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Wave Race 64 or Fzero?

You know the drill

  • Fzero

  • Wave Race 64


Results are only viewable after voting.

Marty-McFly

Banned
I love Fzero.

It's one of the best racing series ever created.

Let me blow your mind.

Wave Race blows it out of the water.

Not a single game in history since it has released has been able to replicate the physics of actually interacting with the push and pull of the water like Wave Race 64.

The controls are simple, yet elegant, and the learning curb is so steep. The balance and weight distribution of your jetski's is unparalleled.

The courses are all so unique and brilliantly designed. Whether you're in gorgeous Sunset Bay or the forboding waters of Marine Fortress, every course has it's own pulse.

I know a lot of friends of mine who didn't like Wave Race as much, and you know why? They sucked at it. 4 player local muliplayer sessions at my house revealed all.

Until you've mastered every course on the highest difficulty with Dan Mariner, or broke your own stunt records with M. Jeter a hundred times you don't know the Wave Race 64 I do, the greatest racer ever.


So go ahead and vote for your Fzero. It's okay, you don't know any better. :messenger_smiling_with_eyes:

 
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Shifty1897

Member
Both are fun to play, but only one has triple the frame rate vs the other and a random track generator, which was unheard of at the time.
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
Wave Race 64 was so blown away by the graphics as a kid. It's a pity that Nintendo can't use this ip properly :(
Yea, I have lots of great memories of Wave Race 64, need to get it on the Wii U.

I remember getting the GCN Wave Race and being utterly disappointed. I don't know if I would still feel that way but I remember it feeling nothing like the original, just a massive step back.
 
S

SpongebobSquaredance

Unconfirmed Member
Wave Race has been trumped with Splashdown imo:



especially the sequel:


looks low budget, but plays and feels great. As a comparison, Blue Storm controlled weird, probably as an attempt to make it more realistic, but imo it felt delayed.

F-Zero is a more consistent and simply better series all around. Personally though, they both can come back alongside the Excite series. Excite Truck is still a champion and a new one would work perfectly with the gyro of the Switch.
 
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BlackTron

Member
Super Mario 64 and Wave Race 64 vs Luigi's Mansion 1 and Wave Race: Blue Storm is like a case study in Nintendo's descent into mediocrity.

I played Wave Race 64 within the past month just for the water physics again. I forgot about Blue Storm the week it came out.
 
Super Mario 64 and Wave Race 64 vs Luigi's Mansion 1 and Wave Race: Blue Storm is like a case study in Nintendo's descent into mediocrity.

I played Wave Race 64 within the past month just for the water physics again. I forgot about Blue Storm the week it came out.
Rare needs to make a jet ski game with the waves from Sea of Thieves.
 

BlackTron

Member
Also, random observation, but since I was a kid I noticed a striking resemblance between Wave Race's title music and the opening song for the Mary Tyler Moore show.

Once you've heard it, you cannot un-hear it. So every time I think of Wave Race, I think of Mary Tyler Moore 😅
 

balgajo

Member
I like Wave Race 64 more. But to be honest I played it like a jet ski simulator on free mode, so I can't really compare between the two of them.
 

Bar81

Member
You haven't played Wave Race 64 until you've played the rumble pack version - Shindou Wave Race 64. Takes an amazing game to a level that you can't imagine until you experience it.
 

00_Zer0

Member
You can probably emulate Wave Race to a solid 30fps on PC's, but on original hardware it only ran between 20-30 fps. It was not a steady framerate.

I voted for F-Zero, because of the importance placed on 60 fps frame rate and challenge/skill, whereas Wave Race was about a showpiece for the N64 hardware. Does anyone know if Wave Race Blue Storm for Gamecube is any good, and what about its frame rate? Was it a rock solid 60 fps?
 
Wave Race 64 was one of the first games of that generation that blew me away. I'm a big fan of Blue Storm as well, pretty stupid that Nintendo hasn't done anything with the IP since. Even with the Switch's less than great hardware, they would be able to do some really cool shit with the series. I've always wanted to have some Wave Race tracks that are more point A to point B instead of just lap based tracks. Imagine a race from the top of a snowy mountains water source all the way down to the bottom where the stream would get more intense with white water rapids and all that good stuff. NST experimented a bit with some of those concepts in 1080 avalanche, it would be cool to see that stuff taken to the next level.

Do it Nintendo.
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
Wave Race 64 is good, but it's no contest, F-Zero X is more fun.

I strongly dislike Blue Storm. Crafts handle very poorly, much like F-Zero GX. The GC controller, or for that matter any controller, does not have the precision of the N64 stick.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
Speaking of Wave race

I know the kinect didn't catch on but this game was kinda fun, especially playing with just your hands and no controller


eww gross!!

is wave race 64 really beating fzero :messenger_pensive:

dude fzero on the n64 was sheit.. fzero on snes? gimme that instead.. the 3 games on the gba are also golden.. even a damn track builder.. and not locked behind some shitty expansion system

wipeout
extreme g1
extreme g2
star wars episode 1 racer..

all way way waaay better.


wave race was proper next gen shit when it came out.. fzero looked dated as fuck even back then.


also this thread... diddy kong racing.
 
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Jeeves

Member
I played tons of Waverace 64 as a kid and I agree with nearly every point you make. It does a lot right and accomplishes what it sets out to do well.

But I still have more fun playing F-Zero X.
 
S

SpongebobSquaredance

Unconfirmed Member
dude fzero on the n64 was sheit.. fzero on snes? gimme that instead.. the 3 games on the gba are also golden.. even a damn track builder.. and not locked behind some shitty expansion system

wipeout
extreme g1
extreme g2
star wars episode 1 racer..

all way way waaay better.
latest
 
Wave Race 64 is still to this day the best video game handling of water and its interaction with a vehicle. It also has that beautiful soulful feeling of 90s vibrancy that meshes both the older cartoony styles that came before, and the 3D realism of realtime graphics to come. Similar in essence to Super Mario 64. It's perfection, and nothing can replace it.

wavefall.gif
 

McCheese

Member
I love seeing WR64 get mentioned, I turned it on the other week when dossing around with a new upscaler, and ended up getting addicted to it all over again; incredible game and it's aged so well other than the framerate, can't think of any game quite like it (Bluestorm sucked).

Here are my reasons for WR64 getting the vote:

- It's visually more appealing, sure it's easy to have better graphics when you are running at 20fps compared to the 60fps of F-Zero X, BUT the art direction is just miles better; milky lake having this low haunting mist on the first lap which gradually lifts as the race goes on, the training course with the dolphin which follows you about, the fucking pirate ship from Mario 64 being on one of the courses, and the vibe of the game - the teal water and bright pastel colours which somehow remind me of how summers used to look when I was a kid.

- audio is amazeballs, it's composed by Totaka. Folks often think of Koji as the top composer at Nintendo, but Totaka is really up there IMO, he's responsible for every animal crossing, and get this, he also went on to be the composer for all Wii Channels, the fucking legend. The thing about WR64 is that each track was so clearly written for the course it's played on, and it really amplifies the levels themselves, you have the chill calm music of drake lake, and the rocking beats to the difficult obstacle-ridden tracks, so just listening to the OST in isolation doesn't really do his work justice.

- it has way more depth than anyone realised. Seriously, go read the manual - did you know you can stack stunts together? or that you could use stunts to turn corners quicker? or that even when you are not in the air adjusting your pitch and yaw makes a difference to how your jetski handles. Oh, and you can unlock the dolphin, another commentator, another difficulty, a hidden mirror mode, and a hidden track, ghost mode, time trials, split-screen.. you get the idea, for one of the earlier N64 games this had a ton of hidden depth that people never really knew about at the time, reviewers also missed a lot of it which is why I think it's not remembered as a Mario 64 tier classic (spoiler: it is).



I rest my case.
 
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Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
Wave Race 64 was special to me.

Not only was the game fun, those water effects for the time were phenomenal.
 
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