The odd one out of the original trio of childhood games I had on my N64, which still functions today thankfully. Mario 64 needs no introduction, Wave Race 64 wowed me with it's realistic water effects and attracted me with it's ocean scenery, and Top Gear Rally was kinda just over there chilling and not bothering anyone. Absolutely a dad pick if I had ever seen one.
Very much feels like Nintendo's unofficial secret answer to Sega Rally Championship, with a ton of care obviously put into the weighty movement of the cars, realistic suspension systems, and actual damage modeling. Using the control stick to steer of course means the handling becomes about as touchy as me on a bad Saturday morning with no caffeine. This is where the customization before each race becomes crucial to making or breaking how the driving feels on the course under certain weather conditions. I feel this is where most people give up on this game, but with such a small set of options to experiment with it shouldn't take much time to find your favorite setup. I definitely don't recommend the default steering/handling 1 for beginners, it's quite a tight endeavor~
What Wave Race 64 did with water and sea for me, was what Top Gear Rally tried to do for me with land and dirt. The depiction of the jungle track under rainy conditions looked simply remarkable to me in 1997, the N64's infamous ability to utilize fog to hide draw distance was done masterfully here and coming back to it as an adult reminded me of that along with realizing the little things like the headlights blaring from the front of the cars. It was something I hadn't seen quite yet even on Playstation or Saturn, and this game along with Wave Race really showed off how powerful the N64 was. It's a small wonder what would happen if the console were not held back by the storage capacity of it's cartridge format, but alas...I just wish I could've used the paint tool option, because I never had a memory pack growing up. ;-;
The crown jewel of the package however is Barry Leitch's soundtrack. I'm not sure if some prohibition era gangsters held his family hostage to force him into making one of the most beautiful menu themes I ever heard or what, but it's a drop dead gorgeous piece that I remember listening to for ages as a kid. Meanwhile PAL/JP got this insane energetic piece that has the exact opposite energy. The actual course themes are nothing to sneeze at either, the music for the Jungle course is crazy good with a side of crazy bread, and really gets your adrenaline pumping for racing in the rain. It really brings me back to realizing how good we had it for music during this era for all kinds of genres. These days if you boot up a mainstream rally game on Steam nine times out of ten it would blare some forgettable licensed garbage at you, which I would turn off near instantly and start playing my own stuff on Spotify.....or perhaps start playing music from Sega Rally, Top Gear Rally, etc...
sighs
I miss game composers man...
Very much feels like Nintendo's unofficial secret answer to Sega Rally Championship, with a ton of care obviously put into the weighty movement of the cars, realistic suspension systems, and actual damage modeling. Using the control stick to steer of course means the handling becomes about as touchy as me on a bad Saturday morning with no caffeine. This is where the customization before each race becomes crucial to making or breaking how the driving feels on the course under certain weather conditions. I feel this is where most people give up on this game, but with such a small set of options to experiment with it shouldn't take much time to find your favorite setup. I definitely don't recommend the default steering/handling 1 for beginners, it's quite a tight endeavor~
What Wave Race 64 did with water and sea for me, was what Top Gear Rally tried to do for me with land and dirt. The depiction of the jungle track under rainy conditions looked simply remarkable to me in 1997, the N64's infamous ability to utilize fog to hide draw distance was done masterfully here and coming back to it as an adult reminded me of that along with realizing the little things like the headlights blaring from the front of the cars. It was something I hadn't seen quite yet even on Playstation or Saturn, and this game along with Wave Race really showed off how powerful the N64 was. It's a small wonder what would happen if the console were not held back by the storage capacity of it's cartridge format, but alas...I just wish I could've used the paint tool option, because I never had a memory pack growing up. ;-;
The crown jewel of the package however is Barry Leitch's soundtrack. I'm not sure if some prohibition era gangsters held his family hostage to force him into making one of the most beautiful menu themes I ever heard or what, but it's a drop dead gorgeous piece that I remember listening to for ages as a kid. Meanwhile PAL/JP got this insane energetic piece that has the exact opposite energy. The actual course themes are nothing to sneeze at either, the music for the Jungle course is crazy good with a side of crazy bread, and really gets your adrenaline pumping for racing in the rain. It really brings me back to realizing how good we had it for music during this era for all kinds of genres. These days if you boot up a mainstream rally game on Steam nine times out of ten it would blare some forgettable licensed garbage at you, which I would turn off near instantly and start playing my own stuff on Spotify.....or perhaps start playing music from Sega Rally, Top Gear Rally, etc...
sighs
I miss game composers man...