Wavarace 64 appreciation thread

A spin-off from the thread in GQ about the jet-ski racing pool…

Does anyone here love Wave Race for Nintendo 64? This is one of my favorite classic games of all time (I’m 22 so I do view the N64 as “classic.”) For the time, the wave physics modeling was really remarkable. The waves looked real and they moved the way real waves move, or at least as close to it as you could get with the technology of the time. The levels were badass and the stunt mode was really fun. And the music was great!

One night, during the summer where I first started using marijuana a lot, I was playing this game and I was just like, “this music is unbelievable.” I called my friend Nate and was like, “man, you have to get over here and get high and listen to the Wave Race music right now - it’s amazing.”

We smoked and then went to the “Audio” screen in the Options of WaveRace where you can just listen to whatever song you want, without even playing the game. We listened to every song, intensely, picking them apart musically and discussing the individual elements of them.

We were so stoned that we actually made up lyrics to the Wave Race main theme:

“Wave Race is the game that we like to play
We race jet-skis all around the pa-aaaa-aaa-aaark”
(instrumental: da da daaaa, da-da da daaaaa…)
“Racing around, in the park
We’re racing around, racing around the park…
Racing around, in the park
We’re racing around, racing around the park…”

I wish I was joking, but I’m not. Actually I don’t wish I was joking, I’m proud of it.

Any other Wave Race fans?

Oh yeah, and I always wanted to fuck A. Stewart. Preferably with her jet-ski-racing helmet on, with her blonde ponytail sticking out of the back, just like in the game.

Nobody likes this game huh?

There are nine thousand thread-games and “feuds” this and “madness” that and “round two” of the other…and not a single soul has any nostalgia for a great classic N64 game?

[bitter]

Oh, me! I remember the cheat where you could ride the dolphin. I’d just jump around the practice area indefinitely on that bad boy. Fond memories…

Not only that, but after you activated that cheat, the riders in the background on the main menu screen would be riding around on dolphins instead of jet skis. Permanently.

This caused quite a bit of confusion when I’d plug this game in for a bunch of stoned people who were under the impression that it was a jet-ski racing game, and not a dolphin-racing game.

I recall part of one of the songs sounded like the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore show. “We’re gonna make it after allllll!”

Yup. The Dolphin Park theme song.

That game ruled. In one of the earliest stunt levels I’d always try to back flip off the first large wave, but only managed it once.

Hey, I was busy working. But year, put me down as a big Wave Race 64 fan. And when your system of choice only has three games available, ANYTHING starts to look good. But Wave Race went beyond that and was pure awesome.

Oh, and how are you 22 and think the N64 is a “classic” console? The PSX and N64 were the beginnings of 3D gaming, they’re “Now”. Everything before that is “Classic”.

Yeah, I can’t believe people are thinking of the N64 as classic already. I know it’s ~12 years old but for some reason it’s still so fresh in my mind.

Waverace was a pretty big deal. It was one of the few games I played for N64. I was in high school during the first few years of its lifecycle and gaming was very uncool at the time. I think my agegroup holds the last few people who still see video games as kids’ stuff.

That N64 thumbstick was brutal, though, and Waverace made constant use of it. I came close on Waverace, but the only game I ever played until my thumb literally started bleeding was 1080 Snowboarding.

I don’t know if I’d go that far. I think gaming was “uncool” amongst our age group only because no one wanted to admit they played games even thought everyone did.