Tag Archives: Nintendo 64

Technology

N64 Classic Now Available to Play for Free for Some

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One of the best N64 games — and one of the best games of all time across all platforms — is now available for free, but not for everyone. While the N64 didn’t sell as well as its competition or even well compared to some other Nintendo consoles, it, like every Nintendo console, except maybe the Wii U, boasts a very impressive library littered with incredible exclusive games. One of the greatest examples of this is GoldenEye 007, which was re-released today via Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X this week. And if you have Nintendo Switch Online or Xbox Game Pass, you can play the re-release for no extra charge. How long it will be available via the pair of subscription services, hasn’t been clarified. 

If you check one of these boxes, there’s still one more caveat, at least if you’re a Nintendo Switch Online subscriber. If you’re an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, the game is available via both tiers of the subscription service. If you’re trying to access the game via Nintendo Switch Online though, you will need the Expansion Pack, the premium tier of Nintendo Switch Online.

“Enter a world of espionage as Bond in GoldenEye 007,” reads an official blurb about the game. “Your covert operation to stop the GoldenEye weapon satellite spans the globe-you’ll infiltrate underground bases, charge through a military train and slink around the depths of a jungle. Along the way, M will brief you on your objectives and Q Branch will support your efforts with an array of gadgets, but the ultimate success of this mission is yours alone. Save the day, then go for the gold in spy-vs-spy action locally or online in the four-player multiplayer mode and enjoy round after round of first-person competitive action.”

If you’re intending on checking out GoldenEye007, there are some differences between the versions you should know. Only the Xbox versions support 4K. In addition to this, they also provide a higher frame rate. Negating these perks is the fact that these versions only support split-screen local multiplayer, while the Switch version offers online multiplayer.

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Nintendo Switch Online Subscribers Get Free N64 Surprise

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Nintendo Switch Online subscribers on Switch, Switch Lite, and Switch OLED — or, more specifically, Nintendo Switch Online subscribers with the Expansion Pack — just got a free N64 surprise. In addition to adding the first two Mario Party games on N64 to the Switch Online Expansion Pack library, Nintendo has dished out free N64 icons, the first of their kind. 

The icons come as part of a new promotion where each month Nintendo will add new N64 icons for Switch Online for Expansion Pack owners to claim. For the month of November, there are Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, and Kirby 64 icons. In December, there will be icons for F-Zero X, Yoshi’s Story, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The promotion will then finish in January, when Mario Kart 64, Paper Mario, and Star Fox 64 will feature.

Below, you can check out an official promotional image for this month’s icons, courtesy of Nintendo PR:

(Photo: Nintendo)

As noted, these icons are locked behind the Expansion Pack tier of the subscription service, which has been the case for all of the free icons Nintendo has released for Switch users this year. In addition to free icons, the Expansion Pack tier allows you access to retro games beyond just the SNES and NES. For example, it nets you N64 games. And it’s N64 that has been the focus of the subscription service lately, hence why there are now N64 icons.

For more Nintendo coverage — including all of the latest Switch news, Switch rumors, Switch leaks, and speculation involving the Nintendo Switch — click here or, alternatively, peruse the relevant links listed below:

As always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think. Will you be redeeming any of these N64 icons and rocking them going forward? If so, which ones?

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Technology

Nintendo Switch Online Surprise Gives Subscribers Extra Perks

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Nintendo Switch users who are already subscribed to Nintendo’s top-tier version of its online service, the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack option, have some more perks coming their way soon. These limited-time offerings were announced by Nintendo this week a surprise additions tot eh benefits already included in the service and will be live starting on November 1st. They include double the Gold Points spent on eligible games and DLCs as well as some icons that invoke the Nintendo 64 era.

As is the case with some of these announcements, players first found out about these extra perks through some posts on the Nintendo Japan site, but the benefits were later confirmed for other regions as well. The Nintendo of America Twitter account, for example, tweeted about it this weekend to confirm what the perks would be and when they’d start. That tweet also offered a preview of the Nintendo 64 icons that’ll be available come November which include things like the console and controller itself, Mario Kart, Star Fox, Kirby, and other memorable characters and games.

Nintendo didn’t specify what “eligible digital games or DLC” look like, so we don’t know just yet what this deal applies to and what it doesn’t. However, Nintendo does have a couple of high-profile releases coming up, so there’s a good chance subscribers will be able to get double the Gold Points from purchases on things like Bayonetta 3, Pokemon Sword, and Pokemon Shield.

This perk is going on the UK, too, though that promotion said users would get twice the Gold Points on all Nintendo eShop purchases instead of just some of them. But again, if there’s something newish that you’ve been considering buying from the eShop, you probably don’t have much to worry about in terms of eligibility.

Even though these perks are marketed as being limited-time benefits, they’re going on for quite a while. These won’t end until January 31st, and hopefully, something will replace them after they expire to give Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers extra benefits.



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Technology

Classic FPS Perfect Dark Gets Unofficial PC Port 20 Years Later

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Image: Rare

The eternal mystery of why so many major gaming companies work so hard to not sell us their classic games remains as inexplicable as magnetism. But as the N64’s GoldenEye 007 finally reaches the official Nintendo Switch Online service next year, thanks to a successful decompiling, somewhat less official avenues will now be able to port its spiritual successor Perfect Dark to PC.

Decompiling a game’s code is a process which involves taking machine code and restoring it to human-readable code, using a combination of meticulous experimentation, months of painstaking human effort, and witchcraft. Previously we’ve seen Nintendo 64 games like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time receive the same treatment, leading to PC versions with vastly improved graphics and resolutions. Now that a team has successfully completed the monumental task of doing the same for Perfect Dark, we can expect to see versions for PC popping up in a few months.

The legality of such actions is obviously questionable. The team behind Perfect Dark’s decompilation very reasonably insist that anyone who attempts to recompile the game only does so while owning a legal ROM of the original game. They add that, “When a matching decompilation is compiled with the same compiler that the original developers used, the output will be exactly the same as the retail game, byte for byte.” The point being, you’re simply backing up your ROM.

Of course, that’s not why anyone’s really doing it, which is where things get murkier. Perhaps offering the decompiled code is a violation of Nintendo or Rare’s intellectual property, and Nintendo certainly doesn’t take kindly to any efforts to distribute their decades-old games to a PC audience.

At the same time, these games remain nigh impossible to legitimately play without access to a time machine. (Sure, you’ve got a cart and an N64, so you could just plug it into…oh wait, how do I get these fat grey plugs into the tiny holes in the back of my TV?) However, it’s pretty important to note that’s not entirely the case with Rare’s Perfect Dark, where the 2010 remake is currently included in Xbox’s Game Pass.

Anyway, all this aside, the widely-adored yet almost impossible to play N64 version of Perfect Dark will soon be compiled for PC, with inevitable improvements in its framerates, resolution, and possibly even graphics. Heck, mouse and keyboard support for the classic shooter will be a revelation.

Companies: we want to give you our money for this stuff, even though we already did twenty years ago. We’re that gullible. Just let us do it.

 

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Technology

New N64 Emulator Plugin Adds Ray Tracing, Widescreen, 60FPS (And More) To Classics Like Zelda & Paper Mario

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Image: @dariosamo (via Twitter)

Remember the absolutely stunning showcase of Super Mario 64 with ray tracing? Well, the same individual is now working on a new project that could evolve N64 emulation. Modder turned software developer Dario has just revealed ‘RT64’ (the path tracer behind the sm64rt project) is being transformed into a Nintendo 64 emulator plugin.

It started out life about “a month ago” as a way of optimising the “PC port’s backend” and developed into a “generic emulation solution” that could be applied to a much larger library of N64 games. It can add ray-traced lighting, object motion blur, widescreen, DLSS and improve frame rate – going beyond 60FPS.

Of course, it is still in the early stages which means it’s got a long way to go. It also remains an “impossible task” to make it compatible with every N64, and creating light for titles is a manual process. In time, a whitelist of compatible games will be made available, so users know what games do and don’t work with the plugin.

Below is just a small selection of games that currently support RT64. As you can see, there are games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, and the original Paper Mario game. Even the Snowboard Kids series is getting some love.

Dario reiterates how it won’t be coming out “any time soon” as there are still hundreds of issues to solve and features to add. The game library as already mentioned is also “extremely limited”.

One other “interesting side effect” of this project is “researching a method to interpolate the rending commands sent by an N64 game without actually modifying the game at all” – which means games that didn’t have 60FPS patches on N64 can now run at higher frame rates, without requiring unique patches.

Here are some additional screenshots – showing off series like Goemon and Rocket: Robot on Wheels:

Image: @dariosamo (via Twitter)

What do you think of this early look? Leave your thoughts down below.



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Technology

A Version Of Valve’s Portal Is Kinda Running On The Nintendo 64

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Valve’s Portal, released in 2007 (!), is one of the last games you’d expect to see the humble little N64 being able to manage, and yet here we are in 2022, seeing it manage it quite nicely.

Programmer James Lambert has been working on a Portal demake for Nintendo’s system for a little while now, but in his latest development video he reveals that not only has he made some “huge strides behind the scene on the game engine”, but that he’s got the single most important thing working: the portal gun.

The video below shows a rough demonstration of Lambert’s progress, but even in this stage, it looks incredible. The portals attach to the walls—with some smart detection stuff in place to get around corners—and when you walk up to them you can look right into them and everything reflected inside them moves exactly as it should.

To give you an idea of how far this is pushing the hardware—remember, this isn’t something made to look like the N64, it’s actually being developed for the N64 and this video was captured on N64 hardware—Lambert says in the video that he would normally have some sound effects in the game by now, but that he wanted to “verify that the Nintendo 64 could even do portals” before doing it here.

In terms of how many views through a portal the N64 can actually support—so, like, how many times the room you’re in will be repeated by looking through a portal—in this video you can see him achieve a maximum of four, though Lambert says the final game will probably have to do a smaller number in order to keep things running smoothly.

If any of this looks vaguely familiar, it’s because Portal was also recreated—at least in part—by fans for the Nintendo DS a long time ago, which was also an impressive feat.

You can follow the Portal N64 project on github.

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Technology

You Can Now Play Ocarina of Time Like a ‘Modern’ PC Game

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When Nintendo dropped The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time back in 1996, the gaming world was irrevocably changed. The 3D action-adventure title revolutionized the genre, inspiring a whole new generation of games. While the game is still a banger in 2022 (it just launched on Switch late last year as part of the Nintendo Switch Expansion Pack), but it’s still obviously a game of its time. But what if it didn’t have to feel that way?

Enter Harbour Masters, developers who set out on their own adventure with the simple goal of making Ocarina of Time feel like a more modern gaming experience on PC. Their goal was made possible thanks to fans reverse-engineering the game into C code, a two-year feat. From there, Harbour Masters was able to make a port of Ocarina of Time with HD graphics, widescreen, controller rumble, modding support, and more.

Unlike traditional ports and fan remakes (which are often shut down by Nintendo), this version of Ocarina of Time is different in that it doesn’t actually involve any of the game’s code. Instead, the software, called Ship of Harkinian, is designed to read the code from a separate ROM file, which it then extracts to run a version of the game for PC.

In jumping that legal hurdle, Ship of Harkinian allows you to play the original Ocarina of Time on PC in a brand new way. It also means that in the future, the game can be expanded to support features like 60 fps, HD models, texture packs, online play, and Linux and Mac support. Right now, the game is limited to PC, with gameplay running at the traditional 20 fps found on the N64.

In order to play Ocarina of Time with Ship of Harkinian, you’ll need to provide your own ROM file. Knowing Nintendo’s lawyers are watching, Ship of Harkinian stresses that said ROM file should be legally obtained. In order to do that, however, you need to own the original N64 cartridge and have access to hardware that can extract the game file from the device. There are resources online to teach yourself how to build such an extractor, but if you’ve never done this type of thing before, it can seem overwhelming.

Of course, the vast majority of people playing retro games on their PCs are not using legally sourced ROMs. One might even conduct a simple Google search that would lead to many websites providing download links to just about any retro game ROM you can think of. But that would, of course, be wrong. (Although the industry has tried to crack down on these sites, it remains the leading way to play older games.)

We certainly won’t tell you to download an Ocarina of Time ROM from the internet. All we can say is you need to supply your own ROM in order to get this PC port up and running. In addition, you’ll need the debug version of the ROM (not the Master Quest version).

With your debug ROM on hand, you then need to download Ship of Harkinian from its Discord server. You’ll find the current build under the #builds channel. Make sure to pull up the Read Me doc, as it contains all the instructions for getting your Ship of Harkinian software up and running. Here’s a direct link to the Read Me, which you can also find via the pinned messages in the #support Discord channel, as well as in the Ship of Harkinian download.

For there: Unzip the download file, then open OTRGui. Choose “Open OoT Rom,” choose “Single Thread,” then select your Ocarina of Time ROM. Let the system create an archive file for the ROM. When finished, open soh.exe to play.

Since this isn’t the simplest system in the world to get a game running on your PC, you might run into obstacles. If so, don’t be afraid to check out the #support channel on their Discord. Questions are pouring in as of this writing, so there are bound to be others dealing with the same issues. And you know what they say about it being dangerous to go alone.

[VGC]

  



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Technology

Ocarina Of Time’s PC ‘Port’

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Screenshot: YouTube

In November 2021 a team of fans at Zelda 64 Reverse Engineering—having spent two years on the project—revealed that they’d painstakingly recreated the entirety of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. Now, only a few months later, we’re getting a good look at one of the main goals of that project: a proper PC port of the game.

How’s this different from anyone playing the game on a PC now through emulation? That game is Nintendo’s original code for a console from the 90s, with the emulator essentially translating so that it can run on a modern PC. This code, having been reverse-engineered, has been built from the ground up to run on a PC, for a PC.

What this means for fans is that they’ll get to play a version of the game that is at home on the platform. This port, for example—made by zel and vertigo—has widescreen and upscaling support, and it opens for the door some substantial mods to be made for it as well. Please also note the end of the video, where they show the Water Temple’s reflections working perfectly.

There are some catches, though. Firstly, it’s murky how legal this all is, which given we’re talking about Nintendo here is a pretty big catch. Here’s what I wrote about this conundrum last time we came across it, after fans reverse-engineered Super Mario 64:

These fans have…rebuilt the entire game’s code—albeit “using modern coding languages”—from scratch, to the point where it functionally performs identically to the original. This means there’s an expectation that technically they’ve done nothing illegal. How legally certain that is remains to be seen, but for reference, the reverse engineered Super Mario 64 code is still available at its source, despite Nintendo going after some projects that were built off that code.

The second is that you might understandably look at that video above and think that it’s still running pretty sluggishly for a game that’s been reverse-engineered specifically for the PC. Turns out there’s a very good technical explanation for that, as summed by mvit:

The n64 version runs at three framerates actually, 60fps for the pause screen, 30fps for the title screen and 20fps for the overworld. Thanks to the decomp we’ve found what controls the game speed, so in theory 60fps is already possible.

The problem really, comes from the fact that NPC routines and some of link’s moveset (Sword slash, hookshot, backflips, front flips) all calculate their distance based on framerate. So at 60fps link just triples his jump distance, hookshot distance and so on.

60fps will be realistically possible then once those functions are properly documented and a nice workaround is found to counter those results.

So fixes will be coming—this is a work-in-progress—but they haven’t been made yet. If you want to learn more about the effort, there are some links in the YouTube video’s description.

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Technology

Video: Here’s A Look At Another Zelda 64 PC Port, And It’s “Nearly Fully Playable”

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“All of this footage is 100% real”

  • by Liam Doolan
Image: zel. via YouTube

As you might recall, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was successfully reverse-engineered back in November last year – opening the door for ports of the N64 classic.

We heard earlier this week how one group known as the “Harbour Masters” had a PC port that was already 90% complete, and now another native port – by two-person team zel. and vertigo – has surfaced. This one includes widescreen and upscaling support, with more features to be added. This project is also “nearly fully playable”. Here’s a description along with a look:

“This is a native port of Ocarina of Time to PC, with widescreen and upscaling support. Soon many more features will be added, such as 60fps. All of this footage is 100% real, and the project is nearly fully playable. Though there are minor glitches in this very early gameplay footage, these will soon be resolved.”

What do you think of this latest effort? Leave a comment down below.

[source youtu.be, via nme.com]



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Xbox Studio Rare “Immensely Pleased” About Banjo-Kazooie’s Arrival On Switch

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It was a bittersweet moment yesterday when Banjo-Kazooie arrived on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack service.

As fantastic as it is to see the UK developer’s iconic duo return to a Nintendo platform after so long. It’s now been nearly 20 years since Rare was acquired by Microsoft, and almost 24 since the original Banjo-Kazooie game was released on the N64, if you’re counting.

Leigh Loveday, a writer and designer who joined Rare in the ’90s, has used the game’s Switch Online release to reflect on the company’s Nintendo era – noting how Rare was “immensely pleased” that it could team up with its old pal once more to bring the bird and bear to a new Nintendo generation:

“The question of classic Rare games resurfacing for a Switch audience is one that people have been asking for a long time, so we’re immensely pleased that we could work with Nintendo to bring the bear and bird to this platform.”

And in case you’re wondering, the Switch version is the N64 “original” as many will remember it:

“In the spirit of preserving the game exactly as it was alongside the other titles available, this version of Banjo-Kazooie is the Nintendo 64 original as you remember it. And if you grew up in a later console generation, well, we’re looking forward to a whole new wave of gamers getting turned into a washing machine by Mumbo Jumbo, scrambling away from Snacker the shark and facing Grunty’s Furnace Fun for the very first time.”

In addition to the kind words shared over on the Rare blog, here are some other messages shared by Rare and some of the team members who worked on Banjo-Kazooie:

Nowadays, Rare is arguably best-known for its live service Xbox and PC game Sea of Thieves. The team is also currently working on Everwild, a fantasy-like title that’s shrouded in mystery.

Will you be trying out Banjo-Kazooie on Switch this weekend? What other Rare games from the N64 generation would you like to see make a return to Nintendo’s hybrid platform? Tell us down below.



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