My secret past as a video game journalist. (N64)

two types of people are gonna see this
video some of you have never seen my face before I've never seen this YouTube channel or any of my YouTube channels before and you're just interested in hearing me talk about what it's like to own and possibly collect for the Nintendo 64 in the year 2019 2020 this is recorded at the very end of 2018 whatever yeah and some of you are gonna be very surprised that I even own such an object in my apartment this is my girlfriend's n64 she brought this into my life along with many things dredged up from her parents basement but this was part of her childhood and what you guys if you're a regular view of my channel you may not know about me is this was part of my early adulthood as well the first job that I ever had as a kid that I would call a real real job the first job I had where they gave me like the tax forms to give the government and they had that kind of paperwork and you got your paycheck and it was a real paycheck the first job I had like that you had a monthly pay stub and everything that was as a video game journalist so I didn't know of course I was a journalist in general no I mean that made the most money out of writing video game reviews I did write other kinds of articles and other kinds reviews so I shouldn't just say I was only a video game journalist it's not worth describing the whole situation so okay fine I was I was a teenage journalist but really um at that time I could get like 450 dollars for one article about videogames it was ridiculous and even when I did a really really short review like like I don't even know if you like is it even really a full paragraph like a short little box of text that would be like 250 bucks so anyone who is today working in games journalism or even like professional reporting journalism will be freaking out because today good luck good luck making 450 dollars doing a feature story for Rolling Stone magazine so me real money out of video journalism some of the other combs I wrote look I could digress I did actually write some comedy columns some current events columns I wrote so Kansa and they paid me so those were the days and that that was the year when the n64 came out and I was so esteemed the video game journalist I'm joking but this is still literally true I was given an n64 in advance so this is from memory I like my video spontaneous so I'm not going to Google around and confirm all the dates what I remember as this came out first in Japan and then they had this kind of window of time when people who were really in the know and video games had already seen it and used it maybe because they flew to Japan or flew somewhere in Asia what art existed and they started giving out advanced systems to journalists and I think some of the big fancy department stores in New York City like a few key areas got units in advance that people got to see in tests and play and then there was a gap of time and then it went on sale for the general public so during that gap of time when in theory nobody else had the system but it kind of seemed like everybody had it or it cuts seems like everyone who wanted to know it or see it or try a cop try a system had already try cuz I remember even the other journalists you know when I had when they were like oh yeah I tried that in New York or something it's some some occasion some some juncture they were already they're already feeling with it um so I was given an advance copy for review and that was so early and it was before came out I think at that time technically in the United States the only two games were Mario 64 and waverace 64 that was okay my girlfriend is running off to her collection and cramming the cartridges so that was it at the absolute dawn of this are it's okay babe we don't need props the type the type of refined an area that you know viewer and videogame collector who's gonna see this doesn't need to see the garbage but yeah okay so this is anyway these are obviously not the same copies that I got for God for review anyway say go my girlfriend's childhood copy of waverace 64 but I think at that time they were like like you know it was really that early period but there were maybe five titles in existence or something and those like the first two that anyone could get their hands on and waverace 64 made a big impression on people with this already this is a segue to kind of the negative or critical portion of this review why did waverace 64 make such a positive impression on people because the graphics everything was kind of glittering and glowing and vague you know the water effect was very impressive to people but it distracted you from the fact that the graphics were blurry okay so for me and I wasn't the only one who felt this way it seemed like the n64 was a big step backward it was a big step in the wrong direction and today right now in 2018 that's they have to date here we're at the end of 2018 one shop I went into they said to me over the counter they said right now the NC 4 is the single most collectible most desirable piece of hardware they're the most desirable games and again that's partly because the games are physically on cartridge not on CD or whether you know it's relatively robust hard to break reliable medium and that's what people want they don't want CDs that get scratched they don't want these other kinds of things um that also seems like a step in the wrong direction right when this came out Sega CD was old Sega CD was a laughingstock it had been around forever and before the Sega CD the real Trail Blazer was turbo graphic CD also known as the PC engine CD and again I moved in a set of cosmopolitan people what was coming out in Japan we knew about in Toronto and this is all I can't even say pre-internet I'm sure the internet existed for some people and some but it wasn't wasn't really mainstream but people were just flying back and forth to Hong Kong or Taiwan or Japan they all had contact with the Japanese systems pc engine CD when that came out Wow big impact the laserdisc systems none of you guys will remember that Wow big I remember the laserdisc systems people were so excited they showed them as a museum exhibit they had video games playing on laser too soon you micro often do you even remember do you know what laserdisc is laserdisc is a CD the size of a vinyl LP you don't even know Wow okay so laser dust that's exactly what it is simply a CD or cd-rom but it is as big as a vinyl LP so the amount of data that can be on it is enormous and you know we need to put it on it's the whole thing you know starts up so there were laserdisc based video games and systems and again people were like when that happened people were really kind of June they were just excited and stuff okay so this comes out this comes out people want it today it's hyper desirable today because of the the cartridge but at that time cartridge the step in the wrong direction okay Wow for half a second wave race 64 looks real impressive everything's glowing and glittering and you don't notice how blurry the graphics are the blurriness a big step in the wrong direction I had as a child the model one Sega Genesis with the high-definition graphics label on if you guys don't know this the different iterations the Sega Genesis that came out the video quality was not the same so I just luck no I didn't know as a child but I was lucky I got a really crisp signal from my Sega Genesis and when you pretty much any game of them then waiver sixth or even if you're just trying to read text on screen in Wario it's pathetic ever it's like the camera has been covered with I don't know gauze or Vaseline or something everything's diaphanous everything's vague and today this this makes it even worse because when you when you put this I've seen this now we have plugged this in so my so I get this girlfriend we were together for more than a year or something before this happens we go to a parent's basement we get everybody who's at the basement she moves in with me here in Canada we'd already live together in China moving you know we'll get the n64 plug it in to HDMI hi-def UG it's terrible and it is I mean obviously this was too old this was engineered for an old-fashioned cathode ray tube monitor and I said you want to say you know I was I was just sitting down with her so she could have some kind of you know nostalgic return to her childhood with this and I said to once I said to her something I remember reading in a review of the original black and white Gameboy and I say black and white advisedly because it was green and gray I remember a review that said this fundamentally cannot be a successful video game system because it hurts your eyes to play it now that that review of course was hilariously wrong the the original green and gray Gameboy I think it still holds a record it's one of the most successful video game systems of all time play it for 30 minutes even and you it hurts your eyes there don't play it at all don't play the original hardware it's ridiculous and today in 2018 2019 2020 original hardware for n64 running on a current model flat-screen TV is pretty much unplayable because it hurts your eyes to look at it okay so I'm sorry again I didn't want to Google this so I wanna ruin the spontaneity when n64 came out sega saturn was already out that's what i remember i had them both i Sega Sega was in a really weird financial position it's coming they didn't loan me the Nintendo stuff was all alone the company loaned it to me and them want it back Sega everything was a gift so they gave me you know everything maybe a misremembering but Sega they really rolled out the red carpet they took me to Sega City I play yeah yeah so Sega City was like oh yeah yeah it was this it was a different time you know and I got to play the video games that came out before that you see you know I was a journalist you know this about me hmm you know they they had these kiosks set up and they had like eight different games that hadn't released the public yet for you know Sega Saturn at that time Sega Saturn the video was crisp it acted multiple video modes it could do kind of high resolution and low or medium resolution for different games they'd switch it up but it from my perspective gave a crisp clear signal at every resolution it did they were all it was it was just fundamentally competent as a system nobody wants today nobody wants to collect scratched up CDs and I think the whole world is waiting it looks like Sega is now going to put out a retro console to make the the Saturn games available but whatever we'll see but it's not it's not that great a library it's not that important um so the n64 right now at the end of 2018 the the writing is on the wall the expectation is there Nintendo first brought out the NES classic or the NES mini people call it both they reissued that then they brought out the Super Nintendo the SNES classic also known as the SNES mini what's next everyone is counting down to the n64 classic or the n64 mini coming up the problem is what nobody expects them to do is bring out a reissued classic system with the cartridge slot so kind of a dead end so you I mean you the audience but also you my girlfriend who have a collection of n64 cartridges would you really want a reissued system where you can't use the cartridges because the whole strength of this today so babe why don't you grab for me the the Nintendo Wii controller and one of the n64 controllers you second tier notes because this is the other thing I want to mention so at that time you know the thanks babe at that time the Saturn had an award-winning controller that's still to this day people say some people say was the greatest video game controller of all time okay so I think it was technically the Saturn model to controller model the model one was excellent too and people loved it and but it's a simple straightforward controller and this you know people really got excited with us it's wacky it's asymmetrical you hold it and then use it in a symmetrical fashion you hold it here in the middle you know as this oh yeah and so yours is all plastic my review copy the the shaft of joystick was steel so I noticed that so this must be a model - did you have one what steel ever no yes and then so that was at there this is all plastic but I remember a steel shaft and steel ball anyway whatever they probably work because exactly the same probably the steel rusts or something there's some problem but you know at that time you know the Street Fighter games we're still a big big deal and Nintendo tried to have their cake and eat it too here by having these six buttons so to be possible to do the Street later pardon me the Street Fighter layout but Capcom ended up really backing Sega and it was on the was on the Saturn all the Capcom games came out and came out close to arcade perfect so Nintendo mr. Vonn that the controller is still in my opinion fundamentally a joint light so this system in every other respect aside from the controller was a huge step backwards it was a step in the wrong direction right and another thing we won't even get into it here if you guys don't know about this they did this scam with the memory expansion cart you guys the jump pack versus the expansion pack Hill it was like oh my god this is like going back to the bad old days of turbo graphics 16 with like ripoff RAM expansion packs so in a lot of ways this step backwards and at this same time right Sega Saturn you could at least play audio CDs we go sway video CDs not DVDs yet and I mean everyone knew that was the killer app was having multiple legit uses for it and Internet connectivity and that stuff was coming along couldn't do much than Internet connectivity but it existed you could play Phantasy Star Online or some crap if you really wanted to throw a lot of money at these isms but this this was in many ways the kind of masterpiece of the system it's wacky it's surreal its original still to this day this is what you can't reproduce so a lot of the software from the n64 you can play on some other system right and this is what I want to say sorry I was mentioning so waverace 64 comes out this is a memory you had to live through it at that time we had to be a games journalist it's okay did these are the launch titles right Mario 64 comes out and then you know when I was really news when people really talk about this the very first Zelda game for n64 it doesn't matter which I free which whether it was aquamarine as timeless you got it kick you want to get it okay when the first Zelda game came out for n64 okay there we go so ocarina of time when the suck a few gotcha that's cool written on from childhood she's got her name French on the carnage so the very first Zelda game comes out for n64 and you know what the scandal was you could run the game better on a PC on a personal computer you could run it better on a Windows system than you could on n64 so for whatever reason it wasn't one Mario 64 came out that really hit people I don't know why maybe it's the style of the game where seats where people didn't really care but then when this came out people including games journalists were playing it not on n64 hardware they were playing it on PCs they were playing on a PC emulator of some kind they were taking screenshots and uploading and saying hey look the graphics are crisper and cleaner and it renders better and you can see objects in the distance better and you can read the text better that maybe that was what it was and I remember I was saying that but you have to read text on screen for this right reading text on screen for the n64 is horrible this is like worse than Atari ok maybe this is all right going back to Atari 2600 this is really terrible going back to Commodore 64 I remember reading text on screen with Commodore 64 that was pretty awful so for whatever reason when this came out and that just was like the nail in the coffin for so many people or was like hey guess what n64 is way too expensive for what it is the video quality sucks the hardware was already obsolete on day one when it came out and at that time their competition wasn't just Sega Saturn was also pcs was also personal computers personal computers were still bringing out big box games making a lot of money selling games on CDs and other format really at that time was games on CDs cd-rom format for PC so the head competition from there and that oh you could feel it you could just feel the excitement and optimism drain out of it right but so still today you have the option doing this of course you could play this game Zelda or Mario 64 on some other platform right and I know Mario 64 specifically this was reissued on gameboy advance or qds or 3d s or all of them yeah it was reissued on one of the okay yeah 3ds something it's been reissued oh but if you play any of the reissues what you lose is exactly the wonky imperfect brilliance of the controller and if people tell me the GameCube controller is even better it's fundamentally similar to this and the GameCube controller are similar but I mean that's you know love it or hate it this and the GameCube controller that's really the of Nintendo controllers guess what guess what comes next this this monstrosity this is the pathetic eighty climax to whatever 25 years of video game development talk about a step in the wrong direction I'm sorry so this this had to complete compete with the Sega Saturn you know controller that as I mentioned won awards and people absolutely and they still love to this day right what what are they thinking right so this is my point this this controller you'll never really get the same experience playing an n64 game on a computer and emulation or on a Nintendo 3ds or a portable platform or anything else that it might be adapted to play on a feature some other some other hardware okay and and this is the exact opposite any game you have on the Wii U would be better playing with the keyboard you'd be better with any monster format you could it's so awful it's such a terrible step in the wrong direction it's console and all the finicky crap with getting the wireless to work and getting it synced up and all this graph it's terrible and I know this because I have a child I have a five-year-old daughter I put up with all this video game crap in my life because yeah yeah yeah yeah I know so my girlfriend is poignant you can't but how many games how many games he's even work with then it's still not better in my opinion I don't think this is good this is the Wii pro or whatever good luck you know enough and have some games work with it in some games don't and you still have to deal with all the finicky wireless crap were to have you so yeah um that's it I mean guys you know look why do people play video games I think for me as an adult either I'm playing video games with my daughter or like I might be interested in a video game for the length of time it takes you to do a bowel movement my level of patience so these games people consider great classics like Oh 40 hours of gameplay yeah really really homeboy you got 40 hours I got a lot of things I can do with 40 hours of my life you know does that um it blows my mind a little bit that people put 40 hours into a game as an adult etc etc but it's for this reason both of these reasons that people are really more interested than ever in classic systems in retro game because it fulfills the two things one a lot of software that's great for kids and I'm a parent I look I do not see a lot of software that's great for kids on current generation systems well and it's so much money do you want to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a Nintendo switch or a ps4 or an Xbox one for just a couple of games that are kind of child safe and child friendly and you know if those systems are aimed at core gamers Nintendo switched you could do a separate video on but it's finicky it's fragile your kid can't spill orange juice on it the actual controller sliding England switch is really a non-starter my daughter already broke a 2ds a Nintendo studious so they're not invincible and this is I could probably throw this on the floor now and it's not going to [ __ ] this is I mean even sore even the ports for the for the controller are really rugged and so on this is kid-friendly hardware and it's kid-friendly software there's a lot pretty much every game it's gonna be good for kids and then on the other hand if you're actually an adult so what do we actually have in the slot here we have Road Rash 64 that's a solid 5 minutes of gameplay right that's a solid you know that's about the time it takes to have a bowel movement this is not gonna compete with reading Thomas Hobbes Leviathan this is not going to compete with reading books or substance or what have you but this is something you know so with retro gaming you know I think you have both and here's the funny thing the market for that potentially and actually is larger than the market for core gamers parents casual gamers etc it's a huge number of people and the real competition in 2018-2019 is with playing video games on your phone or tablet which I personally I'm not interested I don't even I don't really think I'm in horizon this but the question is now can someone put together you know a classic reissue console like we had for the Sega Genesis recently deeply flawed console can do leave a like leave a comment below the video I can do another video we can do a comparative head-to-head review the classic Genesis reissue and the classics Nintendo Wii issue we got it all I'll give a link to my main channel too if you if some of you guys are watching this as video game players who wonder who is this crazy guy with a 5 year old daughter making these videos but yeah as a library of games and just as an interface as a controller and as a refreshing contrast to the garbage that Nintendo became soon thereafter in my biased opinion and specifically for titles like ocarina of time there's there's a lot of demand and everyone's saying yeah people pay large amounts of money people are trying to collect people are trying to trying to buy up the legacy of the n64 so you tell me 2019 2020 is this the year of the n64 classic of the n64 mini and if so would you buy it for yourself would you buy it for your son daughter grandson or granddaughter if you want a system that's certainly pornography free child you know child friendly intuitive easy to use and nearly indestructible I think you can throw this on the ground a lot harder than you can throw a 3ds or throw a Nintendo switch the whole your kid drops the antenna switch to the ground it's kind of a no-brainer but ultimately don't play video games that hurt your eyes for me right now hooking up to a current flat screen not even for five minutes