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Diddy Kong Racing is Rare’s entry into the kart racing genre. Rather than going head-to-head with the likes of Mario Kart 64, Rare reevaluates the genre from the ground up, starting with the vehicles. There are three different vehicle classes in Diddy Kong Racing: kart, hovercraft, and plane. While the kart provides a classic racing experience, the latter two categories open up new gameplay possibilities as you can now float over water hazards with the hovercraft or simply bypass all ground obstacles with the plane. Each level is designed in such a way as to get the best use out of each vehicle. If you take the kart out onto a course, you’ll need to stay on the track and steer around obstacles, but if you pick the plane, you’ll need to watch out for aerial hazards that the other vehicles can safely drive under. The ability to choose vehicles really expands the gameplay and maximizes the effectiveness of the innovative level design. The levels are colorful, fun, and creative, and the vehicles and characters, though somewhat lacking in detail, get the job done for this type of game. You start with a limited number of available tracks, but you can go through Adventure mode to unlock more courses for you and your friends to play in multiplayer, which is a lot of fun. Diddy Kong Racing and Mario Kart 64 offer two different experiences, and so, can coexist peacefully. Wherever the two games overlap, it is usually Mario Kart 64 that excels: the items are more interesting in Mario Kart 64 and there’s more variety in the characters. But what Diddy Kong Racing does well, it does supremely well. It’s one of the best and most innovative racing games to own for the Nintendo 64.

In 1999, Donkey Kong finally made his anticipated 3D debut with Donkey Kong 64. The game came in a distinctive banana yellow cartridge and was bundled with the Expansion Pak, which is required to play. Just as fans hoped, it is simply bursting with content. There are five playable characters including Donkey Kong, and they each have their own unique abilities: Diddy Kong can use a jetpack, Tiny Kong can glide through the air, and so forth. The levels are all designed to take advantage of each Kong’s strength, and you’re able to switch between the Kongs you’ve unlocked by using any of the Tag Barrels located throughout the map. You’ll want to be sure to take each Kong exploring and collect special coins that can be used to unlock new moves. Open-world adventuring is a major part of the gameplay, and you won’t really see everything DK64 has to offer unless you invest time into your playthrough. Luckily, the world design keeps the journey interesting, and you’ll have fun swinging from vines, shooting yourself out of cannons, and knocking baddies over the head as you collect bananas and coins. The boss fights have a good amount of variety, too. One of my favorite battles has you jumping across square panels to evade a giant jack-in-the-box; if you misjudge a jump, you’ll tumble into the abyss, so you’re on the edge of your seat for the duration of the fight. Though DK64 is overall a well-designed game, it suffers from numerous bugs. It’s not uncommon to accidentally clip inside a wall, and the framerate can be inconsistent. Nonetheless, DK64 is a vast adventure and excellent 3D debut for Nintendo’s favorite simian superstar. If you enjoy action-adventure games and platformers, stop monkeying around and go bananas with DK64 today!

Doom 64 ain’t your mama’s Doom. The Nintendo 64 adaptation of the timeless classic manages to balance all the gameplay elements that made the original PC game so fantastic to play while offering a fresh take on the level design and atmosphere. It’s not just Doom with a new coat of paint. It’s more foreboding and makes better use of lightning effects to create suspense. Not that the original Doom was lacking in that area, of course, but Doom 64 produces a more unsettling ambience that’s difficult to describe unless you experience it firsthand. Gone is the heavy metal soundtrack of the original game, and in its place is an atmospheric background track well suited for a haunted house. As you creep through dark hallways you’ll hear the deep, hypnotic rumbling of the space station, the crack and fizzle of some unseen electronic panel, the screech of a door. Midway and company know their way around sci-fi horror and they prove it many times throughout Doom 64. The enemies and weapons are based mostly on the PC game, though they’ve all been given a stylistic makeover. The Chaingun, for instance, is more detailed and the Chainsaw looks more devastating with the addition of a second blade. Levels still progress in a linear fashion as you solve switch puzzles and collect keys to unlock doors and advance to the exit. It’s a tried-and-true formula, but isn’t exactly groundbreaking for 1997. Though you cannot aim on the vertical axis, the control scheme is quite practical and you can customize it as you wish. Unfortunately, Doom 64 does not offer any multiplayer options, and the visuals tend to look pixelated and overly dark. If you’re a fan of Doom, however, this adaptation will provide hours of entertainment and maybe even a few scares.

In 1997, Extreme-G became the first “extreme” racing game to be released for the Nintendo 64, predating F-Zero X by ten months. Nintendo 64 owners were ready for a racer that showcased the speed and power of the console, and for such an early effort, Extreme-G does not disappoint. Instead of cars, you’ll take motorcycles onto futuristic racetracks and execute daring jumps and loops at speeds exceeding 200 mph. But racing is only one element of Extreme-G, as you can collect weapon power-ups and unleash projectiles at your enemies in a manner similar to Mario Kart 64. Essentially, you must do everything in your power to get ahead and maintain the lead. Though the game isn’t as technically demanding as F-Zero X, there are still a good number of tricky turns in Extreme-G. Luckily, an arrow appears on the screen alerting you to impending turns. It’s a wonderful idea, yet seldom utilized in racers today. Sometimes, you’re traveling so fast that it’s difficult to react to changes in the track, so the arrow definitely serves its purpose. The track designs are usually quite interesting. Most of them are lacking in detail, but the level geometry keeps each course feeling fresh. Tracks will climb, dip, spin, and loop around. One course in particular features an almost straight drop through a layer of atmosphere, and it’s a cool feeling to plunge through clouds at terminal velocity. Extreme-G does a lot of things right, but it does have some problems. The controls feel a little stiff, there are occasional drops in framerate, and the multiplayer battle mode seems unnecessarily tacked on. Otherwise, this game is nothing short of a shot of adrenaline. If breaking the sound barrier to the beat of an energetic techno soundtrack sounds appealing to you, Extreme-G is your ride.

Leading up to F-Zero X’s release in 1998, expectations for Nintendo’s latest racing thriller were quite high. The Super Nintendo game was a true classic, and many fans believed the follow-up would be even faster and better than the original. And at least in the speed department, F-Zero X does not disappoint: this is the fastest racing game on the Nintendo 64. When your vehicle kicks into full gear and you whizz past the opposition, you really start to feel as if you’re in the driver’s seat. Pure instincts take over and you take hairpin turns sooner than you can even think about it. Every race pits you against 29 aggressive drivers, and even on the lower difficulties, you’ll have to fight your way to the lead and utilize every boost panel to stay ahead. F-Zero X is not a casual racer: the utmost of your skills will be tested on the tracks, and success is wholly dependent on your execution. There is a helpful practice mode in which you can get a feel for every track from the Grand Prix before you attempt the real thing. The Grand Prix is made up of three different cups initially, and you can unlock two additional circuits by placing well in the races. If you’re itching for something more destructive, you can play the new Death Race mode, where the goal is to destroy your opponents by crashing into them. Does insurance cover that? While the game modes are varied enough, some of the tracks start to feel repetitive after a while, and the design is a little lacking in graphical flair. But whatever is sacrificed in visuals is more than made up for in performance. F-Zero X is a high-octane racer that will feed your addiction to speed.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, FPS games have become one of the hottest commodities in gaming today. It wasn’t always this way. I remember the genre had quite a few bugs to work out before it was ready for mainstream reception. Games like Doom and Quake were instrumental in laying the foundations for the genre, but FPS games reached another milestone in 1997 with the release of GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64, which helped to redefine the FPS mold with its emphasis on wild multiplayer. What I remember most, however, is the incredibly fun single-player mode in which you take James Bond through a series of objective-based missions based on scenes from the GoldenEye movie. You’ll sneak around security cameras, dispatch enemies with stealth, and use gadgets to fulfill your objectives, which include everything from meeting with various NPCs to disabling computer systems and taking covert photographs. Higher difficulty levels add more objectives and make the enemies stronger and more aggressive. Your performance is judged at the end of each mission; if you were fast enough, you unlock any of the numerous cheats in the game, from oddballs like “Tiny Bond” to no-brainers like “Infinite Ammo.” GoldenEye packs so much replay value into the campaign, but the fully customizable multiplayer experience really extends the longevity of the game. You can change health settings, characters, and even specify your weapons set. The weapons range from submachine guns to grenade launchers, so the possibilities for destruction are almost endless. The multiplayer and single-player experiences are aided by a control scheme that makes sensible use of auto-aim, though you can take manual control of the aiming reticle to pinpoint areas like the head for more damage. GoldenEye is a masterpiece of almost unprecedented proportions on the Nintendo 64 and an absolute must-have.