[Editor’s Note: Authors were told to approach their game of the year lists however they wanted, including listing their favorite games they personally played this year regardless of release year.]
Like 2022, I played many Nintendo 64 games in 2023. I don’t know the exact number because some were repeats from 2022, but 27 of them were different from last year’s list.
27) World Driver Championship
The N64 is undefeated when it comes to bad racing games.
26) Beetle Adventure Racing
Justin, avert your eyes! I think what Beetle attempts to do is ambitious, but ultimately, I’m just not a fan. I will return to it at some point to try and beat it, but I won’t look forward to it.
25) Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest
The drop off from Griffey 1 to Griffey 2 felt significant after playing them back-to-back.
24) Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics
When I was a kid, my dad and I would occasionally go to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls. As an adult, I almost never golf; that said, I think I might actually be able to get a better score playing a real 18 holes than I ever have playing this game. Most recently I scored a +32 playing this game and that was one of the best scores of our group.
23) CyberTiger
On the opposite side of the spectrum, CyberTiger is an arcade golf game that gives you power-ups as you play. It’s easy to the point of being boring.
22) GT 64: Championship Edition
Another racing game and it’s fine. We tested out whether it was faster to slow down as you take the turns or just go nothing but gas and ride the walls. I slowed down. My friend rode the walls. He beat me by one second.
21) Carmageddon 64
This is probably way higher than it deserves to be and is being saved by the fact that I didn’t play the full game. There’s absolutely no reason to make a racing game where later levels “increased” difficulty is implemented by making the player do more laps. The fact that you can win the race by destroying the other cars is the only reason it isn’t at the bottom.
20) NBA Jam ‘99
This ranking might hurt some people’s feelings. Note that these are based on single-player experiences. Ultimately, most of these arcade-style sports games are so much better against another person.
19-17) NFL Blitz/NFL Blitz 2000/NFL Blitz 2001
Like NBA Jam, the “On fire” mechanic of these arcade sports games make them either way too easy or nearly impossible against a CPU opponent depending on who’s on fire. For both, I think NBA/NFL Street greatly improved upon the arcade sports formula.
16-14) Fox Sports College Hoops ‘99/Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside/NBA Live 99
It’s basketball.
13) PGA European Tour
The intro music is basically “Lo-fi Chill Beats to Golf to” and while the gameplay is nothing special, that song is good enough to place it above most of the other sports games.
12) Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey, Jr.
Every now and again the conversation of “Most Dominant Video Game Athlete” comes around. The most common names are Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl, Pablo Sanchez in the Backyard Sports games, and Michael Vick in just about every game he’s in. I’m here to submit Barry Bonds in Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey, Jr. to that list.
11) AeroFighters Assault
AeroFighters Assault is a combat flight simulator. Within my friend group there is one level that lives in infamy for how bad it is. Honestly, I didn’t love what I did play, but the game is intriguing enough to revisit.
10) Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth
It’s a shoot ‘em up with some bullet hell tendencies. You’re either gonna vibe with that or you’re not.
9) San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing
The races in Rush are unnecessarily long, but that makes it the perfect “Banter with your friends about random stuff” game. The highlight of the conversation was a discussion of the Heinz Remix machine, and which flavors we would want to add to our condiments.
8) International Superstar Soccer ‘98
A genuinely incredible achievement by ISS ‘98 to transcend the sports section, even if just by a few entries. The coolest thing about this game is “Scenario Mode.” Basically, the game drops you into a historic game and you must complete the team’s comeback or hold onto victory despite the odds. This isn’t an uncommon mode for sports games to include, but it isn’t common enough.
7) 1080° Snowboarding
*Insert Paul Rudd meme here* Who would’ve thought that a game that’s both racing AND sports would make it this high? Not me, that’s for sure. A great soundtrack (and decent gameplay) can really do wonders for a game.
6) Goldeneye 007
The most difficult thing about going back to Goldeneye in the present day is how dark so many of the levels are. This is an issue with a lot of N64 games, but Goldeneye is particularly bad about it. I think it’s still worth a playthrough, but know that the second half of the game is pretty rough.
5) 007: The World is Not Enough
While Goldeneye has higher highs than TWINE, I’d also argue that it has far lower lows. I can certainly understand why many might put Goldeneye above it, but having played through both multiple times, there aren’t really any levels in TWINE that I dread. The same can’t be said about Goldeneye.
4) Mega Man 64
Mega Man 64 was a lot more fun than I was expecting. It’s definitely a little awkward to control in 3D, and there was a learning curve to figuring it out, but I think it’s worth looking into if you’re given the chance.
3) Harvest Moon 64
The Harvest Moon games created the blueprint for all the farming life simulators out there today: you grow crops and you try to seduce one of the townspeople into marrying you. For the person I chose, I had to show her my dog (not a euphemism) every day. A friend brought his person an orange every day. One day, after doing this for about an in-game month, he talked to her without bringing an orange and she said, “Oh, it’s you. What’s your name again?” It was a soul-crushing moment for us all. Love hurts, man.
2) Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark holds up incredibly well. This is one of the first N64 games I ever played as a kid. I went to a friend’s house for a sleepover, and we rented it from Hollywood Video and played it all night. Also, while Grant Kirkhope and Graeme Norgate get a ton of love for the Goldeneye music (and understandably so), the Perfect Dark title screen music is some of the best ever made.
1) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Randomizer)
So, technically this should’ve been included in 2022 because I do an Ocarina of Time randomizer every year for a specific event, but I forgot to include it. OoT was one of the best games ever made when it was released in 1998 and it remains one of the best games ever made. Having played it countless times, the randomizer adds a new element that makes each playthrough unique. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re a fan of the game.
