Retro Lookback: Wave Race 64

Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms and Release Dates (US): Nintendo 64 (November 5, 1996), Wii Virtual Console (August 6, 2007)
Genre: Extreme Sports, Racing

Wave Race 64 is the follow up to the overlooked Gameboy game Wave Race, and it improves on it in many ways.

The gameplay is a bit different from the Gameboy. The perspective moves from Top-Down to Behind-The-Rider 3Rd Person, and it works great. The objective is to race around water tracks as fast as you can, but you have to slalom through Buoys on the course. There are two types of Buoys, Yellow ones with an L on them have to be passed on the Left and Red ones with an R on them have to be passed on the Right. When you correctly pass a Buoy, you an arrow on the Power meter fills, when all 5 arrows fill, you have maximum Power and can go the fastest you can. When you miss a Buoy, your Power goes back down to 0, but you can build it up again. You also build up your Miss counter, if you miss 5 Buoys in a Race, you are disqualified. You can also be disqualified by going outside of the Pink Buoys marking the edge of the track or by remaining on anything but water for 10 seconds. The main modes are Championship, Time Trials, Stunt Mode, and 2P VS. Championship Mode tasks you with racing through the tracks in order against 3 CPU racers. On each track, you have to get a certain point total to move on to the next track, or it is Game Over and you must start from Race one. 1st Place awards you 7 Points, 2nd is 4 Points, 3rd is 2 Points, and 4th is 1 Point. If you are disqualified, you receive no points. There are 4 difficulty modes, with higher levels involving more difficult Buoy placement and more races. Normal has the easiest placement and 6 races, Hard is slightly hard placement and 7 races, Expert is the hardest placement and 8 races, and Reverse is the Expert difficulty only running the tracks in Reverse. If you start a Normal Championship, you have the option to Warm Up by free riding on the special training track Dolphin Park. You can free practice all you want and start the Championship if you choose. There is also scrolling text at the bottom that explains the basics if needed. Time Trials is a straight up contest to go as fast as you can on any of the unlocked tracks. Stunt More tasks you with trying to get the highest score you can in one lap around the track. You score points by passing through rings without missing them and performing stunts in the air and on the water. You are on a timer, and you get time bonuses too, and earn more Time at checkpoints. You can play on any of the unlocked tracks and the special Dolphin Park track in Stunt Mode. 2P VS is a race between 2 human players, first to the goal without being disqualified wins. You can play on any of the unlocked tracks, and set a handicap to speed up the losing player if you choose. 2P VS is a fun time on the 8 tracks, like 1080 Snowboarding, even with the lack of many tracks and options, it still proves to be fun for hours when playing against a 2nd player. You can also go to the options screen to adjust some of the settings, like the Wave Conditions. There are 4 riders to choose from, each with different stats, from the High Speed one to the Turning one to the Balanced one. You can also customize the Jet Ski to tweak the stats slightly, giving you just that little bit more speed or corning. Even though you can tweak the stats, you can't ever quite get the Max Speed guy to have the same corning as the Turning guy and such. The gameplay is fun, and the slalom between the buoys is interesting and keeps cheaters in check.

The music and sounds are tight, and the Water Physics are really good for the N64, the water behaves like...water, and crashing against the waves feels like the real thing (probably).

Bottom Line: Wave Race 64 is a fun racer, like it's buddy series 1080 Snowboarding. The 2P VS is fun and keeps it rolling for hours. The is worth a Buy or Play.