Welcome to the cartridge archive, the show dedicated to chronicling the complete Nintendo 64
library, one cartridge at a time.
I’m Jamie.
And I’m Adam.
Each episode will pull another game from the shelf and explore its impact on Nintendo 64
history, from beloved classics and hidden gems to forgotten curiosities and infamous
disaster.
No cartridge is left behind.
Along the way we’ll examine each game’s story, its development, legacy, collector value,
and the impact it left on the Nintendo 64 library as a whole.
Then, we will put it through the rigorous and totally patented 64 point inspection to
determine whether it has what it takes to become certified 64.
All right, episode number one.
It just makes sense to start this game as our number one kickoff episode.
We got to start alphabetically.
So we’re going to do our maiden voyage with the N64 exclusive title, 1080 degrees snowboarding.
Let’s crack open the archive.
The late 1990s were a perfect storm for the rise of snowboarding.
The winter X games were exploding in popularity and the 1998 winter Olympics in Nagano had
just welcomed the sport as an official event.
Suddenly, snowboarding wasn’t just in Ish Havi, it was everywhere, and it didn’t take
long for the video game industry to notice.
So Nintendo set out to make a snowboarding game.
Not just another arcade racer full of impossible tricks and exaggerated physics, but something
that actually attempted to capture the feeling of carving down a mountain with realistic momentum,
weight transfer, and a challenging trick system that required perfect landings or you’d
risk being eliminated from competition.
Players could choose from five snowboarders, each with distinct strengths and personalities,
take on eight different courses, and pull off more than 25 tricks.
They did all this while using officially licensed Lamar snowboards and Tommy Hilfiger
Parall, both unusual moves for Nintendo during that era that further reinforced their commitment
to real world authenticity.
The game offered two player multiplayer, rumble pack support, and even saved directly
to the cartridge without requiring a controller pack.
Under the guidance of legendary producer Shigeru Miyamoto, several members of the development
team brought everything they’d learned about physics and momentum from having previously
worked on Wave Race 64.
Instead of rewarding button mashing, this game expected players to learn how to carry speed
through turns, balance their landings, and actually master the mountain.
Critics loved it.
They praised its sense of speed, its visuals, especially its surprisingly deep gameplay.
The game went on to sell more than two million copies, earned an interactive achievement award
from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, and became one of the Nintendo 64’s defining
sports games, all impressive achievements for a project developed in just nine months.
Its success eventually spawned a GameCube sequel, while the original continued to find fans
through the Wii and Wii U virtual console libraries, and portions of its soundtrack were
even featured in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
More than 25 years later, it’s still being introduced to a new generation of players through
Nintendo Switch Online.
The question is whether it’s demanding, simulation-inspired approach to snowboarding has aged as well
as this reputation has.
This week on the cartridge archive, 1080 snowboarding.
Alright, 1,000 to 80 degree snowboarding!
Adam, what is your thought about this game all this time later?
So this was not a game that I spent a lot of time with as a kid, I remember ads.
I remember seeing it for rent, but I don’t know that I ever played it until much, much later.
What about you?
This is one of those games where, you know, back in the day, it’s a case of well, if your friend
has this game then you don’t get this game so that you can maximize your shared collection.
Sure, yeah.
I did not have this game, so this is one that I would borrow.
So I played it, we enjoyed the multiplayer, and I definitely had experience with it.
I actually remember being pretty decent at it back in the day, but it wasn’t one that
was actually in my collection.
I too do remember the commercials for this, particularly the one that featured a fake snowboarder
named J-Who.
I don’t know if you remember this.
At the end of the commercial, he had like a really problematic Indian accent.
The commercial would not age well today if it is how I remember it, and he would say this
game is 100% J-Who approved, and it was a weird commercial.
I remember my buddy Eric, and he was the one who actually had the game for, you know, the
back and forth trade off, J-Who approved became common vernacular for us when we liked something,
it would become J-Who approved.
So I remember that honestly more than the game itself in many cases.
Quick note, it was a different time, just so we don’t need to worry about that.
It was a different time.
Yeah, it was a lower polygon time.
We have since progressed.
I think one thing I thought was pretty interesting that we learned doing the research for this
episode was that the actual 1080 degree spin, three full rotations in the air when this game
came out had not happened.
And I thought that was pretty interesting.
I think we had learned that it happened a couple of years later, I believe, and it happened
in, it has now since happened in Olympic competition.
It’s happened in games.
Games competition.
Yeah.
It’s crazy that they would make a game with basically an impossible to complete move as
the title.
But yeah, the first 1080 in official competition came a couple of years after this game was
released.
But the current record is a 2,340 degree rotation.
And that was landed by, let me see here in my notes, Hitaro Ogywara.
I’m probably butchering that name.
And that was at the 2025 winter X game.
So pretty recent on that one.
So this guy, this, this, this Ogywara guy is probably like 10, eight, come on, really?
That’s, that’s like amateur stuff.
Watch me.
Hold my beer.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, guys, 1080, that’s real impressive.
So maybe, maybe we’ll get a newer spiritual successor of the game and they’ll put this guy
on the cover since he’s, he’s the guy now.
Yeah, we’ll see.
We’ll see.
I think it’s another sequel, maybe, maybe he’ll make a cut.
So yeah, the only other little cartridge curiosity that I got here that I wanted to share
was that the computer controlled snowboarders in this game actually all had different AI
for each of the characters.
It’s a smaller roster, which we’ll get into later.
But each of the characters actually played differently when you were playing against them
in competition.
So you’ve got one character who is more aggressive and other one that chases the speed, one that
focuses on aerial tricks.
So they actually would each play differently, which I remember being a selling point of the
game.
And I think it’s something that’s pretty cool because it’s not really what you would tribute
to a game of this age.
So the fact that it had that level of ingenuity behind it is, I think, pretty telling.
Yeah.
I think definitely they put a good bit of work into it.
I do want to make one quick excuse for the game to just to go back where we said that 1080
hadn’t been done.
It also like Street Fighter, like we don’t have people shooting out fireballs yet.
So like, I don’t know to be too harsh on 1080 that that hadn’t happened yet because I haven’t
seen anybody shoot fireballs out of their hands either.
So we’re still working on that.
Maybe at the next winter XK.
Everybody goes at their own pace.
So we’ll get to that point maybe.
Fair enough.
I think that’s a reasonable approach.
And one that as now podcasting professionals having a formalized archive judging these games,
we should adopt that.
Yeah, I think this officially makes us both professionals.
And I would say internet humorist.
I think that’s something we can put on our resumes.
Fair enough.
So I wanted to get into the back of the box quote for this game.
This is how the official marketing was presented for the title.
So let me get my back of box reading voice on.
I’m all ears.
You’re taking a Tahoe 155 snowboard down a steep bumpy incline at night and you’re about
to top off an indie nose bone with a 360 degree air and you haven’t left your living room.
You’re playing 1080 parentheses 1080, snowboarding.
Again, so intense, you’ll be brushing the snow off your goggles with five different borders,
eight different Lamar registered trademark snowboards, more than 25 tricks, a half pipe
and six different courses.
This is as close as you’ll get to the real thing without hopping on the next ski lift.
That’s intense.
That is intense.
I don’t know why I read it that way, but I feel like that’s what they were feeling when
they were typing out the back of that box.
I think the intensity lends to the need to read like that.
Yeah, I don’t think you read the back of Tetris attack with that voice, but this game,
this game, it felt perfectly clear.
Yeah, I think.
And for our younger listeners, this was what there was back in the day.
There was magazine stuff, but there weren’t like websites and all kinds of stuff.
Sometimes literally reading the back of the box in the store was like, “Should I got
to get this thing?”
So like, they had to swing for the fences on some of these things.
Yeah, they definitely show their age.
This game in multiple points, ages itself is exceedingly nine Gs.
And I think that this is rather indicative of that on the back of the box as well.
I think that is very, very accurate.
You ready to hit this 64 point inspection?
Yes, this is going to be the first official use of it.
So I’m actually pretty excited about it.
Would you mind hitting everybody with the run down on how this is going to work?
Let’s put this thing into action.
So the 64 point inspection is a carefully crafted evaluation designed to judge every Nintendo
64 game through a series of 10 tests.
Each test is worth 10 points.
For each test, we’ll present the evidence, we’ll make our case, we’ll put it to a vote.
And if the game passes the test, it earns 10 points.
If it fails, it earns none.
And if we are split, then the game will be awarded five points.
Any game that earns 64 or more points passes the inspection and receives our coveted certified
64 seal of approval.
And if a game somehow earns a perfect 100 points, it receives the player’s choice award,
which is not just the only one that is not in the game, but the one that is not in the game.
But it’s not the only one that is in the game.
It’s a really cool game.
And it’s just a really cool game that’s not just a game that is in the game, but it’s not
the only one that is in the game.
But it’s not the only one that is in the game.
So it’s just a game that I’m really excited about.
And I’m really excited about the game that is in the game.
And it’s really cool.
The memory pack test.
Is this game still remembered today or has it faded into obscurity with the average
gamer recognize it in today’s gaming climate?
That’s a tough one because I feel like it had a sequel, which I think we mentioned in
the history lesson, but the sequel was many years ago.
Yeah, it’s an ADAvalanche on the game.
On the game, I feel like this is tough.
I don’t know that like if I were to mention it to like my kids or something, I don’t think
they would recognize it.
All right.
So you’re going to go, you think you’re going to go fail on that one?
I might.
I might.
It has ref, we, I think we referenced as well before that it was, it does have music in
Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
It does have, I believe there’s a trophy, at least in the Japanese version.
So like there is some relevance, but I don’t know that the average, when we say the average
gamer, the average person today is going to remember that.
I’m going to have to agree with you.
I’m going to fail this one too.
The name is remembered, but the game itself is not besides the completionist collector,
you know, N64 worshiper.
I do not think that this, this game carries over.
I mean, name a character, right?
You can’t.
Yes, it has some famous or infamous elements to it, particularly when it comes to the music.
And it has been referenced in other things, but to your point, this game doesn’t have cache
A. This IP did not survive.
It does not resonate with a, a current audience.
So I’m with you on that one.
I’m going to have to fail it.
I think that’s fair.
All right.
All right.
Moving on to test number two, the Rumble Pack test.
This is the Rumble Pack.
The coolest cinematic gaming experience there is.
Does this game really take advantage of what made the Nintendo 64 unique for player multiplayer,
analog controls, accessories, and other signature N64 features?
All right.
What do you think about on this one?
Yeah.
It’s a little bit of a tough call. I will say that the analog stick was absolutely a big deal
for this game.
I think the level of control that you had, you weren’t getting that with a D pad.
Yeah.
No, definitely.
This was a really good showcase for the Nintendo 64’s analog stick.
I, I 100% agree with you there.
The way that the game played and moved felt really fluid for the time and it, and it was
boasted as such.
So I think that it really did take advantage of the analog control and the analog control
was in main push for the Nintendo 64 controller.
So I think it gets a pass for that alone, but I would also say that it took advantage of
the, the system’s memory as well.
So it had great replay functionality and features and you did not need to have a memory
card in order to be able to do that.
And I think that’s impressive as well.
So I would give this one a pass.
I think on top of that, I believe it also did have Rumble Pack support if I’m not mistaken,
which also was kind of revolutionary for the Nintendo 64 era.
And it’s kind of hard to discount it at that era any game having that because it was so
uncommon.
So I’m thinking pass for sure.
Test number three, the expansion pack test.
That is one powerful piece of machinery.
Does this game deserve an expansion, sequel, remake, or modern successor?
Was there enough here to justify a future beyond the original cartridge?
We did mention that it does have a sequel though it has been some time.
So yeah, I don’t know.
I think, you know, it’s no wording game seem to have kind of fallen out of the cultural
zeitgeist as it were if I’m even using that word correctly, kind of dumb.
I think I wouldn’t be against it.
I wouldn’t be against it either.
I think by the the rubric of the test does this game deserve a sequel.
It got one.
So I think by default, I think this guy gets a pass for that one.
Yeah, I think.
But yes, if we saw the game show up again, I think the brand could be applied to something.
It’s tricky though, because tricky, snowboarding pun.
The game’s name, 1080, you can’t not call it 1080 yet, the 1080 as we’ve already discussed
is not necessarily a quintessential move in or have the same prestige as it did at the
time.
And you can’t call it two times 1080 or three times.
It’s just not going to work.
Whatever the record now is is the 3,450 degrees.
Yeah, I think that’s how many feet are in a mile.
I think yeah, something like that.
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, I think, I think you’re right.
I think that it did get a sequel so that obviously shows that it was popular enough in
its era.
I think it again, if it came back, I think I would be interested.
And of course, now we’ve got, you know, visuals and physics far beyond what this had.
I think it would be impressive if they were to come back with something.
So I’m for it.
Yeah, I think I’ll pass it to.
All right.
Next up, the barrel roll test.
New barrel roll.
Impressive, Star Fox.
How impressive was this game for its time?
Did it push boundaries of technology, gameplay, graphics, scale or innovation?
So I mean, I’ll jump right in on this one.
I think it felt extremely impressive at the time.
The clothes on your border would ripple in the wind as you went by the different time of
day and weather conditions actually impacted how the player is controlled on the different
surfaces.
You know, you would slip on the ice and the thicker powder actually slowed you down.
You would actually take less, you were less likely to tumble off your board if you landed
in a softer snow and then you could get over to the hard packing and make, you know, a better
time trial run on everything.
It was really impressive.
And they made the concessions when they needed to.
So, you know, you’re playing multiplayer.
That fog comes in pretty much on every single course and the character models become lower
poly and all that.
Yeah, that definitely becomes a thing as soon as you start splitting the screens.
I mean, they knew what they were working with.
It’s the plus side of them working specifically on an exclusive game for this hardware.
But I think it was impressive.
And graphically, for the time, it was a pretty remarkable visual, not only from a technical
perspective, but just visually, I think this game really nailed it.
I think you’re right, too, with the, because the question is, of course, did it at the time
push the boundaries of technology?
It wasn’t just something that they shoveled out.
And I think it did do a really good job of that.
It had, as we mentioned in the history lesson, the pedigree of the developers, some of those
folks had worked on wave race, which also had like crazy, like water physics.
And so they were already really good at this.
And so bringing that dynamic to the snow piling up is you take a turn like an, and it, not
just being that you’re just going on flats, snow, and nothing’s happening.
Like, there’s no way to react.
There were particle effects on this, this bad boy.
I got to pass this one with confidence.
I think this game was very impressive for the time.
And I don’t think it gets enough credit today, to be honest with you, like the characters
actually would push themselves back up if they fell down in a realistic way with their
hands going in the right direction to make contact with the ground, or at least the
animation was done of a caliber where it read like they were actually pushing themselves
back up.
That’s pretty amazing.
You know, if they fell forward or if they fell backwards, like that kind of stuff.
I mean, I remember back in what like PS3 era, I want to say it was an uncharted game, or
a game like that, maybe one of the Tomb Raiders, like if your character got close to the wall,
they would like reach out and like brace themselves on the wall in a way that made sense
or their foot would land on a rock in a way that was believable with them looking like
they were shifting their weight.
This game kind of alluded to that already.
And we’re talking back in 1998.
Yeah, it was like almost 10 years before that.
Yeah, yeah.
1080 did it first.
Yeah, I think that’s that makes a lot of sense.
And like you’re mentioning with the snow too, like the, the, you build up a lot more speed
in the half pipe than you do over in the other sections, there’s sections where the snow
is heavier versus, uh, versus thinner and harder packed and like you, you noticed that.
Yeah, I think it’s a, it’s a for sure pass.
Yeah, that was strats for that.
Like you could land if you were coming off a big jump, try land in the softer snow right
to the side of the main course.
You’re less likely to bail out and then you could just hop right over onto the smooth
snow and it was, it was, it was, I, I impressed pass, pass for sure.
I think that leads us into the next test as well.
The strategy.
Test number five, the joystick gymnastics test.
Yeah.
Woohoo.
Yeah.
How well does this game play today?
Are the controls and cameras still enjoyable?
Or are they working against the player?
I’m a little, I’m a little mixed on this one.
I don’t mind the camera at all.
But cameras, great.
It does a perfect job.
It stays behind your border pretty effectively, pretty easy to see what’s going on, but I struggled
like crazy with the controls.
Even now years on better at games than I had to have been then I could not land a 1080.
Like in the practice, I’m hitting a half pipe, building up speed.
I could not pull it off.
So I, that one leaves me a little conflicted.
I’m sure it was possible.
People are probably great at this game.
I struggled.
I’m the opposite.
I used to be better at video games and now I’m substantially worse.
And I actually remember being pretty good at this game.
It does have a nice, when you know how to master the holding down the Z button to crouch to
land and absorb the shock and all of that, you do have this satisfying feeling of like,
oh, I know what I’m doing here.
But this game was pre-tony hawk and Tony Hawk has come along and I think done this
game 30.
It just does tricks in sporting games better.
And I think the genre has moved past this.
And while it was a pioneer at the time, I do not think by today’s standards these controls
hold up.
Now I’m absolutely pants at this game.
I cannot pull off anything besides an indie nose bone every single time.
And I’m not even trying to do it.
I just keep them that one move over and over again, which is a hilariously name move.
So face value, okay, with it, but I mean, you can see that on the screen a bunch of times.
It’s funny every time.
Even if I go into the half pipe for like just rack up some points, I’m rubbish at it.
There’s a mega big jump in one of the courses.
You can get a lot of air and it’s kind of impossible not to be able to land the fancy tricks
on that one.
Especially if you’ve unlocked some of the characters and boards with the better stats,
but legitimately, I got to fail this one.
I just don’t think that it’s as fun to play as people might remember.
And I mean, honestly, even back in the day, I was a twisted edge snowboarding guy.
I’ll admit that I played that game over this one.
And I will willingly admit that this is a superior game to twisted edge, but twisted edge
was more fun for me.
I felt better getting good at playing that game than I did this one.
And I think that’s telling where it stands, especially now after all this time, at least
in my eyes.
The key to the test too is that in the barrel roll test, it’s how impressive was it at
the time.
Joystick gymnastics as has emphasis on does it play well still now?
And so yeah, that’s a good way of looking at it.
We need to make sure we maintain that moving forward.
Yeah.
In its era, it was very revolutionary.
And for its error, the controls were okay.
But if you go back and try to play it now, after like you said, all the advancements
we’ve made and things that have moved forward through other games playing this now, you’re
like, I don’t even know if I can do this because we’ve gotten better ways of doing it.
Yeah.
Oh, and you want to know one thing that is kind of bullshit.
I always thought this back in the day, but the other racers don’t take damage when they
collide, even if they collide with you, or if they fall over.
They just pop right back up when they’re good to go.
I mean, like we said, they look impressive as they push themselves back up, but they don’t
take damage for it.
You take damage over time.
So, you know, if you’re colliding with them and you’re competing against them, you’re
trying to beat these races, unless you pull off like a perfect run and they’re not pulling
off the perfect run in the same spot of the course that you are also, they have an unfair
advantage.
So that just sort of like drives home the irritation on this, to be honest with you.
So, yeah, I got to tell you.
I got to tell you so many times in your damage meter, and it just says you’re done.
You’re out.
You have to avoid falling because you have a limited number of times you can fall and they
don’t.
Yeah.
And I resist the black and the music winds down and you’re done.
All right.
Do it on test number six, the bump to the bass test.
How good is this game’s audio?
Does it have memorable music?
Iconic sound effects with a kind of soundtrack that sticks with you long after you put the
controller down.
This one I’m going to have to probably largely defer to you because you have much fonder
and deeper memories of it.
I like said, haven’t played it as much until recently.
So like the music is not something that’s sticking with me as much as if I had played a ton
of it when I was younger.
Okay.
Well, if we’re going to defer to me, then you’re passing this bad boy because this game had
some awesome music to it.
And it’s awesome in a kind of like looking back at it terribly bad way.
But man, that like 1080 music that we played during the main menu, which is like, and then
this guy just starts like yelling like, no reason.
And then it goes into some sort of like weird chanting at one point.
It’s like corn meets somebody really crappy compressed audio treatment on a microphone.
It’s awesome.
I love it.
And I remember extremely fondly.
The only thing I would say that I remember more than that was the music that they would
play during the menu where it was just like rock, you body, rock, rock, oh, work, you body,
work, work, you body or something like that.
I got stuck in my head like mad.
That was an earworm for sure.
So yeah, I got to pass this one as far as memorable music for better or worse.
I have definitely seen going back and playing some of these games for research is we’re kind
of ramping up doing more of these episodes.
There’s some really questionable music choices in the mid to late 90s for sure.
Yeah, there’s definitely some odd.
If you listen to the lyrics to some of the electronic music they have in this, it’s a little questionable.
But I think it’s good.
And like I said, I stand by that 1080, I want that on the Nintendo music app.
I don’t know if it’s in there.
I never use that app.
But if that is, that’s on everyone.
That should be on everybody’s workout playlist.
I think that is straight up murder music.
I think that’s a must have.
So I’m passing this one.
I’m going to take a look at the app actually and get back to you on that.
I do think though it should get a pass just because of the type of music because we’re talking
extreme sports.
Extreme sports has always kind of been a little more of the punk rock, the heavier metal
type stuff.
So I think in the occasional hip hop tossed in.
So I think it probably checks the boxes that it needed to and you can’t fault it for being
correct.
All right.
All right.
So that’s a pass.
Moving on.
Number seven, the smash invite test.
Will this battler live up to expectations?
Does this game have characters, worlds, music or ideas worthy of a place in super smash brothers?
So for this one, I actually do have a list of the characters from the game.
And so and I do, they’re fairly, they’re just, they’re not, you know, there’s not anything
like that.
You can be, you can be honest.
They’re, they’re, they’re kind of rough.
I do, I do like some of the names.
So we have Kensuki Kamachi, who is a 19 year old from Japan, known in Japan for
his snowboarding skills.
We’ve got Dion Blaster, which is a pretty sick name to go with the snowboarding theme.
It’s pretty sick.
He’s like the big buff British guy in this game.
Yeah, he’s 20, 28.
He’s from the UK.
One is the best overall snowboarders.
Fast, strong, not great with chick er- with tricks.
We’ve got, he’s great with chicks.
How dare you besmirch the name of Dion Blaster?
He might be great with chick with everything with the name like Dion Blaster.
He’s great with the chicks probably.
Rob Haywood, 20 from Seattle.
And this one actually, there’s a little bit of lore behind the scenes.
There’s another guy named Ricky Winterborn, which is pretty on the nose for someone who’s
from Canada.
Yeah.
Yeah, Winterborn.
And it’s weird.
It says he’s 14 in this.
And it says that Rob joined the team because he knows Ricky’s dad.
So that’s a little bit of lore behind the scenes that you would not have known if you did
not read the manual to this game, but it’s in there.
I read it.
And it is also interesting to note that Rob and Ricky both appear in 1080 Avalanche
and in Wave Race Blue Storm on the GameCube.
So they are way do they like to they age them up?
canonically? Chronologically?
I think a little bit.
I think one thing I think from what I saw that Ricky gets a couple years older, but Rob doesn’t
I think is what I saw, which is a little bit problematic.
Okay.
And they and they’re both I guess good at also jet skiing on top of so that’s cool.
And they’re I guess lifelong friends or depending on how time works since one got older, I don’t
know if that counts as lifelong or not.
And then last one is Akari Hayami, who is a 17 year old girl from also Japan and is relatively
new to the sport and is actually also both in those other two games and is apparently available
as a spirit in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
Oh wow.
Okay.
Well, I was about to say well that sounds like the most with the exception of D on blaster.
That sounds like the most boring line up of boring people ever who would never get invited
to smash brothers in any way shape or form, but apparently I am wrong in that.
So I guess we have to pass this by default because it’s already in smash brothers.
I actually do have a note here.
It says that Kansuki Kamachi also does appear as a gold trophy in the Japanese version of
Smash Brothers Melee and was proposed as a character for Brawl, but they did pass on
that.
So yeah, I’m with you.
I think that if they considered well, and I guess there’s a line to that they considered
it enough, but they chose not to.
So I think maybe the ball is in our court to make that decision.
There is also the ice man, the gold border and the panda whose names are all fairly self-explanatory
who are unlockable characters, but I don’t know.
We want to toss them in or not.
So we can toss them in.
I think it’s fair to include the idea, but I mean the idea of this, you know, this category
is Smash Brothers is recognized as the king maker, right?
If you’re relevant enough to be referenced in smash brothers, then you’re a relevant game.
Some of the references are, hey, you’ve got a main playable character or you could be a trophy
or you could be a background cameo.
Whatever it might be, obviously they expanded it with the whole spirits and stickers and
all of that kind of stuff.
So it doesn’t necessarily need to be the biggest reference in the world, but is your game
a big enough impact to be included in that?
So I think I have to pass this.
I guess I’ll be happy though.
I would have said absolutely not, but I have been proven wrong.
Yeah, I get the research, the research proved that maybe it is and I get to get it also, believes
that earlier that music was also included.
So there’s been more than one piece that they felt was worth including.
So I guess I’ll give it a pass.
Okay, okay.
Cool.
Levels wise, there aren’t really any levels that can necessarily make it into the into the
game, either but that’s another category as far as a way that a game could appear in Smash
Brothers.
I will say on the note of levels, the opening course for this game is called Crystal Lake.
It is not the Crystal Lake of Jason Voorhees, of Friday The 13ths?
If it wasn’t for him.
Not as far as we know it could be.
Well, that’s true.
It’s true.
Maybe if you play the game long enough, Jason Voorhees runs out like Yeti Monster style,
like in SkiFree and just murders you if you run out of time.
That would be pretty cool.
And then he should probably get the nod for Smash Brothers.
Yeah.
There’s an additional ninth character that’s been hidden all this time and it’s Jason in
none of us knew.
As you’re snowboarding that the murder music from the intro is like, (nu metal noises) and then Jason Voorhees jumps out of a bush and murders you.”
All right.
You know what?
If they can do that and that makes it into Smash Brothers, then I completely changed my
tune.
There you go.
And he’s already winter ready, right?
He’s got a, you know, hockey mask.
He’s ready to run.
He’s a winter sports guy.
I can see it.
Yeah.
He might be, you know, maybe we get that sequel one of these days and they toss him in.
I think we just wrote it for it.
So, yeah, absolutely.
Nintendo, if you’re listening, Shiggy, if you hear us, produce that one too.
All right.
So begrudgingly, I think this one’s got to be a pass.
I’ll take it.
I’ll mark it down.
Test number eight, the 101% test.
Oh, they are running up the score.
Is this game worth fully completing?
Worth the effort.
You already touched on this gold border.
You unlocked gold border, fantastically named.
There’s also crystal man and a panda head that you can unlock.
You kind of get these things by, I think, gold border you get by basically completing absolutely
everything.
And crystal man you get by beating all of the, I want to say, it’s all of the staff records
or maybe that’s the panda head.
I think there’s a penguin snowboard as well.
So these rewards you get, but you, they have some cool features as in, you know, excellent
stats and they’re really good for nailing all the tricks.
But in order to get them, you kind of have to have already nailed all the tricks.
So, I don’t know if I can pass this one.
I’d have to fail it to be honest with you.
I don’t think the rewards are really worth it as far as the efforts go.
I mean, there is a certain satisfaction you get by mastering a game like this, but as far
as the carrot being dangled, gold man and, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think,
then, and crystal man or just a pallet swap.
And the panda head is just a big modification to an existing characters.
So I think that’s a pretty good point.
I think it’s a good way of putting it.
Like you said, you already have to be so good at the game that being rewarded with a character
who’s better than the other characters that you already got really good at using isn’t
much of a reward.
It just makes it easier to do what you’ve already gotten really good at.
And like you said, I think at that point, you’ve already done so much and completed so much
of the game that you don’t have much else to see.
You’re just seeing it fast.
Yeah, what’s the incentive, right?
And then once you’ve got these characters unlocked, what you can show off to people that
you have them in multiplayer, but then everyone’s just going to choose those characters.
Like why would you not choose the character with the best stats every time in multiplayer?
There’s literally no reason not to choose the best board and the best character.
So that’s another thing that’s a little bit of a shame with this game is that you just
look at the stats of the boards is quite literally no reason to use 90% of the boards in this game
based on the statistics.
I mean, you can pick one just because you think it looks cool, but you can’t really see the
board while you’re playing it anyway.
So yeah, there’s a couple of those.
I think that you unlock on top of the character.
It’s the same thing.
You work really hard to get it.
Then you get the faster board and it either just makes you more competitive or it makes
the game easier, but you’ve already had to work hard to get it.
So it’s not quite the same thing as some really cool Easter egg or something that gets revealed
because you put in the effort.
So I’m with you.
I don’t think we necessarily have to pass that one.
I think it’s also another case of Tony Hawk doing this game dirty.
Tony Hawk did Dion Blaster dirty.
They had the coolest secret characters.
You’re not getting Darth Maul going down a mountain.
It can’t compete.
I just don’t think that it’s unfortunately.
I just don’t think it’s on that level.
So yeah, that’s a fail.
Yeah.
This number nine, Wario’s wallet.
Oh my god.
Is this how it is?
Just thinking about the satellite.
Oh, that’s so good.
Is this game worth the price of admission today?
If you’re spending modern collector money, are you getting your money’s worth?
So we have looked this up for you.
Let me read you the numbers on it.
So according to pricecharting.com, the loose price for this game is currently sitting
at 1576 USD and a complete version of it, which is opened, but box manual included, would
set you back at about 44.73 is the average.
So for a clean eBay cart find, non-stickered, non-marked up, you’re probably looking about
18 to 20 bucks American for this game.
That’s a bad.
I will also add that it is available now on the Switch 2 expansion pack online service
as well.
So you can play it on there as well.
But in my opinion, I think this game is worth it for the price for 15 bucks to have this
game, especially if you’re a collector.
It’s kind of a no-brainer.
When you look at some of the prices on some of these other games, this is, you know, anything
to it’s not a bad game.
Like it’s one thing if you’re paying 20 bucks in the game isn’t good or if you’re paying,
you know, way more because it was uncommon because nobody bought it in the first place,
but it’s a decent game that plays well and it isn’t super expensive.
I think that’s pretty fair.
Yeah.
And I don’t think it being available on an online service.
That’s, I mean, that’s like 20 bucks a year or whatever it is for the Nintendo service or
what the expansion pack is a little more than that.
But I think it’s, that doesn’t necessarily cheapen it.
You can still play it.
It’s in its original form.
But if you wanted to seek it out and fold disclosure because we haven’t revealed that
quite as much.
Jamie is attempting to collect the entire 64 library, not complete in box.
And then mostly just loose cartridges, but functional and in good shape.
So I’d say that $15 is a pretty small ask to be able to collect that.
Now even if you’re not trying to take on, you know, the entire library like I’m doing at
the moment, potentially foolishly, I would say if you’re just trying to get like the big
titles for the N64 or all the exclusive ones that were a big deal or even just the first
party ones that are worth having, I wouldn’t say this is at the top of the list unless you’re
doing them up vertically.
I would say that it is one that’s worth having to have a fully rounded out sample.
It’s a good sports game on the N64.
And it’s a good example of a game of the time.
Are you going to love playing this now?
Especially if you didn’t play it back in the day?
No, probably not.
Are you going to enjoy playing it when you’ve got certain memories in your head as to what
you remember it controlling as?
I would say based on what we’ve talked about, also probably not.
For the price and for a collector, I do think that this is worth grabbing for that price.
And as you said, even though you can play it elsewhere in different capacities, there’s
something about playing the original hardware.
And yeah, I got to pass this one.
Yeah.
And it’s a pretty low barrier to entry.
So I think it’s a pretty easy pass.
And actually you just mentioned having those specific memories brings us to the last category.
Fantastic segues.
You like that?
I do.
I do.
I’m going to be pretty good at this one day.
Test number 10, the nostalgia goggles test.
Does this game genuinely hold up today?
Or is its reputation being carried by nostalgia?
And I don’t know if you’ve been keeping score and I’m not going to reveal my hand, but
this is a pretty crucial category based on where we are right now.
So I do vividly remember as someone who did not have an opportunity to play this or at
least didn’t play it much, I don’t really remember that the name was pretty iconic, that the
artwork was pretty iconic.
I remember, especially back then, games were not cheap.
They’re not cheap now, but they were even less cheap then with inflation and stuff.
Some of them were over 80, 85 dollars in some cases.
And that’s a lot of money by today’s standards.
So you didn’t always have every game.
We didn’t have the internet in quite the same form to watch videos.
So a lot of what I remember about it from nostalgia standpoint is looking at Nintendo
power magazines because I could look at the screenshots a hundred times and go, what
is this game?
Or are talking to people about it?
And there is a little bit of that that when the game is mentioned, I know what game people
are talking about.
So I don’t know that necessarily, like even having not played it, of course being, you
know, person with some amount of enthusiasm and appreciation for the medium of video games.
I think it is something though that when you say it, there are people who are going to
go, man, I totally remember that.
So I think there is maybe a bit of that where the nostalgia is involved, but does it hold
up?
I think some of its contributions are of note, but like you’ve said a couple of times as
we’ve gone through this, there are other extreme sports games that have since surpassed
this or maybe they were a little flashier, like we mentioned SSX in passing unintentionally
as part of a pun.
And we’ve talked about the twisted edge and there’s other games like snowboard kids that
we will eventually talk about.
And I think with some of those games, the, the whimsy, which we’m sure we were reference
a number of times in this program, and over this endeavor, I think that whimsy is going
to come up a bunch and this doesn’t have a ton of whimsy.
No, it doesn’t.
It’s very corporate, right?
It’s got the Tommy Hilfiger branding on it.
It’s got the Lamar boards.
It’s, you know, it’s almost like a commercial in a, in a, in a, in a capacity, in some capacity,
a, a commercial and a showcase for the Nintendo 64.
I think it was promoted.
You said you saw it on all the boxes.
You saw it on all the magazine articles.
Yeah.
And there’s a reason for that.
Like these were some sexy screenshots for the time.
And it was very impressive as we talked about.
But when you, when you look at it now, I think unless you drank the cool, they’d been and
spent the time to make this your game, because as you said, look, I count of four to a bunch
of games.
I’m stuck with this game all summer.
And really, you know, dedicated yourself to 1080 snowboarding, I do not think that this
game has stood the test of time, both from a franchise and an IP perspective, but also just
as the, as an individual title.
People talk about the game, but let’s be honest, they talk about the title because of
the name.
And they talk about it only in select conversations when they’re talking about the Nintendo 64’s
library, sort of the reasons why we did this episode first to get this one, you know, almost
out of the way to be perfectly honest with you.
It’s alphabetically more important than I think it is culturally.
So, yeah, that’s a good way to put that.
For me, I don’t like to be, I like to find the good in everything.
And there’s a lot of good here, but for a pass fail category, I think I, I have to fail
this one.
And I think I do too.
And another level of that too is as I became an adult and had adult money, which as I say,
became, I mean, very loosely because I’m still really not quite there.
But as far as becoming an adult, you know, there was a time when some of these games were,
were not quite as sought after.
And you, I probably could have gone and picked this game up for three or four dollars, probably
10 or 15 years ago.
And I didn’t.
And I think there’s something to be said for that that it was a game that I knew a lot
about.
And there are, there are games where I’ve seen them and go, I’m going to pick that up.
It’s a game I heard about a bunch of times.
I never got a chance to play it in what’s three or four dollars to play it.
And in the past, whatever it is, 20 years or so, that I’ve been loosely an adult and
had money and gone to the occasional used game store.
This is not something that stuck out like I need to get that.
And I think there might be some, some sort of, of significance to the fact that they didn’t
jump out to me in that way.
Yeah, it’s indicative of how you feel about the game.
We sound smart.
It’s like I was saying before.
I think that if you have nostalgia for this game, I can’t argue with you.
But in general, broadly speaking, I don’t think that this game carries anything beyond
nostalgia and it’s relevance for the time and it’s showcase of the console.
But in today’s day and age, I don’t think it holds up.
I think with some of that, you could almost put it through the lens of if I were opening
some sort of museum or showcase and I needed to pick not even a small number, not five.
If I needed to pick 25 games for each platform that I was featuring in that museum, would this
be in there?
And I don’t think it would.
I don’t think it would be in there for the Nintendo 64 and I don’t think it would be
in there for snowboarding.
So right off the bat, I think that’s our answer right there.
There you go.
Well, I have done the math.
I’ve got everything calculated up here and that comes out to a total of 60.
So very close, but 1080 snowboarding, you are not 64 certified.
You almost had it.
So yeah, it’s a tough one.
It’s close.
I think it’s a really good testament to this test, this endeavor, which is a word I used
earlier.
I’m going to try not to use it too many times.
But in this experiment, this thing that we’re doing that Jamie has crafted and put together,
I think this is a really good indication of how this is going to work.
This is a game that is decently well remembered.
I remember being super hyped about it and it didn’t quite make it, but it didn’t completely
fall apart.
And I think we’re going to have a lot of games that are really close like that.
Yeah.
And honestly, I think a 60% is a fair score for this game.
I think that’s kind of hard to argue with, regardless of how we got to it, I think that’s fair.
One thing I do think is interesting.
Did we agree on every single category on this one or do we have any split votes?
I think we did not have any split.
We had a couple that were pretty close.
I think probably bummed to the bass was probably one of the ones that was the closest.
Oh, yeah, I kind of stole that point from you, didn’t I?
Well, and I didn’t have a ton of memories, but based on what music I have heard and knowing
about the type of music, it fit what it was set out to do.
And I think that’s important.
It may not be the most memorable music in the world, but it fit what it was meant to do.
It’s not just genuinely bad music.
It’s not legendary, but I think it checked the box like it should have.
So this was a pretty close one.
If we had split, then it would have been maybe even less close than it was.
All right.
And down to the wire for it.
So there you have it at the end of our patented, very expensive, very fancy and thoroughly
untested system.
And now it tested, at least.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, singularly tested system, uh, 10, 80 degree snowboarding.
You are not certified 64.
There you go.
It may be maybe we’re wrong.
Maybe you guys want to make a case for this.
Anyone listening wants to make a case for this?
We’ll share some social channels.
We’ve got a discord.
We’ll have a thread for each game.
And so if it is something where you want to come, maybe give us a little bit of your
insight on this, maybe something that you agree with or disagree with, we’ll have
a place to do that.
And so we’d really appreciate you coming and sharing your input on this game with us because
maybe we didn’t quite nail it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Tell us where we’re wrong or congratulate us on being 100% correct.
100%
Either one.
Yeah.
And in future episodes, we can read back some of this feedback and see where our audience
is.
And, you know, are we, do we have the right thoughts going on on this one?
Are we completely missing the mark?
So, yeah.
All right.
Moving forward.
This next section, before we put the cartridge back on the shelf, is called Lobo
Learnings.
In this segment, we take a look at today’s game through the eyes of an indie developer.
What lessons can we learn from it decades later?
What ideas are worth borrowing?
What mistakes should be avoided?
What made this game work?
And how might those principles apply to a game in development today?
So, this section is actually brought to you, Shane Muslim, by Lobo Destroyer, which is
our own Nintendo 64 inspired 3D platforming adventure that we’re currently developing.
If you’re enjoying this show and you’re a fan of the Nintendo 64, then you’d like to
follow our game development journey.
We’d love to have you for the ride.
You can learn more about Lobo Destroyer and join our Discord community.
You can find all the links on all of our socials at lobodestroyo.com.
That’s L-O-B-O-D-E-S-T-R-O-Y-O.com, ridiculously long URL.
Should have thought about that before naming it.
But, yeah.
Building an independent game is kind of a long road, so every like/follow share community
member, it really does help more than you might realize.
I’m the showcase of the enthusiasm for our titles, so check it out and maybe consider
giving us a follow.
If you like the cartridge archive and you want us to support what we’re building, you
know, we really appreciate it.
That’s the end of my, uh, little, shameless self-promotion there under the guise of a show
sponsor.
But, um, yeah, let’s put 1080 degrees snowboarding up to the Lobo Learnings.
Uh, magnifying glass and see what we can take away from it.
Yeah, two things.
I think Lobo Destroyo is a pretty awesome and iconic name.
I think that’s awesome.
You should be in my, my Lobo learning from this was that Shigeru Miyamoto should be the
producer.
And so I don’t know if that’s if you have him involved in Lobo Destroyo.
That’s a good one.
That’s a good one.
We should totally do that.
Is that what the Lobo listeners?
Uh, well, you know what?
That’s actually better than my Lobo lessons, so we’ll just throw away my notes because
that one kind of trumps it.
I feel like that was busy, though.
He’s probably going to retire one of these days.
Yeah, well, I believe when I see it.
Um, yeah, no, so actually as far as the Lobo Learnings on this game, obviously, uh, Lobo Destroyo
3D Action Collective on platformer, not a technical showcase snowboarding sports game.
Um, but there are some things that 1080 does really well that I think can be incorporated
if not in Lobo then games in general.
And the first thing that I stood out to me in this was the use of sky boxes.
The sky boxes in this game are killer.
When you’re talking about, uh, era where you have compressed textures and limitations,
they did a really good job of making some phenomenal sky boxes and the way that they use
them to hide where the seams are in the sky boxes with the angle of the playable, uh,
you know, geometric playing space is it’s, it’s really good.
They knew what they were doing and it works so well.
And the testament to it is when you lose the sky box, aka playing multiplayer and the fog
of war comes in, it’s a completely different experience as far as the setting of the
game in the play.
Obviously when it’s super stormy and you can’t see the sky box has intentional, I understand
that, but the sky box in general, uh, themselves are just really well done.
And for those of you who don’t know, a sky box is basically a giant 3D cube that exists
around a game world’s geometry that implies the horizon line and sky and the surrounding
space that isn’t actually part of the explorable seam.
So it’s imagery that’s designed to look like an extension of the seam, but it in and
of itself is actually flat six sides of a cube which your game world exists inside of.
And where those cube corners meet, obviously you’ve got a hard edge and a corner and there’s
a puckering effect where a sky box, it’s evident if you look at it and you know what the
scene is, you can tell where the corners are, especially if you look in the, in the tips
where you’ve got the three sides all coming together.
You can really tell where those are.
1080 does an amazing job of positioning their game worlds within their sky boxes in a capacity
where you can tell.
And I think that deserves to be commended and that’s something that can apply to any game
or any 3D.
And I would definitely take that as a as a logo learning for this one.
And the other thing that I would add also is just the the menu selection, the menu for
this game where everyone’s sitting in that cabin just chilling, hanging out, well, like awesome
in my opinion, music is playing.
It’s just kind of hanging out there.
And you highlight over them, you rotate the camera around the 3D space and you look at them
in the room.
They’re leaning up against like Tommy, he’ll figure branded apparel and stuff is there cleaning
this, no boards are just chilling.
And when you highlight them, they look up at you and they’re like, hey, what’s up?
And then if you cancel out, they’re like, okay, never mind.
And you can, yeah, it’s just, I think it’s cool too because it adds a lot of character because
like for the most part, if you’re playing this game, you see the backs of the characters.
So for that small moment, there’s maybe a little bit more personality than there is on
the board.
You get to see a face, you know, kind of put a little bit of character to them.
And like you said, it’s kind of cool.
Like the menu doesn’t have to be that involved.
And of course nowadays our menus are extremely sterile on many, many games just, it’s just
a matter of just picking something off the list and there’s some nice art behind it, maybe
a, you know, a typeface or font involved, but not anything that’s real flashy.
So to have something like this once you get in there and character select is so much more
involved, it is cool.
It adds a lot of character to something that otherwise could be pretty lifeless.
Yeah.
And especially, well, just in general, a snowboarding game, right?
Like it’s an action oriented sports focus title.
That’s not all that much room unless you’re doing some sort of wacky gimmick to it.
And this is a pretty, you know, straight narrow simulation style game, right?
From the most part, it was just a really good way to give it a little bit of something to
make it different and give it some personality and, you know, flex those character models,
like you’re saying.
And I think it’s a really, really good choice.
And one of the more memorable moments of this game.
Yeah.
So I would put the sky box use and their menu selections as things that can be aspire to
and pull from for current games.
Yeah.
Awesome points.
We’ll see how many of those things we end up seeing in in Lobo Destroyo.
I think the sky box thing is that’s not something I’m aware of sky boxes, but I don’t look
at them in the same way.
So it’s really interesting to hear them from the standpoint of someone who is actively
creating things like that.
Yeah, just don’t look too closely at Lobo sky boxes now that you know where the pucker points
are, right?
This by the time we’re done with all this, this episode will be so long ago, people
will be thinking about that part.
If you think about all the other things that make Lobo great.
Oh, you should get it.
So that said, so 1080 snowboarding, it’s cartridge goes back on the shelf with a score of 60 out
of 100 and does not earn certified 64 status.
That’s it for us for episode number one.
I think that went pretty well for a maiden voyage and looking forward to doing more of these
games and seeing this thing grow.
I’m sure it’s going to be a, you know, an ever evolving process.
So we appreciate your patience as we can learn and figure this thing out.
But yeah, from us, I think that’s a, that’s a big thank you and we’ll catch you next
time.
So great one and I look forward to many more.
I think it went great and hopefully everyone else feels the same way.
So we will see you in the next one.
The cartridge archive was created by Jamie Guy and is produced and hosted by Jamie Guy
and Adam Jones.
Our music is by the mysterious Break Master Cylinder.
Visit the cartridge archive.com for more information or join our discord.
You can find links to both of those in tap to add.me/tcapod.
That’s tap the number to add.me/tcapod.
You’ll find that and all of our other links in the show notes.
More episodes of the cartridge archive are available wherever you get your podcast and
as always, thanks for listening.
(upbeat music)