The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time N64 ROM Download

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time N64 ROM Download

Synopsis: Nintendo drags its Zelda franchise into 3D in the form of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Perhaps the most ambitious game ever embarked upon, Zelda was developed by a team of more than 200 and over a time period of three years. The game features a promised 40 hours of gameplay across vast 3D worlds interacting with different characters, unraveling a storyline, and solving traditional Zelda-esque puzzles. Players will watch the heroic Link grow from child to adulthood, learn new abilities, make new friends, learn magic, kill bosses, and travel through time -- and that's just a portion of what the title has to offer. Zelda 64 is epic -- and it's Nintendo's golden game.

Peer Schneider's Take: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remains one of the best console games ever produced. Though I'd still give the nod for best Zelda title to Link to the Past on the SNES, Ocarina of Time is one of the rare titles that gets better the longer you play it. Like all Zelda games, it starts off slow, giving players plenty of time to familiarize themselves with the controls and the environments. As you explore your surroundings, you gather more and more items that will help you on your quest -- and then, before you know it, the adventure really sucks you in. The moment I stepped into the Forest Temple -- which is without doubt one of the best game levels of all time -- this game had me hooked for good. The graphics, the haunting score, the intuitive camera control, the varied puzzles and wide-open environments are just as impressive as the flawless implementation of the game's many tools and items. Sleep? Who needs sleep?

This game must have been a tester's nightmare. There are so many things to do, so many places to explore, it's a true feat of game design and programming that it all gels together to form an enjoyable, continuous quest. While the story is secondary to exploration and action, beautifully composed cutscenes make sure that things never gets boring. And once you lay eyes on the final boss, you instantly know that this is the true climax of the game -- the ending just has to be a low-key denouement that wraps things up, but still makes you crave the next Zelda game even more. Luckily, Nintendo has got next installment in the series ready for release this November. I suggest you reserve a copy of Majora's Mask right now. And remember to take the next three days off.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the best Nintendo 64 game on the market and will be remembered as one of gaming's finest moments.

GoldenEye 007 N64 ROM Download

GoldenEye 007 N64 ROM Download

Synopsis: It's the one that changex things forever. Not only was the N64 blessed with one of the best games of all time, but videogames in general took a new direction when Rare brought GoldenEye 007 to the home console. It became the definitive first-person shooter for consoles thanks to an outstanding storyline, sound and stunning realism. The control scheme for GoldenEye still hasn't been faithfully reproduced in any other game, with one notable exception of course. The game hit nearly two years after Pierce Brosnan first took over the James Bond mantle and made many N64 owners enjoy the movie in an entirely different way. Perhaps GoldenEye's greatest impact was its introduction of multiplayer deathmatch on the console. The thought of playing a console game where your buddies sitting right next to you are controlling the enemies rather than some hopelessly inefficient artificial intelligence was an idea whose time had come and GoldenEye was the well crafted result. Its importance is undeniable. Its place in history is secure. GoldenEye was "cool" where other top N64 games to that point could only aspire to be "neat."

Aaron Boulding's Take: True Story. Late Summer 1997.

Peer: Hey have you heard about this game GoldenEye?

Aaron: Yeah, that's that shooting game right?

Peer: Yep. You should check it out. It's pretty cool.

Needless to say, Peer has a knack for the understatement. "Pretty cool" describes the way you could zoom in and examine the weapons in GoldenEye. The way bullet holes would stay in the wall for bit after shooting it is "pretty cool." Everything else about GoldenEye was damn freakin' ass-kickingly awesome! This game ate up more of my time over a period of about six weeks than any other game ever did. I remember trying to herd Natalya through the Control level for a week straight. I remember chasing after 006 on the damn cradle with my pistol at least a thousand times. At the age of 24, I remember being so addicted to the game that I took my N64 and GoldenEye cart on vacation with me, just so I could continue progressing through the game. I didn't even do that when I was a wee lad.

GoldenEye turned me back into a hardcore gamer by re-igniting that fire that burns in all of us when we get our hands on a game that exceeds our expectations and satisfies the soul. Sure, a certain Ms. Dark has come along and improved on everything I loved about 007, but there is no feature, add-on or tweak that can compete with the novelty of that first all-new refreshing experience I had with GoldenEye. You never forget your first time.

Super Mario 64 N64 ROM Download

Super Mario 64 N64 ROM Download

Synopsis: Nintendo's most cherished mascot character of all time, Mario, made his 3D debut with the launch of Nintendo 64 in 1996 -- and what a debut it was. The fat Italian plumber who had previously starred in so many remarkable 2D platformers headlined Super Mario 64 -- a 3D take on the platformer genre. The fact that even four years later Super Mario 64 is so high up on our list of the Top 25 N64 games is a testament to its brilliant design. Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto and team worked their magic on the title to bring gamers more than 15 giant levels of jump-and-run action, plus all sorts of bonus missions, an intuitive control scheme, a pioneering 3D camera system and more. It was amazing when it first released and as we write this now it's still amazing.

Matt Casamassina's Take: A common question asked when referring to upcoming next-generation software is, "Will it be as big of a jump as Super Mario 64 was over everything else?" And that really speaks loads about how original and revolutionary Nintendo's 3D platformer was, and to a certain extent, still is. It's a game that you can immediately pick up and play and be wowed by. Colorful 3D worlds, a simplistic, cartoony look and clever little puzzles will remind gamers of 2D Mario games past, and so will the extremely tight control scheme, allowing for precision analog movement and a selection of moves that includes everything from triple-jumps to butt-stomping. Everything about Mario 64 has a certain polish about it -- and it's a polish that still impresses four years later.

Call it what you will -- a sign of the quality of competing software or the ultimate testament to Nintendo's unsurpassed game-making -- Super Mario 64 is still the best platformer available on any console.

Rocket: Robot on Wheels N64 ROM Download

Rocket: Robot on Wheels N64 ROM Download

Synopsis: First-time Nintendo 64 developer Sucker Punch Studios jumped onto the scene with a highly original 3D platformer called Rocket: Robot on Wheels. The design philosophy behind the title is simple -- rather than build the platformer around the main character, the software house opted instead to focus on the interactivity of the 3D environments he travels. To that end, Rocket employs an advanced physics engine which allows the main character, a lovable unicycle-based robot named Rocket, to travel and experiment with colorful, platform-esque worlds with realistic gravity and inertia.

Matt Casamassina's Take: Rocket is one of the most underrated games for Nintendo 64 and it's really a shame because the game really does advance the platformer genre with great main character control, well-designed 3D worlds and fun puzzles. But even more, there is an enormously impressive physics engine powering this game that allows for a truly realistic sense of gravity and inertia, and interactivity between objects. Every object has its own set of lifelike attributes that must be "weighed" into consideration when solving puzzles. Can Rocket stack certain objects on top of each other or will everything become too heavy and fall over? Can the robot latch onto objects as they fly through the air and use them to travel across to areas that can't otherwise be reached? It's all in the puzzle solving.This is a really well balanced little platformer that absolutely deserves to make the Top 25. It's too bad though that most Nintendo 64 owners haven't realized it.

Harvest Moon 64 N64 ROM Download

Harvest Moon 64 N64 ROM Download

Synopsis: Many N64 owners lobbied long and hard for Harvest Moon 64 to come to the US and when Natsume released this charming game at the end of 1999, it grabbed a lot of attention over the Holidays. It was unique to say the least, and copies of the game were hard to come by early in 2000. There was more stuff to do in this game than your average Rare platformer, but this proved to be Harvest Moon's hook. Keeping up with the variety of daily tasks in HM64 was an exercise in patience and persistence. There's nothing else like it on the N64.

Aaron Boulding's Take: Harvest Moon was by far the best farming simulator on the system, but it makes the Top 25 thanks to some of the richest and most addictive gameplay I've ever come across. The big head graphics, isometric point of view and poor audio elements were all forgotten once my first crop of potatoes came in, and that's all that matters. There wasn't any shooting, puzzle solving, or even jumping in Harvest Moon, but with all of that farmwork to be done everyday, who would have time for all of that nonsense anyway? It wasn't fast, it wasn't frantic, it was, however, chock full of something we at IGN like to call "fun." You haven't experienced happiness in a videogame until you've won Karen's heart.