi♒th a handlebar glued on top of the skateboards. Somewhere in the cloning process, a few thing🍸s were lost: the frantic sense of speed, the tight controls, the good music, and the feeling of excitement.
The sterile environment and the soulless gameplay are on🌠ly part of the problem. The act of skating and the tricks themselves lack any velocity or impact. The characters move with the same sense of urgency as a snail stuck in molasses. The game was probably supposed to appeal to kids who preferred scooters to skateboards, but a random cameo by Tito Ortiz makes it unsure just who the inten🌳ded audience was.