H12

I've been in recent debates with people over which game has the right to take second to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64, and it seems almost unanimous that either SM64 or GE is #2...but I've not been able to figure out which game people think is better between those two. I've even checked various websites for polls and lists, but most of them have SM64 or GE as the N64's #2-game and they're always very close to each other too...

...so I'd like to bring out the rope and see which game can win this tug-of-war. Which game is better: Super Mario 64 or GoldenEye?



For kicks, also mention if you prefer LoZ:OoT over the game you choose or not!

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Willravel

I absolutely adore GodlenEye. Don't get me wrong, Mario 64 was groundbreaking, but I didn't find it as fun as GoldenEye. The levels corresponded to the movie and the game play was at the time light years ahead of other FPS games.

The Ocarina of Time was in a league of it's own, though. It was intellectually challenging in addition to requiring good coordination and instincts.

twistedmosaic

The answer to this question varies greatly based upon how reliably you can scrounge up 3 friends. (but I voted Golden Eye)

Raptor20561

golden eye hands down for its multi player.

however, if your alone (or don't have any friends) sm64... duh

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MiSo

Golden Eye bye a mile!

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777

They're completely different games. It's like comparing apples to vw bugs. Mario64 is the platformer that all other plaformers copied. And Golden Eye was an epiphany of FPS gaming squeezed into a little gray cart. I'll leave the voting to the voters on this one

Willravel

It's gotta be apples.

Spartanx9

Oh man, such classics I remember as a kid. Waking up that X-mas morning to a N64 and SM64 bundled in, those were the days.

As I look back on it, sure, SM64 had its spotlight for me, chasing to get all those 120 stars, but ultimately, Goldeneye has to be my number 2 game.

Once you collected all those 120 stars, that was pretty much the endpoint for SM64, unless you wanted to find unique bugs in that game, or see how many coins you can pick up in one level.

Goldeneye, with its state of the art multiplayer gaming (OMG the amount of time wasted with friends), gave that as its huge replay value, not to mention whatever else you could do with the custom settings and cheats after you beat the game as 007 Agent.

I always enjoyed the License to kill mode with a bunch of friends during the summer vacation and boy, how entertaining it was to beat someone to death with your hands.

LoganSnake

Golden Eye easily. The game absolutely SUCKS now and has been ever since Perfect Dark came out, but at it's prime the game was pure sex. I coulndn't tell you how many hours I've spent on it, replaying my favorite levels over and over.

Mario 64 never tickled my fancy and I honestly didn't like that game.

And yes, I prefer Ocarina of Time to GG. I beat that game three times and fucked around the game world for MANY hours. It's one of my favorite games of all time.

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YaWhateva

For the life of me I can't understand how people liked some of these games. I was the perfect age to enjoy the N64 and I hated most every game for it and I got one the day they came out (I still think it's awesome that my dad actually waited outside a store for one for a long time). Goldeneye was terrible IMO. SM64 was better by far but still nothing great. I guess I just loved the 2D era much more. Just like the way people loved Ocarina of Time. A Link to the Past was so much better. Super Mario World trounced SM64 in every way. Bah humbug.

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ObieX

I would put StarFox 64 over both of them with Super Mario 64 after that

oot is by far the best on 64 and maybe even the best game of all time imo.

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cybermike

You guys do realize you're comparing a game based on a movie to one of the original masterpieces in gaming history?

heh, I picked Golden eye. It's one of the few FPS games I could actually play without getting nauseated.

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ironpham

Smash Bros. 64 before those 2 by a long shot.

However, I would put SM64 before Golden Eye. My reasoning is that you can go back and play SM64 now and it will still be a good game. If you go back and play Golden Eye, it's going to be a piece of shit. SM64 just withstood the test of time.

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H12

I'll finally chime in: although I love both games, I think SM64 > GE. The single-player experience was both incredible/revolutionary for its time and still holds up well today, not to mention the nostalgia that'll always be there for me. GE was amazing how I never had to have the game to beat it repeatedly or play multi-player for it whenever I pleased -- it's one of the few games in history that I bet lots of people can say about it. I also still think its game-play holds up well enough today, though I never got nearly as caught up in FPS's past Perfect Dark; I can't judge the Halo's or Call of Duty's quite like I can GE and PD...but, ultimately, SM64's worlds and ease to do so much still captivate me today.

I also prefer SM64 (and GE) over LoZ:OoT. I adore nearly every LoZ game I've played, but I can't bring myself to replay them like I do SM64 or GE.

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onesnowyowl

GoldenEye, as it's an FPS I actually enjoyed playing, which is very very rare.

And I can't comment on liking it over OoT or not, as I've never played it--don't really care for that kind of game, and the 64 I got to play on wasn't mine. I've tried to play other Zelda games--just can't get into it, and doubt I ever will--though Link is one of my favorite characters to play in Super Smash Bros., and same with Zelda/Sheik in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

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Jinn

Super Mario 64 was trash.. I hated the controls and the camera. Goldeneye was hours (days) of endless fun with friends..

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Lasereth

GoldenEye. It was the first FPS that I ever got into and it propelled me into loving FPSs after that. BTW I am totally biased because I've never played SM64.

CyCo PL

Since I was already playing 32 player online Quake1 Team Fortress when Goldeneye came out on N64, I'm gonna have to say Mario 64. I never understood what was so special about Goldeneye.

ironpham

One of the big things about Goldeneye was that it introduced the FPS genre to the console, and it did it pretty well for the time. Both the multiplayer and the single player were fun.

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dirtyrascal7

All I have to say is... Big-Head Mode and Rocket Launchers.

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H12

Some other things that largely contributed to GE's success:

--It was the first successful game based on a movie, helping it transcend the genre and medium to some degree.
--The arsenal of weapons featured (to my knowledge) the first functional sniper rifle with zooming capabilities.
--When coupled with Mario Kart 64, the N64 proved four-player console games could work.
--It was the first FPS that featured levels more complicated than run-n-gun to the finish line; mission objectives were accepted with arms wide open.
--The cheat system added loads of replay value to many gamers, plus the enjoyment of using the cheats were particularly satisfying.
--EGM considered GE a big enough game to pull a huge April Fool's joke on about different Bonds...and soon after, Gameshark found a code that actually gave different Bonds.

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Atreides88

My top N64 games(In no particular order):

Perfect Dark
Super Smash Bros.
Mario Cart 64

You can't go wrong with those games. My buddies and I wasted soooo much time playing them. In fact, I might go dust off my N64 and play some Perfect Dark right now.

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stevie667

Mario 64 over goldeneye, firstly because it was such a revolutionary game (even more than GE), secondly because it took me 8 years to get the 120th star (100 coins on tick tock clock) after i lost the cart for several years down the back of a wardrobe after throwing it out the machine in anger, and thirdly because i was always a Perfect Dark fan myself.

Goldeneye was improved by Perfect Dark, but there has never been a sequel that could match Mario 64 (or PD for that matter).

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Zeraph

I never really got into perfect dark like I did goldeneye, not sure why. Goldeneye overall, is my favorite, right up there with SSB.

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punkmusicfan21

I'm glad that OofT is the obvious winner. Followed by GE and then SM64.

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Arandrul

Golden eye was quite fun, would play hours at a time with the Laser guns, or the overpowered Karate Chop LOL . Remember that one Multiplayer level (was it Compound?) where you could see through one side of the Vent but not the other :P Quite honestly I hated playing with Golden gun. Partially because I never had it...

Yah BTW Ocarina of Time Favourite game 4 life. I still turn it on to listen to the Gerudo Valley daytime music



~Arandrul~ ... Joe

biznatch

Ah, that nice guitar^^ If only those damn rotating desert plants weren't bugging me.

Man, LoZ:OoT was amazing. How many people remember vividly the first time they raced down the tower, and then Ganon, with his beast-like eyes shining through the darkness...Uh oh, mega-geek nostalgia taking over here...
I also remember the first time I made it through Caverns, in 007:Goldeneye. Holy crap that was hard.
And Super Mario 64 was an unbelievable platformer. So good that they kept the basic gameplay mechanics og SM64 in SMGalaxy (long jump, triple jump, double backflip...etc).

The best: Zelda of course, but I don't have a clear favorite for the other ones. Way too different, and both way too good and flawless.

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