The N64 is 30 years old! This week, we’re running a series of articles celebrating the 64-bit machine, its industry-shaping software, and its effect on a generation of gamers.

Today, George meets new people with Nintendo’s multiplayer marvel. What follows is an epic session, concluding with the system’s only eight-player game…

Console gaming is a luxury for me these days. Between dropping kids to school, work, pickup, and bedtime, there are precious few hours available to fire up a game, let alone see it through. I would imagine this is the case for many gamers who, like me, were bright-eyed, bushy-tailed youths when the mighty N64 rolled around.

With the recently announced Ocarina of Time remake and the console’s 30th anniversary upon us, I’ve been thinking about Nintendo’s first 3D machine a lot recently, and whenever my mind drifts to the subject, I always end up in the same place: multiplayer.

Launching in the same era as the Saturn and Playstation, which both only featured two discreet controller ports, Nintendo’s decision to brazenly slap four ports on the 64’s front (in contrasting colour to the console shell, no less) felt like a challenge to its rivals and an invitation to its players – this machine was going to be the home of some of the best multiplayer titles around.

We’d play multiplayer on other consoles, sure, but it always felt like you were waiting ages while Players One and Two took their turn, particularly if you had more than three friends round. If you had an N64 and a group of friends, it was unlike anything you’d experienced at home before. A proper group of four all squashed in, huddled round a monitor, while a full other group of four could be behind watching and then all swap in at once. Bliss.

Finding friends

I miss those days, so I resolve to do something about it.

First off, I fire up my old Fire-Orange N64 (paid for with pocket money and door-to-door offers of car washes – peak ’90s) and test out some cartridges; everything is still live and kicking.

I have the classics, of course, but out of curiosity, I search for multiplayer gems online – and stumble upon something I didn’t know. There’s an eight–player game for the N64. Micro Machines 64 Turbo. And as luck would have it, a very reasonable secondhand copy is available to buy.

This is it. This will be the crown jewel of an N64 get-together. Experiencing its most multi multiplayer game together in one room. I swoop in and buy the game, then get to work finding other players.

This is where I begin to get a little nervous. Remember all those things I mentioned that suck up your time as a parent? Well, it turns out it leaves precious little time to form friendships, too – beyond a quick hello and small talk at the school gates or during the occasional play date. Would it even be possible to find seven other people willing to wheel out this creaky console?

Luckily, I know Alastair and Tom are fellow retro enthusiasts through our mutual admiration of the CRT TV, and they encourage me to pop a message into one of the Dads’ social group chats:

“Slightly left field question – was anybody here a big fan of the N64?”

The replies come in pretty quick. Lots of memories and anecdotes for Zelda, GoldenEye, Mario Kart, and the like with Toby simply replying, “You mean the king of consoles?” before dropping this megaton on us:

Not only has he still got one, but it is permanently set up in his living room.

This is extremely encouraging. I float the idea of an eight-player get-together for an N64 evening and create a new group chat. Slowly, we assemble our team.

Location, location, location

The idea of trying to cram eight men into a living room, playing raucous multiplayer games while children sleep upstairs, is not one I entertain for very long. Luckily, we have a lovely hub in our local park for hire and it’s mercifully inexpensive.

I walk down after drop-off and meet Anna, who runs the space. I begin to explain to her what the hire is for when she suddenly chimes in with, “Oh, my husband Dave is going to that!” The multiplayer gods are with us. She gets it booked in for the eight of us on the day we’ve set aside and we’ll have just shy of two hours to play.

It’s all going pretty well. Too well. Our first small hiccup? Dave messages just before the event:

“Hey George, sorry to bail, but I’m afraid I can’t make it on Tuesday after all, just realised I’m double booked and will need to be in Cardiff.”

Dave had gotten Anna tickets to see Take That for Christmas and forgotten about them. Or so he claims. Dave, I don’t think it’s an excuse, but just in case it is: Whatever I said, whatever I did, I didn’t mean it. We just want you back for good.

The group contact a few other dads, but work and planning around children is proving prohibitive; we’ll have to make do with seven on Micro Machines. It should still make for some interesting playing. I pack up my N64, four pads, a spare N64, an LCD TV, Tom’s CRT and enough tins of booze, massive bags of crisps, and biscuits to feed a small army into my tiny car and shuttle off to the event.

Upon entering the space, we realise we’ve done something extremely British. Virtually everyone has brought enough beer and crisps for everyone there to have eight beers and a massive packet of crisps to themselves. During a two-hour event. Dads.

Tables are hastily laid out to maximise playing time, the TVs are plugged in and consoles connected. My brother-in-law Nic has brought a Yoshi mascot who takes pride of place on the CRT and Toby has even brought along some backup pads and his N64 game collection to boot!

We are truly spoiled for choice, but opt to begin with a stone-cold classic (you’re definitely thinking about one of two games right now).

Twin sticks? Behave yourself

The game is GoldenEye, of course, and we decide to play a mini tournament – a four-player round and a three-player round, with the top two from each round then playing a four-player decider; first to five points for each round. We pick names from a hat and first on is Alastair, Greg, Tom, and Toby.

Nic: Oddjob and slaps?
George: Are you essentially just asking if it’s okay to be an *******?
Nic: Yes.

Maybe not this round – it would be good to actually make some friends after this.

We opt for pistols and the level Stack, as Toby remembers that it keeps the players in fairly close proximity. I give everyone a brief rundown of the frankly ludicrous controls when Toby then asks:

Toby: How do you crouch?
George: I don’t remember.
Alastair: Just be Oddjob.
Christian: Wait, can you crouch?
Toby: I think it’s those two (correctly signalling ‘R’ and ‘C-down’) that’s what my muscle memory is telling me. It’s been a while, but it’s in there.

He’s answered his own question about button combinations, which no one else recalled existing, and demonstrated level layout knowledge. We are fearful of Toby.

Alastair: Do you have to collect ammo and stuff?

I am fearful for Alastair. And rightly so, Toby swiftly murders him.

Alastair was barely getting to grips with the inverted axis on ‘C-up’ and ‘-down’, but there is no mercy in this Rare classic. Christian mentions having only played this once or twice and being absolutely atrocious each time – but it can’t get much worse than what’s happening on screen as Alastair, Greg, and Tom are on the lower floor, all attempting to slap each other while Toby picks them off from above.

The phrase ‘fish in a barrel’ is lobbed out – an early gauntlet throw down for the night. Greg responds with a kill of his own.

Alastair: Where are the guns? Anyone?

In his defence, it is incredibly difficult to see them. Just small black or grey blobs on the ground and our withered eyes trying to pick them out against the grainiest of textures. Alastair then provides some comedy gold when he essentially locks himself into a room and just cannot get out of it – the doors that blend in to the walls really blend in to the walls by today’s standards. “Is it that blurred mess over there or this blurred mess over here?” It’s really not his game, this.

I had earlier romanticised the idea of firing up the CRT for the fully authentic experience, but given its screen is only marginally larger than one of the current LCD’s four-player quadrants we’re already struggling to see items in, it’s a thought that’s as dead as Tom – as Toby takes him out for the win. Tom’s done enough to secure second, though, and move on to the next round.

Tom: Argh!
George: Man, how much did you play this as a kid?
Toby: I went through a spell of playing it Friday evenings after college at Charlie Elderton’s house. Legendary.
George: Was Charlie an absolute god at GoldenEye?
Toby: We all got quite good, to be honest, but it got to the point with him where he knew where you were going to spawn, so he’d be waiting to immediately shoot you in the face.

Nobody likes a spawn camper, Charlie.

Myself, Christian, and Nic jump on and Nic basically admits defeat before even starting by selecting a nameless scientist NPC as his character. Has he never seen a Bond movie? I am Boris, mainly so I can say “I am invincible!” before we begin. We head to Complex and what follows is one of my favourite things about couch co op – Toby is hovering, essentially guiding us during the game.

Toby: There’s body armour up there. The yellow bit.
George: How do you know this? How long has it been? Decades?

It is so difficult to hit anything in GoldenEye. The notion of standing still to then aim with the reticle is so alien, so we’re just running like headless chickens, taking potshots where we can. I catch Christian in the back and feel pretty bad, then catch some flak from Alastair.

Alastair: You know how I know you’re a sweaty try-hard?
George: Ha! How?
Alastair: Your grip.
George: Yeah, I change my grip for different games. It’s weird.

I’m quickly flanked by the current non-participants – drawing derision for my ‘claw’. In my defence, the round finishes off with my emerging through a vent and using said claw to cap off a clean sweep. Five points, no deaths. Invincible I am, though I did have to suffer some slaps from the scientist. I’d love to see that in the next film.

GoldenEye has already sucked up nearly a quarter of our slot, so we expedite the final with Licence to Kill – one hit kills in Temple. With zero kills between them in the last round, Nic and Christian make way for the top three from the previous round – so it’s myself, Tom, Greg, and Toby. You’d think we’d be getting used to the game at this point, but it’s still a scrappy affair.

Christian: I think that little blob of pixels is a gun.
George: Oh yeah, thanks. I’ve been trying to open this door, but it turns out it’s a wall.

Knowing one hit will do the job has certainly sent a ripple of tension through the proceedings. All four players are arched forwards while the spectators engage in hushed conversation about who is where, punctuated with “Oooh!” every time someone is taken out. Just seeing another player is now terrifying as you wrestle to turn your character in time to take them down. If modern shooters are jet skis, this feels like playing with tugboats.

Greg is a valiant fourth place, while Tom and Toby split the honours for second and, to everyone’s surprise, I manage once again to steal the game with Boris. I refrain from saying the catchphrase.

Start your engines

We could play GoldenEye all night, but we must move on. We opt for the other stone cold classic – Mario Kart 64 (admit it – it was the other one you were thinking of).

The game doesn’t fire up. Release cartridge, blow, reinsert, good to go. It never gets old.

The remote for the television we are playing on has long been missing, but Christian manages to navigate the buttons on its side to raise the brightness and backlight, which were both bafflingly set to minimum. A skillset I can’t imagine anyone younger than 30 ever needing to know, but it’s helped considerably here. If only we’d cracked it before GoldenEye, maybe all those doors and walls would’ve been easier to tell apart.

George: What CC are we going for? Being brave with 150? Cowards and doing 50? Or sensible down the middle and 100?

The general consensus is 150. We are being brave.

We assign some teams out of a hat for swapping on and off between races and I get lumbered alone. You can’t do a GP in four-player, just VS mode, where you select races, and we settle on Flower Cup as it begins with Toad’s Turnpike — a series mainstay — with the theory that we’ll be quite familiar with it.

Wrong. And 150? Mistake. The races start quick. I’m still offering biscuits as Lakitu gives us the green light. It is not a smooth start for anyone as Mario Kart 64 does not play as we remember, all of us barreling into cars left, right, and centre. Why are the karts so slippery when you jump into a corner? Such an immediate, massive amount of tilt! Want to glide around a truck? Too bad, eat this tailpipe instead.

Loathing for the incredibly irritating little yellow bombs roaming the track in place of NPCs comes pretty quick, too, as their terrible draw distance scuppers each and every one of us whenever we build up a head of steam.

George: Urgh, I know Mario Kart 64 is beloved, but—
Alastair: Don’t say something you can’t take back.
George: It’s just my least favourite. I can’t do it! I would rather play the SNES one every day of the week. Ooh, Christian’s got skills!
Christian: I like this one. I remember the SNES one being super hard.
Alastair: (ramming into a bomb) Oh, give over!
George: I think we should’ve picked a slower CC. Oh wow, Alastair is storming into first!

Cruelly, though, the final lap is decided by a lightning strike, letting me squash Alastair virtually on the line. It doesn’t feel good, but that’s Mario Kart, baby.