Four Controllers

The Nintendo 64 turned thirty this summer, and it came out of the box built for one thing: a room full of people. Four controller ports, standard, right on the front. No multitap, no adapters. A jet-ski game with water nobody had ever seen, a Mario made of blue sky. So this week’s feature ranks two kinds of summer at once: the games that look and feel like the season, and the games that WERE the season because four people were crammed on one couch playing them.

Last week’s rule still stands: a summer game plays like summer, the release calendar does not get a vote. That puts Wave Race 64 at number one, because nothing on the machine says beach like that water. Super Mario 64 is right behind it, the birthday game, a July afternoon you can stand in. GoldenEye lands at number three without a grain of sand in it, on the four-player couch and the friend who always picked Oddjob. Pilotwings 64 closes the list the way a long afternoon closes. And the hardest cut is the one you think it is: Lake Hylia is gorgeous, and Ocarina of Time is still an autumn epic about the end of the world.

In the news: the Zool N64 monster-tamer finally gets an English fan translation, God of War is confirmed for a physical disc while Sony sets 2028 as the end of new PlayStation disc production, Compulsion Games goes independent and starts looking for partners, Glen Schofield retires after 35 years, and a homebrew developer brings Super Monkey Ball home to the Dreamcast 25 years late. Quick hits on Super Bomberman Panic Bomber W finally coming west and Doom running on the Casio Loopy.

On the Shelf this week: Reggie Fils-Aime’s Disrupting the Game, and whether it earns a spot on your shelf.

Nintendo Month rolls on: SNES last week, the N64’s 30th summer this week, and the Game Boy closes it out next week.