I just picked up and restored my very first N64 a bit ago. I grew up playing my snes (still have it, working, 4 controllers, and ~40 games) but I did have some good times playing the N64 so I got one and was looking for some titles?
I've picked up Golden Eye, Ocarina of Time, Donkey Kong, California Speed, and Starfox. I am looking to get Mario Kart as well as Super Mario 64. What are some other notable classics I should look in to? Also, I'm running into a lot of dead cartridges. I've bought a dead 007, command and conquer, and Starfox. Any tips on elongated the life of these cartridges? 3/8 cartridges have been dead and I'd hate to see one of my working cartridges go bad. It could be the previous owners, I've never had a snes cartridge die in my ~20 year ownership, but the games seem to have corroded pcb's which could be Nintendo to blame.
Banjo Kazooie (not sure I spelled that right) and Zelda: Majora's Mask? Those were very popular on the 64. I considered picking up a 64, but the price of the games stopped me doing so. How much did Ocarina of Time cost? Here in the UK I rarely see it for less than around £30 with the box.
I forgot about banjo kazooie! I'm going to look for that one. I am actually looking for Majora's mask already, that one is a little rarer than Ocarina of time, it seems.
Price actually depends on the game and where you buy them from. Here in the states they are pretty overpriced on ebay, I buy them mostly on craigslist. I bought Ocarina of time for $10 (£6-7?) from some craigslist user at a gas station. It'll cost twice as much on ebay though. I got California Speed and Command and Conquer for a few dollars. I don't try to buy them with the box though. Some of them have scratched off labels or are written on with markers. I'm not interested in it for collecting purposes though; I want to play the games I grew up with. As long as the cartridge works, I don't care about aesthetics.
I just announced that I'm from the states, as if you couldn't tell by me pricing things in dollars, and least of all the eagle user picture. Forgive me, it's 6am and I'm tired. My roommate works 3rd shift so I've adopted his sleep schedule
Lol no worries. Yeah without the boxes the prices aren't so bad. And you're right about the rarity of MM, I've seen like new copies of that selling for hundreds. That's the annoying thing about collectors, they completely fuck the market up for people who actually want to play older games. I use emulators as I just can't justify spending so much money on the old games. I've been playing Earthbound on the SNES emulator, again, to buy that game now would cost a fortune.
Good luck finding some bargains and keep us updated on what you find.
Other than the ones listed, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, 1080, NFL Blitz, Bomberman 64, Star Wars SotE, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Paper Mario, Turok, Wave Race 64, Worms Armageddon... that's all I can think of right now.
As for carts going bad, I don't know. All mine still work. Same goes for my Genesis and NES carts too. I just pulled out my Goldeneye cart to have a look and the pins are in perfect condition. I think the only time they corrode like that is if they are left unused for long periods of time in relatively humid conditions... or something gets spilled on them lol. So you probably just happened to get them from people who didn't take care of their games.
You should be able to clean the corrosion off the pins though. Bit of fine grit sandpaper should do the trick. You'll probably have to open up the cart to get at it properly though. Never done it myself, but I know people who have. Worked for them.
Thank you all for the suggestions! I'm going to look around for some of these titles and hopefully enjoy them soon.The N64 was one of my favorite consoles, I'm looking forward to playing it again.
Well, technically all NES and SNES cartridges should be dead by now, and some N64 as well. They have a battery like a CMOS inside that keeps power flowing to the chip since there's no magnetic storage of data it's all a form of Volatile memory, so once the battery in the cartridge dies all the data is gone.
There's probably a way to replace the battery by powering the cartridge while you swap batteries, but this would only work on currently working cartridges and I don't know of any equipment or ways to perform this or the specifics behind it.
Also, as noted above, there's corrosion and physical damage.
I'm pretty sure that only applies to game save data, not to the contents of the game it's self. And of course, that would mean it only applies to games that actually HAVE on board game saves or stats of some sort (high scores etc). The actual games would otherwise be perfectly playable.
I was waiting to see how far down it would get until someone mentioned Blitz. Amazing game if only for the lulz. Definitely worth a buy to play with friends!
Though I use emulators for all of my retro games, and have adapters for GC, N64, and Genesis controllers,
There is just something about still having the console and cartridges, some sense of nostalgia and collector-ship that you just can't get with emulators. Emulators are great for all those cartridges that you just can't find, but if I had the money/time, I would never use an emulator again and purchase all of the retro consoles/games I could.
Lol, I don't think you can really blame Nintendo 20 years after the console was released. It's impossible design things to last forever. Re-releasing them on the virtual console for the Wii U is the best you can ask for really.