The N64 Encyclopedia

Publisher White Owl Title The N64 Encyclopedia: Every Game Released for the Nintendo 64

Journalist Chris Scullion covers every game ever launched on the Nintendo 64 console in this comprehensive guide.

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I owned the Nintendo 64. I spent a lot of time playing the N64. But in reading The N64 Encyclopedia: Every Game Released for the Nintendo 64, I realized just how little of the console I actually experienced.

If my own experience was the tip of the iceberg, Chris Scullion’s new book is a handy survey of the massive structure underneath the water. In his fourth console encyclopedia (following books on the NES, SNES, and Genesis/Mega Drive), Scullion paints the broadest picture possible of the vast variety of games available on Nintendo’s first polygonal console, one letter of the alphabet at a time, one game at a time.

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I remember the games that were mainstays in my household like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, and Pokémon Stadium, the ones I rented from my local video store like Gex: Enter the Gecko and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, and the ones I played at friends’ houses like Star Fox 64 and Super Mario 64. I remember seeing the wide range of prices for N64 games, with some going for $70+ in 2000 money. I could write about my hazy recollections of experiences with the first console I ever owned.

Scullion, though, has given himself the difficult task of coming up with interesting things to say about each of the console's more than 400 games, including all of the Japan-exclusive titles and the few disc-based games released for the short-lived Nintendo 64DD peripheral. The bulk of the book's 256 pages is dedicated to the games that were released in some combination of the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Because the Nintendo 64 had a significantly smaller catalog than the 800-1000 strong libraries released on the NES, SNES, and Genesis, each game is given either a half or whole page, with fun facts and full color screenshots. The last 27 pages cover the Japan-only games which get a quarter page each, save the notable exceptions, Dobutsu no Mori (the original Animal Crossing game) and Sin & Punishment, the Treasure action game long considered the best N64 title to miss out on a western release.

The result is a comprehensive book that is impressively engaging on a page-to-page basis, as Scullion finds fun ways to convey basic information. Because I was reviewing this, I read it in a way that most people will not — front to back — so the care that Scullion put in to make it consistently interesting is much appreciated. Here's one example of a turn-of-phrase I enjoyed from the entry on San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing: "...this isn't a game that tries to reinvent the wheel. What it does do, however, is try to make sure those wheels aren't always on the road, thanks to the ridiculously dramatic jumps that pop up with alarming regularity." While writing an encyclopedia, it would be incredibly easy to eventually start penning really dry bullet point write-ups of the facts of each game, and I appreciate that Scullion keeps the prose thoughtful and cheeky throughout.

The consequence of one person writing a book like this, instead of the committee of writers that tackled the similarly encyclopedic 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die, is that The N64 Encyclopedia reflects Scullion's personal tastes. In the introduction, Scullion remembers sinking tons of time into the N64's many wrestling games and, sure enough, when you get to the W section of the book, you're suddenly reading a lot of full-page entries on wrestling games. That's only really a problem if you're a) reading this book front-to-back, and b) not all that interested in wrestling games. For most readers, I doubt the extra information will be a bother.

The primary utility of reading the full book is the sense it gives you of the N64 as a whole. Though I remember the games that I played as a kid and the games that have gotten numerous rereleases over the years, Scullion’s book paints a more accurate portrait of the console. It was defined by Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart and Super Mario 64 and Goldeneye 007, but it was also the console where forgotten games like Ubisoft’s Tonic Trouble and Acclaim’s Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls were released. History is written by the victors and corporate preservation efforts tend to focus on the games that have been remembered fondly; that have a chance to remain victors in today’s market. But the work Scullion is doing in his encyclopedias is vital as a counternarrative. The N64 was home to a lot of games that have largely been forgotten, but this project ensures they continue to be remembered. Even if Tonic Trouble is never going to take the world by storm.

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