The N64 Mythology

[SegaSonic91]

I never, ever got the love that was and still is, heaped upon the N64 by the yanks. It is one of the worst consoles ever for me and the only reason I was glad I had the thing was for Ocarina of Time. Great game, but again, HIGHLY OVER-RATED for me. Best game of all time?!?!?!?! Fuck off!!! What a joke! My original PAL N64 collection is 6 or 7 games, I think. The only other game I enjoyed a lot was the first Ganbare! Goemon game, never managed to get the far superior 2nd game back in the day but I did hire it once. Hybrid Heaven was a game I remember looking forward to and gawd did it suck! I feel INCREDIBLY sorry for anyone that went through possibly the second greatest gaming era ever, after 16-BIT, with nothing but a N64! Poor bastards! It would have been even worse than owning an NES instead of an SMS!

Second to my not understanding the N64 love, is the RARE love. They have to be the most over rated and over hyped developers of all time. I liked Conker on the XBOX and that is about it. I HATE Super Donkey Kong with a burning passion and think it is one of the worst platformers I ever played. I have gone back to it many times but still hate it to this day. The Banjo Kazooie games are another series I do not like. Not even slightly. I adore platformers, I hate RARE games though. The Ratchet & Clank series is about 10 billion times better than any of RARE's games for me. I love that series so much. Naughty Dog whom for me, is the greatest development team on the planet today, also made 2 series of platformers that were far and away better than RARE's games for me. The N64, GC and Wii show exactly how weak nintendo consoles really are when it comes to games. The Famicom and Super Famicom are the amazing systems they are because of the hundreds of third party games they were home to. Where as with SEGA and SONY, you could take the third party games away and still have amazing systems. MS is in the nintendo camp and the shit that is the XBOXONE is proving that, yet again.

[Team Andromeda]

I also would've loved to see some Neo Geo games on the N64. It's funny how people say Sony was anti-2D with the PSx

SONY America didn't like 2D games on the system. SONY Europe and Japan didn't have such issues though and well the N64 wasn't made with 2D in mind at all .

[Obviously]

It would have been even worse than owning an NES instead of an SMS!

Only giving you a pass on that because the NES was kind of shit in PAL regions.

Second to my not understanding the N64 love, is the RARE love.

Yeah I tend to agree, there are some Rare games I enjoy but I think people go overboard in praising them. If they would have fired whoever thought it was a good idea to make every game into a pointless collectathon maybe I'd be more forgiving.

They were certainly technically skilled when it came to getting the most out of the N64 hardware though.

[goldenband]

I admit I was underwhelmed with Mario 64. I am a huge Super Mario World fun. I actually think it is one of the best if not the best platformer ever, I would choose that over any Sonic and I love my Sonic. Knowing this I was expecting Mario on the Ultra 64 to be SMW on steroids, what I got instead was something of a blue balls feeling.

I liked the game art style, graphics sure were spot on (if somewhat blurry, but that's something I then came to expect from every N64 game) the soundtrack was refreshing and overall it was a rather fun experience.

That is until I reached the first "you need XX stars to proceed" door. At that point, I had no idea that the game wanted me to play all the levels countless times to find this or that thing, do this or that ..essentially a way to force you into playing in the same field over and over again. Now , I got all the Yoshi coins in SMW, all the bonus levels, everything you can think of, but that was after many playthroughs. I decided the pace i wanted to set for my own game, usually the first run of a game was always aimed towards beating the game, if I liked the game then a second run was in order, to memorize the levels, enemies patterns and so on.
After that it was secret hunting time. Mario 64 instead forced me to collect a lot of stuff when all I wanted at the moment was to just go on and see different stages, worlds, hear different music tracks , enjoy the game at the pace I felt was right.

This is such a good point, and certainly one of the reasons that so many people (myself included) are put off by collectathons: when item collection is a requirement for immediate progress in the game's main timeline, rather than a way to get an extra reward.

Compulsory cleverness, mandatory secrets, scouring an undercooked landscape to find that one object that's tucked away somewhere stupid, and all this just to play the game you paid for: not my cup of tea.

BTW I'm not a big 3D platformer guy, but I thought Croc did a decent job with its collectathon aspects.

[j_factor]

I'm not strictly opposed to item collection necessarily, but for me Super Mario 64 does it in the absolute most annoying way possible. The stars are not consistent in how you acquire them, the game isn't clear about your objectives, it makes no actual distinction between "main" stars and "secret" or "extra" stars, and when it says you need X stars to proceed it's a completely arbitrary number. So for me a lot of the experience was wandering around aimlessly, which I found really boring. I also really dislike the premise of doing work to unlock the next area, as if the game is doing me a favor by allowing me to proceed.

I think I would have liked the game more if it had more structure. Instead of everything being a star, with gates requiring an arbitrary minimum number that can come from anywhere, have it divvied up in some way. Every level should have a small set of mandatory objectives which would be clearly spelled out and checked off as you complete them. Take care of those and you clear the level; e.g. clear level 2 to unlock level 3. No need for them to be represented as stars or any other object that you're collecting. You can still have the rest of the stuff in the game as optional/side missions, and you can still tally up all the optional stuff and have players go for 100% completion of the game if they want to. Cut the crap.

[A Black Falcon]

I also would've loved to see some Neo Geo games on the N64. It's funny how people say Sony was anti-2D with the PSx but go look at the N64 and there was what a handful of 2D games released not even sure if there are any 2D fighters on the system. With that being said I would be very interested in seeing how many multitaps were sold with the NES, SNES, Genesis, Saturn, PSx and even PS2. I don't remember anybody owning one even with the Genesis being a sports powerhouse and the PSx too. And it's not like they were that expensive I mean they typically cost 19.99 which was the same the standard controllers back then.

It was Sony of America that was anti-2d, not Sony of Japan. That explains a lot of it -- Japan had no problem with the PS1 having lots of 2d games there.

As for Nintendo, they were never anti-2d. It was the price of making cartridge games that limited the number of 2d games on the N64. Publishers paying for N64 cartridges rarely wanted to pay all that money for relatively niche games like 2d games had become that generation. 3d was mass-market, 2d not so much.

It's hard to balance for four players, while at the same time making the game playable for 1-2 players. Either the game is too easy in four player mode, or the screen gets too busy and overwhelming. I mean, have you played Guardian Heroes a lot? It already gets pretty crazy at times, with two players plus the AI robot guy and a screen full of enemies. Two more players on top of that? I can only imagine how hectic that would be.

I have played Guardian Heroes a little, but didn't like it that much. The three-lines thing is poor design, let me move around the screen like normal in a beat 'em up! But I guess the three-lines thing would make four player play harder to make good. Still, it could at least have had three...

Well Three Dirty Dwarfs did have a 3 player co-op

Oh right, it did didn't it. Well, it's not quite four, but it is awesome that that game has that, it's the only console beat 'em up before the PS2 to have more than 2 player co-op.

I liked the game art style, graphics sure were spot on (if somewhat blurry, but that's something I then came to expect from every N64 game) the soundtrack was refreshing and overall it was a rather fun experience.

That is until I reached the first "you need XX stars to proceed" door. At that point, I had no idea that the game wanted me to play all the levels countless times to find this or that thing, do this or that ..essentially a way to force you into playing in the same field over and over again. Now , I got all the Yoshi coins in SMW, all the bonus levels, everything you can think of, but that was after many playthroughs. I decided the pace i wanted to set for my own game, usually the first run of a game was always aimed towards beating the game, if I liked the game then a second run was in order, to memorize the levels, enemies patterns and so on.
After that it was secret hunting time. Mario 64 instead forced me to collect a lot of stuff when all I wanted at the moment was to just go on and see different stages, worlds, hear different music tracks , enjoy the game at the pace I felt was right.
I stopped playing 3d platformers with Mario 64, so that was my first one and the last one almost. I'm not counting Sonic Adventure since that's a particular almost racing game-esque style of platformer. Actually the only 3d platformers I really enjoyed are the recent SM3DW on the WIi U and SM3DL on 3DS.

I learned just now that you guys were referring to Mario 64 styled games as collectathon and it definitely makes a LOT of sense.

This is pretty far off-base. I mean, what do you want? Do you want to be able to just play each level once and then go straight to the end? That'd make the game absurdly short. Mario 64 and games like it are designed around having large open levels, and those kinds of levels take a lot of work to get right. Most 3d platformers have far fewer levels than Mario 64 does, in fact -- the N64 Rare games usually have eight or so. If you only had to get one star in each level or something to progress, the game would only take a couple of hours to finish and that'd be pretty disappointing. The "decide your own pace" thing you say here makes no sense. Of course you have to gate things, you want people to actually play most of the game to finish it! You can't go to world eight after finishing the first stage of Super Mario World, why should that be allowed in Mario 64?

Your mistake is thinking of each level as a single stage, while in fact each STAR is a different stage, that just happen to share the same map as the other stars on that map. (You don't need to get more than maybe half of the stars to beat Mario 64, though; the rest are optional.)

On that point, the reason to make levels as large as they are in Mario 64 and similar games is to make levels that can have multiple objectives. It's one of the strengths of the genre -- unlike a linear game, in Mario 64-style 3d platformers you rarely have one thing you can do at any point. You usually have a lot of options, lots of different missions you can play often in different levels. That is one of the strengths of the genre! Each star makes the level different; you aren't playing the same thing lots of times, it's always different. And if you get stuck in one, you can just go try something else. It's great.

Anyway, I bought many other games for my 64 but mostly was disappointed because my favourite genres were either not covered or were just ham fisted attempts of a game.
Fighting games, Jrpgs, Action/Survival horror games, Racing games, notable arcade ports. These are all genres that almost do not exist on the 64, and usually when there are some they are really poor or at the very least uninspired and bland.

... Uhh, the N64's racing game library is perhaps the largest of any genre on the platform, and it's got many of the best racing games ever as well. And the N64's 3d fighting games are fine as well. Those other genres I'll give you (including 2d fighting games of course), but definitely not those two. The N64 has one of the best racing game libraries of any console ever.

Oh, and one other thing to keep in mind is that there are more than 50 more N64 games released in the US than Europe. Europe did miss out on some titles.

Only giving you a pass on that because the NES was kind of shit in PAL regions.

Actually the NES did just as well in Europe as a whole as the SMS did. Sega did better in the UK, but not every other country. It's hard to directly compare the numbers because Nintendo's "Other" region includes not only Europe but also everywhere else that isn't in Japan or the Americas, but NES "Other" numbers are slightly above Sega SMS "Europe" sales numbers.

This is such a good point, and certainly one of the reasons that so many people (myself included) are put off by collectathons: when item collection is a requirement for immediate progress in the game's main timeline, rather than a way to get an extra reward.

Compulsory cleverness, mandatory secrets, scouring an undercooked landscape to find that one object that's tucked away somewhere stupid, and all this just to play the game you paid for: not my cup of tea.

As I say above, I can't make any sense out of this argument at all. Of course you want people to actually play most of a game before finishing it... Mario 64 or Rare N64 3d platformer levels are not a single stage like a level in Crash or Croc or something, they are a lot of levels all combined into one.

BTW I'm not a big 3D platformer guy, but I thought Croc did a decent job with its collectathon aspects.

I love Croc as well, Nintendo choosing to not pick that game up was a big mistake! Croc in its original Yoshi form could have been a big help to the N64's 1997, the only year Nintendo and Rare both didn't have any 3d platformers for the system to release... Nintendo abandoning Argonaut was a mistake. (They should have released Star Fox 2 for SNES back in 1995 as well; because of the N64's delays, their reason for canceling it ended up being mistaken, the game would have released more than a year before the N64!)

But yeah, I've said before that Croc is my favorite 3d platformer for the PS1. It's a great game, I've liked it ever since I played the PC version back in the '90s. The only real flaw is that sometimes jumps are hard to judge, but you get used to it.

[Hans-CD]

This is pretty far off-base. I mean, what do you want? Do you want to be able to just play each level once and then go straight to the end? That'd make the game absurdly short. Mario 64 and games like it are designed around having large open levels, and those kinds of levels take a lot of work to get right. Most 3d platformers have far fewer levels than Mario 64 does, in fact -- the N64 Rare games usually have eight or so. If you only had to get one star in each level or something to progress, the game would only take a couple of hours to finish and that'd be pretty disappointing. The "decide your own pace" thing you say here makes no sense. Of course you have to gate things, you want people to actually play most of the game to finish it! You can't go to world eight after finishing the first stage of Super Mario World, why should that be allowed in Mario 64?

Your mistake is thinking of each level as a single stage, while in fact each STAR is a different stage, that just happen to share the same map as the other stars on that map. (You don't need to get more than maybe half of the stars to beat Mario 64, though; the rest are optional.)

On that point, the reason to make levels as large as they are in Mario 64 and similar games is to make levels that can have multiple objectives. It's one of the strengths of the genre -- unlike a linear game, in Mario 64-style 3d platformers you rarely have one thing you can do at any point. You usually have a lot of options, lots of different missions you can play often in different levels. That is one of the strengths of the genre! Each star makes the level different; you aren't playing the same thing lots of times, it's always different. And if you get stuck in one, you can just go try something else. It's great.


... Uhh, the N64's racing game library is perhaps the largest of any genre on the platform, and it's got many of the best racing games ever as well. And the N64's 3d fighting games are fine as well. Those other genres I'll give you (including 2d fighting games of course), but definitely not those two. The N64 has one of the best racing game libraries of any console ever.

Oh, and one other thing to keep in mind is that there are more than 50 more N64 games released in the US than Europe. Europe did miss out on some titles.


Actually the NES did just as well in Europe as a whole as the SMS did. Sega did better in the UK, but not every other country. It's hard to directly compare the numbers because Nintendo's "Other" region includes not only Europe but also everywhere else that isn't in Japan or the Americas, but NES "Other" numbers are slightly above Sega SMS "Europe" sales numbers.

Regarding Mario 64, I did not say I want to "skip" to the end. Can you do that in SMW? No, of course. Now, if YOU perceive the stars as levels, that's fine, good for you. For me levels are the paintings you jump into.

When I spoke about setting my own pace, where did I ever say I wanted a game genie to jump from lvl 1 to the end? Setting your own pace means playing the game from start to finish with YOUR pace, read, if you want you can reach world 2 in SMW just by not dying and finishing the levels. After that you may want to search for secret blocks, coins, secret exits and so on, but that's completely optional and you can even postpone that to a completely different playthrough.

If stars are level progression, then I feel it is a flawed design.

About the racing games I honestly feel there's not even the need to dwelve into details as to why you're wrong. I agree that there are racing games, but qualitatively speaking only very few of them excel, and usually they are not arcade enough or not simulative enough. If I wanted racing games during that gen, for arcade racers I'd look to both Saturn and Psx , for "simulators" (or rather, less arcade :P) I'd turn my head to PSX.

Obviously for a few fun races while drinking with my friends Mario Kart 64 was the game of choice. About the titles not coming to Europe, I played games from all the regions. Actually my most played games on N64 are Japanese and they are SRW, Sin and Punishment and Bomberman 64 whenever Mario Kart 64 was gettingboring with friends.
Back then actually I usually bought consoles at the Japanese launch and then bought the PAL version, the first "pal" only console I've got was the PS3 in 2007 (even though many years later I bought a Japanese Slim to play P4A). N64 was cool as my local store sold Japanese systems with a modded region switch from JP to US , just like they did with the GC years later! I think it was fairly common back then, as I had my Saturn modded in a similar way during 96.

So don't play the "you don't know jack about what was outside Europe" card with me. Sadly, just like many other old European dinosaurs I HAD to know what was outside our silly region if I wanted to keep up with the gaming world.

By the way yes N64 was so popular back then, not on par with the PSX but definitely stole Sega's thunder. Never understood why. I guess most grown ups/sega fans bought a PSX and most younger lads/nintendo fans got an N64. Sega really did a bad job in passing on the torch from SMS to MD to Saturn here..sadly.

[Gogogadget]

The problem with a consoles library having racing games as it's biggest strength, racing games usually date faster than any other genre.

[Hans-CD]

The problem with a consoles library having racing games as it's biggest strength, racing games usually date faster than any other genre.

I won't disagree, but I cannot agree that a lack thereof (i mean quality racing) is not a flaw either.

[Gogogadget]

Oh yeah racing games can be great fun, but I mean like sports games they kinda become redundant, Gran Turismo 2 was one of the finest simulation racing games of that era easy, but I can't recommend it because why would you want to play that now, just play Gran Turismo 6 on PS3 or Forza 5 on Xbone or whatever simulation racing game is fun for you.

It's pretty much the same tracks and same cars, just generations ahead.

There is fun to be found in old cart racers mostly because of unique track designs but MK64 and DKR are definitely not the best of the genre either.

[Hans-CD]

Oh yeah racing games can be great fun, but I mean like sports games they kinda become redundant, Gran Turismo 2 was one of the finest simulation racing games of that era easy, but I can't recommend it because why would you want to play that now, just play Gran Turismo 6 on PS3 or Forza 5 on Xbone or whatever simulation racing game is fun for you.

It's pretty much the same tracks and same cars, just generations ahead.

There is fun to be found in old cart racers mostly because of unique track designs but MK64 and DKR are definitely not the best of the genre either.

We were talking mostly about what felt like relying solely on N64 at the time, that's why you couldn't go "back" to Gt6 or Forza 5.
If we are talking about racing in general, then I agree that arcade racers and the like are the only go to games (with some exceptions, see for example Gp4 on PC)

In general,while I agree that most non-arcade racers don't always withstand the test of time, arcade racers do. You could go back to games to aim for an hi score any time, and every arcade racer game controls very different from one another. Good arcade gameplay never gets old.

[Gogogadget]

We were talking mostly about what felt like relying solely on N64 at the time, that's why you couldn't go "back" to Gt6 or Forza 5.
If we are talking about racing in general, then I agree that arcade racers and the like are the only go to games (with some exceptions, see for example Gp4 on PC)

In general,while I agree that most non-arcade racers don't always withstand the test of time, arcade racers do. You could go back to games to aim for an hi score any time, and every arcade racer game controls very different from one another. Good arcade gameplay never gets old.

Also helps that you don't really get arcade racers anymore as most developers are trying to cram racers with content. The newest arcade racer I ever really play is Sega Rally on Saturn actually.

[A Black Falcon]

Regarding Mario 64, I did not say I want to "skip" to the end. Can you do that in SMW? No, of course. Now, if YOU perceive the stars as levels, that's fine, good for you. For me levels are the paintings you jump into.

That's the point, levels in Mario 64 are NOT analogous to levels in Super Mario World. Levels in Mario 64 are analogous to WORLDS in Super Mario World. Please try to understand that. That's how 3d platformers like Mario 64 work. Levels are huge and are designed to take time just like a world does in a 2d Mario game.

When I spoke about setting my own pace, where did I ever say I wanted a game genie to jump from lvl 1 to the end? Setting your own pace means playing the game from start to finish with YOUR pace, read, if you want you can reach world 2 in SMW just by not dying and finishing the levels.

And that's exactly how Mario 64 works. Once you have completed enough levels (stars) to progress, you can move forward. Again, the open-level 3d platformer design requires gates, or otherwerise the game would be like an hour long.

After that you may want to search for secret blocks, coins, secret exits and so on, but that's completely optional and you can even postpone that to a completely different playthrough.

Extra stars are not like secret exits. They are like different levels.

If stars are level progression, then I feel it is a flawed design.

That may be your opinion, but I definitely don't share it. It's a great design, because it gives you choice! Stuck with one mission? That's fine, you can just go do another one, or three. It also gives variety, as the many objectives often require you to play differently to complete them. Rare's N64 3d platformers would emphasize variety even more, to great result.

About the racing games I honestly feel there's not even the need to dwelve into details as to why you're wrong. I agree that there are racing games, but qualitatively speaking only very few of them excel, and usually they are not arcade enough or not simulative enough. If I wanted racing games during that gen, for arcade racers I'd look to both Saturn and Psx , for "simulators" (or rather, less arcade :P) I'd turn my head to PSX.

I'm not wrong. I own almost every single racing game for the N64, and it's a superlative library that no other console matches if you like arcade-style racing games. Sure, if you love sim racers there isn't as much, but I don't care one bit for sims so that doesn't matter at all. The point is that the N64 has a LOT of racing games, more than almost any other genre on the platform, and a lot of them are quite good.

For some specific examples, of course San Francisco Rush 2049 is a near-perfect masterpiece and my favorite game ever made in which you drive a vehicle, and F-Zero X (the best F-Zero game, and I LOVE the franchise), Wipeout 64 (the best Wipeout game of the generation), and Excitebike 64 (one of the best motorcycle games ever) are all among the best racing games ever made as well. Wave Race 64 (one of the best water racing games ever, this game is still nearly unmatched in its field!), Hydro Thunder, San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing (a great version of one of the best arcade racing games ever), Extreme-G 2, Cruis'n World and Exotica, California Speed, Top Gear Rally, Top Gear Overdrive, Top Gear Hyper-Bike, Big Mountain 2000, 1080 Snowboarding, World Driver Championship, Rally Challenge 2000, and more are also good to great.

Overall, the N64 has more racing games than the Saturn (I've added them up, this is a fact), and more good racing games than the Saturn as well, in my opinion. Of course the PS1 has far more, but most are quite uninteresting for me... there are some good PS1 racing games, but most aren't that great.

Obviously for a few fun races while drinking with my friends Mario Kart 64 was the game of choice. About the titles not coming to Europe, I played games from all the regions. Actually my most played games on N64 are Japanese and they are SRW, Sin and Punishment and Bomberman 64 whenever Mario Kart 64 was gettingboring with friends.
Back then actually I usually bought consoles at the Japanese launch and then bought the PAL version, the first "pal" only console I've got was the PS3 in 2007 (even though many years later I bought a Japanese Slim to play P4A). N64 was cool as my local store sold Japanese systems with a modded region switch from JP to US , just like they did with the GC years later! I think it was fairly common back then, as I had my Saturn modded in a similar way during 96.

So don't play the "you don't know jack about what was outside Europe" card with me. Sadly, just like many other old European dinosaurs I HAD to know what was outside our silly region if I wanted to keep up with the gaming world.

By the way yes N64 was so popular back then, not on par with the PSX but definitely stole Sega's thunder. Never understood why. I guess most grown ups/sega fans bought a PSX and most younger lads/nintendo fans got an N64. Sega really did a bad job in passing on the torch from SMS to MD to Saturn here..sadly.

Sony stole Sega's thunder, not Nintendo. Sony and Sega were in direct competition for the same market, and Sega lost badly.

The N64 mostly was popular with Nintendo fans (the many SNES owners) and teen and 20-something shooter and wresting fans. I discussed this recently, but this "Nintendo is kiddy" suggestion you make here is thoroughly wrong. Have you also forgotten that the best-selling M-rated game of the generation as on the N64, not the PS1? Yeah, there's a big dropoff from Goldeneye to the next M-rated N64 game in sales, but still, that's a lot of teen and 20-something gamers who bought N64s for Goldeneye. Of course Nintendo had a fanbase of kids, but they also had a fanbase of older gamers. That's how it was in the US.

It was only with the entry of the Xbox that Nintendo lost that older market -- Unfortunately, Halo really stole away that audience that Nintendo had built up with Goldeneye.

The problem with a consoles library having racing games as it's biggest strength, racing games usually date faster than any other genre.

There definitely is a period in the early to mid '90s where developers were trying to make 3d racing games but made games that feel VERY dated in retrospect, but I think the N64 missed the worst of it, thankfully; the system has fewer of those games with only one to three tracks and walled courses with narrow tracks with walls on both sides, compared to previous systems, for instance. There are some very dated N64 racing games (Automobili Lamborghini, GT64, etc...), but the better ones aren't like that. I think the kinds of racing games I like the best, the more arcadey and futuristic (and less real-car-themed) games have aged better, or maybe it's just that I love that style, I'm not sure. Futuristic racing games are, sadly, something you hardly ever see these days, tragically... I still love them, I want more! For instance Hydro Thunder Hurricane and Fatal Inertia are among my favorite racing games on the Xbox 360... but there's almost nothing else in the genre on the platform. It's kind of sad.

Also, almost all N64 racing games have multiplayer, and many support four players -- no other system of the time could say that, certainly; the Ps1 and Saturn have lots of 1-player-only racing games, and badly dated simulators. Oh, and yeah, arcade racing games probably have aged better than simulators, though I never have liked simmish racing games all that much so I wasn't playing them much back then either. But arcade racing games age too sometimes, of course; something like the first Ridge Racer, sure it's an arcade game, but with its dated graphics, 1.5 tracks, no circuit mode, and no multiplayer, it's aged very badly. Daytona USA holds up much better.

[Cross]

That was a fun Op to read as well the posts that followed. I would like to see this done with more systems down the road too.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

That was a fun Op to read as well the posts that followed. I would like to see this done with more systems down the road too.

Well this was really made in response to ABF's nonsense. For most of the other systems out there people are pretty down to earth about what they could do and their achievements/failures. Granted, I have seen some whoppers thrown around about the Dreamcast and SNES.