A brief
description of the few titles which were released and why they were
so innovative
Pics of games running on the screen soon!
Mario Artist:
Paint Studio - This
title features a pretty feature-rich but fairly easy Photoshop-like
program. Among the clipart there are Rare, Nintendo and Pokemon characters.
It allows the use of the Mouse and the Capture Cassette to import still
pictures from a video camera. You can't imagine how fast the dedicated
program to capture image starts. With only a 100mhz mips cpu and a few
megs of ram I can assure you many expensive video capture / editing
cards for personal computers are only half as fast and easy to use.
Among the other features there's the ability to import / export data
among other 64 DD softwares (for example the other Mario Artist disks
and Simcity 64) and a nice safari-like game in which you can take pics
of Dinosaurs. This small game takes advantage of the 64 DD clock to
change the sun settings and behaviour of the Dinosaurs..
Mario Artist:
Talent Studio -
This program allows you to create 3d characters with modified and unique
attributes. Again it uses a simple but powerful interface that allows
you to make parodies of yourself just by importing a face from the capture
cassette or pics from Mario Artist: Paint Studio. You won't believe
how easy is to transform attibutes like hair, eyes, ears and nose with
a few simple commands. The model you build can be made moving by a silly
Karaoke-like game... If that is not enough, you can even export 3d models
into Mario Artist: Polygon Studio.
Mario Artist:
Polygon Studio -
Again an impossible-to-believe easy program to create custom 3d models,
importing / exporting data from the other Mario Artist studios. It pushes
the Nintendo 64 to its limits: immediate scaling, morphing, smoothing
and other complex effects in no time. You could also bring the disk
in an authorized Nintendo point and make someone print you your model
"flat", just what you need to build yourself a 3d one with
paper! Words cannot describe this feature, it has to be seen. I don't
know if a personal printer was planned, but is very likely.
Mario Artist:
Communication Kit
- This title allows you to import and export data again from all the
Mario Artist titles AND the Randnet service. On-line data exchanging
and the ability to use your own-created character in a virtual community
much like the Super Famicom BS-X cartridge: but instead of being 2d
only it gets a full 3d environment on which move and meet people. It
takes advantage of the Modem cartridge.
Simcity
64 - I love this
title! Basically is the same as its computer counterpart, SimCity 3000,
but with one, unique and great difference: it's 3d! The city rotates
and moves quickly with no slowdowns all through the game. taking advantage
of rewritable capability of the disks it features a file manager that
allows you to save lot of cities... and pics! Yes, pics of you talking
with citizens of your city, or landscapes or even monuments! Unlike
ALL the other SimCity titles, in Simcity 64 you don't meet people by
clicking on the icons, but actually going down the road in a beautiful
first person view!! It's like living the city you created, you can stop
people at bus stops and hear what they say, from old ladies to young
kids! You can also take pictures of your city with sunset, night, sun
and rain, all thanks to the built-in clock in the 64 DD unit! Then,
following the idea of Nintendo in transforming the Nintendo 64 in a
home-computer, you can export pictures to Mario Artist: paint Studio
and edit them as you like.
F-Zero
X Expansion Kit
- This title is the one of a long list of planned (and then cancelled)
expansions to cart games. You acually need the original cartridge of
F-Zero X inserted to play. It features 2 aditional cups and 2 editors:
one for building a custom car from scratch and one to build custom tracks.
Again it takes advantage of the rewritable capability of the Disks to
store huge amounts of data. Very nice title.
Kyojin
no Doshin 1 (Doshin the Giant)
- A game in which you control a morphing good/evil hearted giant with
earth powers across a land full of people. In this land you have to
raise and lower ground to make people happy and plant trees... It is
confusing as it seems, you need to see it to get an idea of the type
of the game. Again it saves lot of data on the disk about your own-modified
world. One object could be to see how big can you get into one day...
RandnetDD
- A communication software to sign up to Randnet and to manage contacts,
e-mail, browsing, chatting and whatever does fit in a communication
software. Used also to buy 64 DD games. It is the only software that
uses the Keyboard (with plenty of Kanji characters).
Kyojin
no Doshin 2: Kaihou Sensen Chibikko Chikko Daishuugou
- This title needs the first Doshin the Giant to work. You slip into
the role of one of three 2D characters. After a brief animated sequence
, your character goes to bed, falls asleep and dreams that he is being
sucked through the bedroom window into the recent past, more specifically
the "Doshin Exposition '96." Your objective, as you control
a blurry shadow version of your sprite character around the polygonal
expo park, is to build 17 pavilions located within the expo. To do this,
you need to interact with "Queen Companions." These "booth
babes" can be accessed by peeing hearts at signs. Er... yeah. This
process is called "chikko" (incidentally, "o-chikko"
is how little kids say "pee" in Japanese. Not a coincidence.)
You can also "chikko" other people you bump into and make
friends with them. Your friends are called "Teamers" (a name
given to young people who hang out and are kind of like a gang) and
they can join you in a fight against people who have a symbol meaning
"fight" above their heads. You can win the fight by "chikko"-ing
them and making them smaller. If you lose the fight, you wake up in
your room and simply try again. Weird?
The designated
location for each pavilion will have a sign showing its shape and contains
a picture of one of the various monuments that the islanders erected
in your honor in the first Doshin game. Once you decide on a pavilion
to build, you eject the disk and insert the Doshin 1 disk. You then
eject the Doshin 1 disk and put the expansion disk back in. If you had
the proper monument built in Doshin 1, then construction on your pavilion
will start, a Queen Companion will appear and you will be given a new
mission to accomplish in Doshin 1. To accomplish the mision you then
go back and play Doshin 1 until you've done it, save, shut down your
Nintendo 64, boot up the add-on disk and talk to the Queen Companion
again. For every task you clear, you will be rewarded with a viewing
of the hand-animated movie "More than Giant." There is a total
of 17 pavilions to be built, so the movie is broken up into 17 different
parts. The movie is shown on a 160x120 pixel black and white screen
within the game. There
is yet another objective of the title which is free the imprisoned Doshin.
You can climb his cage and "chikko" him which will make him
grow a little. As he gets bigger and bigger he wil break the cage. Incredibly
Weird.
Japan Pro-Golf
Tour 64 -
In addition to a simple player editor, there are six gameplay modes
all in all. One or two players can compete in the Match Play mode while
up to four can compete for the best score in the 18-hole Stroke Player
mode. The game also features a Grand Opening Mode (compete with the
world's best Japan Pro-Golfers), a Career Mode, Qualifying Tournament
(you create your own player and start with a handicap of 0) and Network
Opening which lets you connect to Randnet and compete on-line in an
All-Japan tournament. But it doesn't stop there, unlike the one-course
Waialae wonder published in the US by Nintendo, Japan Pro-Golf packs
10 officially licensed courses from all across Japan. Basically, the
best Golf game on the Nintendo 64, beautiful graphics and animations.