Wave Race 64

Wave Race 64 is a racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64, released in 1996. Rather than cars or karts, it puts the player on a personal watercraft, or jet ski, racing across buoy-marked courses set on open water. Its defining achievement was its water: Nintendo's engineers built a dynamic, buoyant ocean surface that swelled, rolled, and chopped, physically affecting the handling of the craft as conditions changed, an effect nothing on a home console had achieved before. Courses range across sunlit bays, harbors, and beaches, complete with dolphins, and the game rewards careful navigation around the buoys as much as raw speed. It featured multiple modes, adjustable weather and difficulty, a stunt mode, and a hidden dolphin ride unlockable at Dolphin Park. Critically acclaimed at launch as an early showcase for the console's capabilities, it remains one of the most technically impressive and atmospheric games of the early Nintendo 64 era, and later received a Nintendo GameCube sequel, Wave Race: Blue Storm. With its glare off the water, its warm ocean courses, and its whole design built around the feeling of riding the surf, it is arguably the most literally summer game the Nintendo 64 ever produced.