Cube

I made a roast using of a pack of 2.5kg potatoes (roasties and mash) and found I had none left over. I then realised that the pack had changed size to 2kg. Same price.

Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics NA release: 27th July 1998 PAL release: 24th August 1998 JP release: N/A Developer: T&E Soft Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 49% This is essentially the Western release of Augusta Masters ’98, however the translation into English also came with an entirely different course in Hawaii (but still one course). I was expecting it to play the same as just an average golf game, but I ended up encountering so many problems. I edited the first character by changing the name and appearance, the same as Augusta, yet somehow when I started the game, I was trying to tee off with a putter – it was my only club. I went into the editor and changed to change my selection (it’s impossible to tell what you have selected) and when I got to the green, I had no putter. I ended up sorting this ,but I still had no small range clubs (or a sand wedge), but had given up caring at that point. The game really can’t decide how fast the shot bar moves, changing from painfully slow to impossibly fast. The accuracy of the shot also seems to be random, with the ball undershooting or overshooting. I managed to hit a perfect shot with the wind behind me, an the ball still didn’t approach the target. Waialae Country Club was an incredibly frustrating experience and feels very broken. I really don’t understand how this happened considering I got on fine with Augusta, but I just hated this. Remake or remaster? This game doesn’t need any special treatment. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics

F-1 World Grand Prix NA release: 27th July 1998 PAL release: 14th September 1998 JP release: 18th December 1998 Developer: Paradigm Publisher: Video System N64 Magazine Score: 93% In my review of GT64, I touched upon how racing simulation games have aged much worse than more arcade-style ones. F-1 World Grand Prix seems to be a clearer example of that as, while GT64 was always a poor game, F-1 World Gran Prix got great review scores – unfortunately, can’t get into it. Compared to F1 Pole Position, this is a much, much nicer looking game. The tracks have detail that you can see at a distance, with a good amount of detail of the world beyond the track. There’s still some pop-in, but it’s more for finer details, so you can see the track itself with no issue. There are some options for realism and assists, plus adjusting the amount of tracks. One great feature is the challenge mode, which pits you in specific situations based on real races. You have to perform in a similar way (or better) than what the actual professionals did, doing things like taking advantage of other cars using the pit stop, maintaining a lead with a broken gearbox and blocking a rival so that your teammate can win. Sadly, I just couldn’t get used to the driving, with or without assists. I’m not a fan of first person view and in third person, the camera kept tiring to “help” by twisting into turns, which completely threw me off every time it happened as I kept thinking that I was properly aligned (as the camera was looking down the track) while my car was off to the side – of course, it could just be that I’m also a terrible driver. Even with that, I can see the effort put into the game and that it was probably a great experience when it came out. Remake or remaster? Newer F1 games are more refined. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get F-1 World Grand Prix

Google Play have done a "history" of Sonic the Hedgehog on Twitter. I think this is what happens when you rely on AI for research. Click through for a good laugh, it gets much worse.

Super B-Daman: Battle Phoenix 64 JP release: 24th July 1998 PAL release: N/A NA release: N/A Developer: Hudson Publisher: Hudson N64 Magazine Score: 23% B-Daman is a series of toys that are little figures that shoot marbles, with the original ones being based on Bomberman before expanding a lot, eventually spawning its own manga series, Super B-Daman. The video game, Battle Phoenix 64 is a minigame collection with 10 minigames. You control your selected B-Daman and most games involve shooting, with a few basic shooting galleries. One fun one involves a bursting a balloon on spikes, but you need to reveal the panels underneath first. Unfortunately, the aiming on all of them are fairly poor. Some have you moving a target on screen and is very slow, and others have you aiming a row of dots and is not precise. With only 10 minigames (some you need to unlock in singleplayer before you can play in multiplayer), they all get tiresome very quickly, especially as a few of them last too long for how simple they are. It’s not an atrocious game, there just isn’t much to it. Remake or remaster? This doesn’t deserve any special treatment. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Super B-Daman: Battle Phoenix 64

Rakugakids JP release: 23rd July 1998 PAL release: 4th December 1998 NA release: N/A Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami N64 Magazine Score: 80% Rakugakids is odd in that it came out in Japan and Europe – but not North America. It’s a 1-on-1 fighting game where magic crayons have brought the creations of children to life. This created a fun cast of inventive characters – showing Clayfighter that something fun can be done with its concept – these fighters even change shape as they perform moves. It has a really lovely visual style, and some neat touches like shadows and a stage that features a mirror. The fighting itself it a ton of fun, and I’m not someone that enjoys the genre. There are a lot of moves for each characters – the moves reminded me of Super Smash Bros in a way. The presentation and how much fun it is to play – even the movement and jumping feels extremely fluid – makes this one of the N64’s standout fighting games, which is a nice change for a platform littered with poor examples. Remake or remaster? A crisper looking version of Rakugakids would be lovely to see. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Rakugakids.

Super Robot Spirits JP release: 17th July 1998 NA release: N/A PAL release: N/A Developer: Banpresto Publisher: Banpresto N64 Magazine Score: 58% A fighting game featuring giant mechs from various anime – although to my uncultured mind, this is a Megazord fighting game. In the story mode, each “episode” has some story before each fight, which is a nice touch. Unfortunately, this is another dull beat-’em-up. The large mechs don’t really move like large objects, more like people moving in slow motion. The really poor levels also don’t make them come across as large machines, either, so the impact of fighting with giant mechs is just completely lost. The fighting itself is very generic as well, with a few moves and not much else. There is a hover mechanic, but it doesn’t amount to much. This just seems like it was quickly put together to cash in on the various anime shows included in it. Remake or remaster? This doesn’t need much attention – although the concept done well in a new game would be great to see. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Super Battle Robots

Mission: Impossible JP release: 14th July 1998 NA release: 27th October 1998 PAL release: 6th November 1998 Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 91% Being a movie tie-in to an action spy film gives Mission Impossible a lot to live up to, as it was always going to be compared to GoldenEye. Like GoldenEye, Mission Impossible had origins on the SNES before being made for the Nintendo 64 instead, as well as offering objective-based gameplay, this time from a third person perspective. The first mission impossible takes a lot of goes to get used to how the game works, form movement and the camera (in the first level, it’s a very high camera, but you can change it to behind Ethan Hunt, who is not based on Tom Cruise). You have to find a certain guard, knock him out and use the face maker to use his image as a disguise – it feels a lot like an early Hitman game. After the “cold open” levels, you the need to rescue some fellow agents and recover a list form an embassy. The stating level is great, although very much trial and error, as you are undercover and have to lure people to the correct places. It’s a very strong start to the game. There is only one correct way to do things, but it creates the Hitman film really well for its age. Then the game suddenly becomes a strange corridor-based shooter as you blow up crates and jump over pits of acid. It feels completely at odds with the previous levels and just comes across as padding. Thankfully the following level is much more like the Embassy level, and I was even able to mess things up and fix them without failing the mission, which is a nice touch. If there were more levels like this in the game, it would be great, but unfortunately, this is the last proper mission in this style. There’s a few small touches of stuff like this throughout, but unfortunately no levels that feel like living areas. Instead, the rest of the game is some linear corridors, a lot of shooting (with really terrible aiming) and some platforming sections with floating platforms. The friendly AI that follows you is also terrible and makes Natalya look like AI by comparison. On one level, Candice claimed she was fine, before walking right to a guard looking at her, saying “he snuck up on me” and getting shot. While the rest of the levels aren’t great, there is a surprising amount of variety as missions feel quite different. There’s one where you use spray pain to block cameras, one in and then on top of a train (which look quite impressive for the N64), a sniper mission, the famous laser scene from the film and navigating a tunnel by jumping on trucks. There are a lot of frustrating aspects. Sometimes you’ll try punching a guard, but they’ll automatically arrest you – but that only happens on some levels and even then it doesn’t happen all the time. The game is also very picky about what you do, so you’ll often try something only to fail the mission. After a very strong start, Mission Impossible loses its footing, although even then it’s still mostly a decent game from that point onwards. Remake or remaster? With some refined gameplay mechanics, a remastered version could be a lot of fun. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Mission Impossible

I've got a few to work. 64DD games I'm already planning. Speaking of F-Zero... F-Zero X JP release: 14th July 1998 NA release: 27th October 1998 PAL release: 6th November 1998 Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 91% I loved F-Zero GX on GameCube, but I’ve never played the N64 version before. It turns out I love this version, too, even though it feels a lot more brutal than I remember GX being. This is Nintendo’s take on the sci-fi racer genre, and it does a great job at it. F-Zero X features a whopping 30 racers at once (each with a unique ship) and – even with some obvious rubber banding – they all move like actual opponents, making mistakes and reacting to your presence. The game goes a great job at remaining smooth by adjusting the level of detail as the framerate is perfect throughout. The tracks twist and turn and it’s all incredibly fast. One key part of the game is the energy bar. On top of representing your health, it’s also your boost. There are places to recharge on the track (usually near the end of a lap) so a key part of the game is deciding how much you’re willing to risk in order to go faster. Blow up and you lose a life and have to start the race again. The tracks in F-Zero X start out quite gentle, but things take a sudden turn in the last track of the second cup (there are four cups in total, with 6 tracks each) and you’ll start getting thin portions of the track with no edges – fall off and you’re not placed back like other games, you lose a life and start again. Just surviving the tracks becomes the main challenge until you start learning them. Not every choice is made against the player, though. You have barge attacks and a spin attack at your disposal. Take someone else and they won’t score any points for that round. To make good use of this, the game even highlights you rival (the opponent with the highest score) so you can try to target specific opponents and pick them out of the crowd. On top of the leagues (which have four difficulties) and multiplayer, there’s a few extra modes. There’s an unlockable X cup that serves you up procedurally generated tracks and a “death race” mode where you race around a short track trying to take out every other racer (I personally would prefer if you could do this on other tracks as well). F-Zero X is a great game that is quite full of stuff to do. It’s still a ton of fun today. Remake or remaster? A remake of F-Zero GX with all the tracks and features of F-Zero X added in would be amazing – although it shouldn’t be based on this version of F-Zero X, but we’ll get into that when I play the Japanese-only expanded version of the game. Official ways to get the game. There is no way to buy a new copy of F-Zero X, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak. Re-releases 2004: iQue 2007: Wii Virtual Console 2016: Wii U Virtual Console 2022: Nintendo Switch Online (Subscription Only)

Interesting, I had no idea about that arcade unit, I may test out how they emulate (looks like the ones that use odd controllers have a patched ROM to accept a regular controller) and sneak them somewhere into my playthrough, something interesting to look at.

Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth JP release: 10th July 1998 NA release: 15th December 1998 PAL release: N/A Developer: Hudson Publisher: Hudson (JP), Electro Brain (NA) N64 Magazine Score: 62% Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth is a very traditional style sci-fi scrolling shooter. While it features some nice 3D graphics, it doesn’t try to utilise 3D in its gameplay or camera usage, it just keeps things simple. I was quite surprised that this game worked well with widescreen, as with the fixed camera, you would expect everything out of view to be removed. However, keeping things simple works for this genre. You can pick between a few ships that have different weapons – all of which can be upgraded by collecting power-up, which level down if you get destroyed. Everything is fast, smooth and feels polished. Outside of the main mode – which has some hidden paths to unlock bonus missions – there’s also a couple of timed modes for quick high score challenges. It’s a decent example of its genre. Remake or remaster? A regular re-release would be fine. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth

@Darren , you might find this thread interesting:

Penny Racers JP release: 30th June 1998 NA release: 4th February 1999 PAL release: 5th March 1999 Developer: Locomotive Corporation Publisher: Takara (JP), THQ (NA/PAL) N64 Magazine Score: 58% Known as Choro-Q in Japan, this racing game is base on a series of pullback toy cars. The all have a cute deformed style and the racing game brings that to life, with upgradable cars and weapons to use against other racers. The customisation and upgrades are a key part of Penny Racers. There’s a lot of different vehicles to choose from and you can alter the with colours and different components – some change your stats and others alter your appearance. As you finish races, the top three racers can steal components from the bottom three racers. While the game is cute and charming, the actual racing is unfortunately not much fun. It takes ages to get up to full speed and other racers coming near you will knock you about. I also found my car to just roll over a lot, particularly on long turns and I really couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong. I eventually learned to anticipate the rolls so I could plan the quick turns and performed fairly well – unless I got stuck in the middle of the pack and bashed about by others. There’s also a nice track editor in the game, with a few options for different kinds of straights, turns and curves. Unfortunately, there’s only one (fairly hideous) style to the track, so they’ll all look the same, but it’s a really nice feature. I wish I could enjoy Penny Racers more than I did, the setting is adorable and I like some of the ideas. Hopefully the sequel will sort out some of the issues. Remake or remaster? There’s a bunch of Choro-Q games, so some kind of compilation could be interesting – just with improved gameplay. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Penny Racers.

Off Road Challenge NA release: 30th June 1998 PAL release: 15th September 1998 JP release: N/A Developer: Midway, Avalanche Software Publisher: Midway (NA), GT (PAL) N64 Magazine Score: 21% Developed by Midway and Avalanche (the ones who made the Tak games and Hogwarts Legacy) is another port of an arcade racer, this one has you driving large 4×4 trucks across some very bumpy environments. Off Road Challenge is very clearly an immensely ugly game. Everything looks low quality and messy and there’s a load of pop-in and gaps in the world. The game does mange to make its 6 tracks feel distinct (there’s also two bonus ones which look similar to some of those), but when none of it looks good, that doesn’t matter much. However, even though the game is nowhere near good, I found it to be rather enjoyable. The handling is surprisingly good – one of the most responsive I’ve encountered in a car game on the N64 and there’s such a great sense of fun with the game. Everything surrounding this is bad, but the core driving is just entertaining. One bizarre thing is that your car starts off as not good enough to win, you need to collect money found in the level (and awarded if you place high) to buy upgrades for your car, which then help you out in later races. One huge problem – if you leave the game to swap vehicle or turn the game off, all these upgrades are on and you need to do a few races to catch up again. It’s ugly and has some rather odd features, but it’s still kind of fun. Remake or remaster? Being another Midway racer, a collection of their racing games would be nice. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Off Road Challenge.

Yup, it's a reference to the song. I can occasionally beat Mr Vile, but do still occasionally get the Turbo Trainers.