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 we pull another game from the shelf and explore its impact
on Nintendo 64 history, from beloved classics and hidden gyms to forgotten curiosities
and infamous disasters, no cartridges left behind.
Along the way, we’ll examine each game’s story, development, legacy, collective value,
and the impact it left on the Nintendo 64’s 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, so welcome back everybody.
We’ve got another great game lined up for you today.
I guess we’ll determine shortly if it is great or not.
Yeah, how great are we talking?
I guess we’ll figure out how great, but today we’re covering Mission Impossible.
This is one that I suggested.
We’re going to get to all of them at some point, but we’ve been doing a little bit of
kind of like a trade off, pick one, pick the other, pick something that’s culturally relevant
at the time.
This is one of the ones that I chose because I had it when I was younger.
How about you?
Did you have much experience with this game prior, Jamie?
No, no, actually, I never touched this one.
I never owned it.
I have it now as part of my ongoing efforts to try and collect all of these pieces of
plastic, but I never had an opportunity to really dig in and play it.
Well, I’m glad you selected it because it was an opportunity for me to actually jump in
on it.
I’m a huge Mission Impossible fan as far as the IP and the movies.
Love the movies in particular, but never played this game.
It just wasn’t on my radar at the time.
I had limited bandwidth as to what I could play and what I could afford, and this one just
didn’t make the cut.
So I’m excited about getting a jump in on this one.
It was a cool opportunity to play it.
Yeah, I don’t know necessarily how it came to be one of the ones that I owned.
You’re like you said, you kind of have so much money, so much time, especially in younger
days.
So I somehow ended up with it at one point or another.
It was kind of crazy going back and playing it for this.
There were parts that I just ran through like it was second nature.
It was like I hadn’t touched it in 25, 30 years.
I just ran through it like it was.
I’m just playing it all over again like I’m 14 and just crushing it.
Then I went back a couple days later and I was completely lost.
I just forgot everything that I was supposed to do.
That sounds a little closer to my experience.
But we’ll get into that when we start diving into it.
So let’s kick this whole thing off and you want to jump in with today’s history lesson.
Let’s do it.
In 1966 television audiences were introduced to the Impossible Mission Force, a secret government
agency that confronted global threats using disguises, spycraft and instructions delivered
by self-destructing tape recorders.
30 years later director Brian De Palma and producer star Tom Cruise reinvented Mission Impossible
for the big screen.
The 1996 film introduced audiences to IMF agent Ethan Hunt and transformed the television
property into an action franchise that would eventually spawn eight films and earn nearly
$5 billion in the box office.
At this point however, only the first of those films have been released.
It featured a complex storyline with memorable action sequences, most notably the iconic
scene of Hunt dangling from the ceiling of a secure CIA vault.
If any movie was suitable for a game adaptation, it was Mission Impossible.
Ocean Software began working on that adaptation prior to the Nintendo 64’s launch.
Known for popular license games including Batman and Jurassic Park, Ocean announced Mission
Impossible in May of 1996 is one of the earliest third-party projects planned for Nintendo’s
new console, set to release just a few months after launch in December 1996.
The San Jose based development team envisioned an ambitious spy simulation built around stealth,
gadgets and cinematic set pieces rather than constant action.
Those ambitions quickly exceeded the Nintendo 64’s capabilities.
What happened instead was the development process that would take nearly three years and felt
almost as impossible a mission as the name implied.
Much of the delay stemmed from the team being unwilling to release a game they considered
substandard, however the production was also at the mercy of Wright’s holder Viacom who had
demanded that violence and gunplay be limited in line with the Mission Impossible formula.
The developers also chose not to recreate the film scene for scene, but followed a similar
storyline.
The game’s 20 levels featured many of the film’s characters, locations and story beats while
adding in additional IMF operations exclusive to the game.
While ocean struggled to complete the project, another spy game was infiltrating consoles.
Rare’s GoldenEye 007 had also started development before the N64 launch, but reached store shelves
in 1997, almost a full year before Mission Impossible’s release.
Its enormous success redefined expectations for console shooters and set a new standard
for licensed games.
Due to the timing, it was inevitable that comparisons between the games would influence
the ongoing development of Mission Impossible.
After GoldenEye’s release, the team at Ocean scrapped a planned feature to have menus and objectives
presented through a wristwatch style interface to avoid being too similar to James Bond’s
Q watch.
During the final year of development, French publisher InfoGrames acquired Ocean and transferred
the project from San Jose to a new team in France.
The new team simplified character models and environments and removed features to better
meet performance and storage targets.
After years of delays, Mission Impossible finally arrived on the Nintendo 64 in summer 1998.
What emerged was not another GoldenEye.
Rather than running in with guns blazing, Mission Impossible emphasized avoiding combat, gathering
intelligence and thinking strategically, tools like cameras, tranquilizer darts and lockpicks,
emphasized stealth over action, despite these differences Mission Impossible struggled to
escape the shadow of GoldenEye.
Viewers praised its varied objectives and espionage mechanics but criticized its sluggish controls
inconsistent gameplay and lack of multiplayer.
Even so, Mission Impossible went on to become a commercial success, selling more than a million
copies.
Three decades later, the most interesting question may no longer be how Mission Impossible compared
to GoldenEye, but what broader impact it had on stealth games as a genre.
We’ll explore if it’s ambitious ideas still work today, as well as they did in 1998.
Today, on the cartridge archive, your mission should you choose to accept it, Mission Impossible.
This message will self-destruct in five seconds.
Sound effects, sound effects, sound effects, I’m really good at Mission Impossible sound effects
as the little tease at the end of last week’s episode.
And clearly, my resume speaks for itself, I feel.
Yeah, the modern day Michael Winslow, that’s the guy’s name, right?
That’s a name, yeah, please get him guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like to consider myself a fest-peen when it comes
to stupid sounds.
Full disclaimer, the suggestion was to put a tease at the end of last week’s episode
to tease this one.
And I was trying to describe to Adam the sound effect that we should pull from the Mission
Impossible intro, which I vocalized into a microphone, which was being recorded, which
was my error.
And that’s why that was the clue that you got at the end of the episode.
So I’m sorry about that.
I am an agent of chaos, so.
All right, so let’s dive in on this one and start reading the back of box quote.
Good morning, Mr. Phelps.
Prepare to enter the most demanding and dangerous mission impossible ever.
Your mission should you decide to accept it.
We’ll be to guide your team through a spectacular series of authorized worldwide missions encompassing
over 20 levels of gameplay.
These are sharp reflexes, the ability to make quick decisions, strategic thinking, and
an extremely high level of accuracy will prove essential.
As always, should you or any member of your I.M. Force be caught or killed, the secretary
will disavow any knowledge of your actions, as usual, Ethan Hunt will be your point, man.
This game will not self-destruct in five seconds, but you may.
Good luck, Jim.
That was pretty good.
It was a pretty good voice.
Thank you.
I think up for my previous sound effect.
It sounded like the, what’s it going to do?
Kid or a, whatever.
It sounded like, hey, or somebody.
Kid, yeah, that’s sad.
I’m glad you got that.
I was what I was channeling.
I’m a method actor on this one.
Yeah, it sounded pretty good.
Thanks.
Now, I think you’re patronizing me to try and maybe not mad at you for the whole, but
anyway.
I think this is interesting right off the bat that they are making the back of the box
directed at Mr. Filps, who, spoiler alert, if you haven’t seen Mission Impossible, is
the bad guy.
So the idea that they mentioned Ethan Hunt as a throwaway and direct this to Jim, I thought
it was really interesting and kind of weird to be perfectly honest with you.
I mean, I guess the game came out close enough to the movie that there are some people who
won’t necessarily know that he’s the bad guy and jumping ahead.
The ending of this game does a pretty peaceful job of actually communicating that he was
a bad guy.
Yeah, but it just felt weird considering how all of the marketing for the movies every single
time one of those things comes out.
It’s always talking right to Ethan.
So I guess that is true because it was a little bit of a misdirect in the movie.
It kind of starts like he’s the central guy and then all of a sudden you realize as the
movie goes on, he’s the bad guy and I guess being closely ish related to the movie and
being close in time to the movie.
It makes, I guess a good amount of sense to not necessarily spoil one or the other through
the other.
Yeah, yeah.
That makes sense.
I mean, we’re 30, 30 years later, I can be a bit more pessimistic about it.
I guess that makes sense, but it is weird.
Okay.
Well, you know what?
I’m going to further dunk on this.
Yeah, we can say whatever we want now.
It says, your mission should you decide to accept it?
Wasn’t it if you choose to accept it?
Isn’t that kind of like the famous line?
They kind of botched their own line.
That’s how I remember it.
Unless we’re having like a Mandela effect thing, but yeah, I believe I took that directly
off the back of the box and if I’m less, I just completely missed it.
I don’t know why I would have typed it wrong.
So that very well.
And I think it’s even bold like it was on the box.
So I think that is a weird way that they altered that because everyone remembers it the
same way.
Yeah, zero out of 10, not certified 64.
Unless in the episode right now.
Oh, I don’t know if it’s going to get is zero.
But I guess let’s see how we do.
Yeah, let’s jump in on this one and let’s start the 64 point inspection.
All right, it’s time for the 64 point inspection.
This is a carefully crafted evaluation designed to judge every Nintendo 64 game through a series
of 10 tests.
For each test, we’ll present the evidence, make our case and put it to a vote.
If the game passes the test, it earns 10 points.
If it fails, it earns none.
And if opinions are split, then the game will be awarded five points.
Any game that earned 64 or more points passes the inspection and receives are coveted, certified
64 seal of approval.
So with that said, let’s start the inspection.
Test number one, the memory pack test.
I’m sure there’s something.
Oh, yeah, now I remember.
Is this game still remember today or has it faded into obscurity with the average game
I recognize it today?
That’s a tough one.
Because it’s mission impossible as a property is known.
As we said in the history lesson, and you mentioned a moment ago, you’re like the movies.
There are now eight movies.
So there were seven that came out since this game released.
So I don’t know that the game itself is remembered, but I know that the property is remembered.
So I don’t know.
What do you think on that?
Yeah, I agree.
I don’t think this game itself is really on anyone’s radar.
Time has been kinder to it.
And there are, like you said, a lot of fans of the franchise.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of fans of the franchise don’t even know this game
was ever available.
You know, it’s been a long enough time.
It didn’t exactly make waves.
And obviously it gets compared to GoldenEye and then even Metal Gear Solid, which came
out just three months later as far as the whole espionage action, infiltration kind of gameplay.
It’s kind of understandable by this game would kind of fall into obscurity pretty fast.
And there isn’t really much reasons to bring back this game.
So while the franchise definitely is something that holds in people’s memories, I think the
critical reception of the game being a little less harsh of this game now doesn’t really
mean that the game itself is actually fondly remembered.
So I think I would fail this one.
That is very true.
I guess when you do look at it that way, one game but seven subsequent movies, I think there’s
probably more people going, how come there isn’t a mission impossible game than going
“Hey, do you remember that one mission impossible game?”
Because it’s been a really long time.
So I think you’ve convinced me, I think I’m going to say also fail.
So that, I think, between the two of us, that’s a fail for the first one.
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?
multiplayer, analog controls, accessories, and other signature N64 features?
So yeah, this game does use the Rumble Pack, but that’s about it.
Internal saving is all done on the cartridge, which is a good thing, but it doesn’t take
advantage of the control pack in any creative way.
There was a plan to use the 64DD for this, which I thought was interesting, but that was
abandoned.
And as we know, the game had troubled development cycles, so it doesn’t necessarily
surprise me, the more that we found out about this game as it was being cooked.
But yeah, the plan was to have the DD offer additional missions that would be added later,
I guess, almost like a DLC of some sort, which I think is pretty cool, but they never did
it.
So I’m a fail at.
I think I’m in the same boat.
Like you said, Rumble Pack support, that’s cool.
And it makes decent enough use of it, but it doesn’t do really anything else.
It doesn’t have analog controls.
I mean, you use the analog stick to move, but it doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t
have done some other way.
Obviously the controls are a little klugey in some places are not great.
So yeah, I think I’m going to go with fail as well.
So test number two, again, a fail, not doing great so far.
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 fear to justify a future beyond the original cartridge?
I say as far as the game goes, not really.
I don’t think that there is a lot there.
Obviously with the movie series, there is a good bit of story.
There are a number of things there, but it’s not necessarily by nature of the game’s success.
It’s by the movie’s success.
And I’m assuming that because of how difficult it was to get this game off the ground, because
it had a very rocky development, I just don’t think anyone saw necessarily the real big push
to make a whole lot more games.
There was a sequel.
I guess this game was ported to the PlayStation later, which I don’t know that I realized.
And there was a PS2 era sequel.
I guess I’ll go past because it did get one.
And I do think with the movies, if they were able to factor in some of that stuff and make
even like a Lego mission impossible or something like they’ve done with Batman movies and stuff,
even something like that would be pretty cool.
I think there’s enough content there to make something.
So someone else decided they didn’t need one, but I think I would take one if they made it.
At the very least, it has gotten something.
So I think it’s a reluctant pass, but it’s a pass.
Yeah, no, I’d agree.
Based on the question and the test here, it does pass just by default.
It did have a PlayStation 2 and Xbox era sequel.
I picked it up in order to prep for this episode, and I have not played it.
So let’s you know how compelling it was and probably answers the question as well as
as far as whether it deserved to have a sequel or a modern successor.
It got one, but I did want to add that the PSX port of the game apparently had increased
vocal added to the game.
So I had more voice lines, which I think is hilarious because when I was playing the game,
Ethan’s voice in this game sounds like a cranky old man to the point where I actually thought
until later in the game, it was felt talking to him through the radio about what he was
doing, kind of judging him.
Good job.
Well done.
You got him.
I didn’t realize that was actually Ethan talking.
I’m doing a good job.
I got him.
At one point, he says like rock steady for no reason.
I’m like, I don’t understand.
But during the repelling down the laser shaft scene, if you hit the laser beams, he routinely
says, I singed my hair.
So I was like, oh, that’s him.
He’s using first person.
That’s his voice.
I had no idea up to that point.
I thought it was just a weird, disembodied, gym, folks character talking to you.
So that’s weird.
If the game got more voice, I hope it got better voice, no offense to the voice actor who
probably did a very good job.
Question mark.
Doing this game, but yeah, it sounded really weird.
And I think it would be interesting to hear him attempt to get through some of the other
lines that are in the game.
While I’m on this rant, there is a couple of lines in the game that really make Ethan
come out as a bit of a dick.
And to hear them said out loud in this not gym voice would be pretty hilarious.
There’s one point in the game where you find a fellow agent who’s been captured and tortured.
And you get to him and you’re supposed to try and extract him, but he doesn’t make it.
And he’s doing one of those death rattle kind of giving you a clue as to where you’re supposed
to go next.
And it’s all written out, right?
And it’s just, I can’t remember what he says, but he’s like Ethan Ellipsis.
I left Ellipsis in the corridor.
Ellipsis for you to find, you know, it’s one of those sort of things and it does go on too
long.
But as soon as he dies, he does the like, and flopped in the chair.
And then Ethan’s first line is I had a feeling he wasn’t going to finish that sentence.
And I’m like, bro, he just died trying to help you out.
And he’s just being such a dick about it.
And in the same mission or no, maybe the mission before that is a counter-spice, this lady
that’s following you around.
It’s actually one of the cool parts where you have to sort of evade her and lure her into
the bathroom and take her out where no one can see.
And right before he kills her, he goes like, goodnight, sweetheart.
And then kills her in some way or knocks her out.
I can’t remember what it is.
And she less out.
It’s like huge scream and then you hide her body in the toilet.
But I’m just trying to imagine that being voiced by the same guy that’s like rock steady,
I cinj my hair.
And yeah, I just, I kind of want to play the PlayStation version of this more than
a 64 one now.
That seems a little, a little not spy-ish for the record too, just, you know, to, to, to
bring someone into a bathroom and then you like yell something weird at them and then they
scream loudly and you’re like, there’s no way anyone’s going to know this is happening.
Oh, 100%.
There’s a party going on with this like vague piano music being played.
Everyone in this creepy Russian suit, Soviet spy mansion or wherever you are heard all
of that.
And also on top of it, there’s already a dead dude hidden in the stall next to the
one that you put the lady in.
So this is already a very suspicious bathroom as far as murders and screams and sassy comments
from Ethan Hunt.
So I, we’d move.
It was a weird, weird spot in the game, but back to the original question, the audio and
the voice that’s, that’s apparently something that did get improved in the sequel.
Something, something, something.
Let’s pass this one.
I do think that that is, if you went certified 64, all that good stuff, that’s a fail as
far as best day to be a janitor when you go and you have to clean up two dead people out
of a bathroom.
That’s not great.
So I would fail that, but I am going to pass the category because it did get a sequel.
Moving on, test number four, the barrel roll test.
Now a barrel roll.
Impressive, star fox.
How impressive was this game for its time?
Did it push boundaries of technology, gameplay, graphics or innovation?
I say on this one, it did.
I have a few things to say on this one that I thought were interesting features.
It was something that I think came up in the history lesson.
If I remember, I may have actually left it out for a sake of time so we can talk about
it more here, but one thing that it did that was really sort of notable is, you know,
the Hitman series is very well known for disguises.
He takes someone out, he takes their clothes and you go to pretend to be them.
But the first Hitman game didn’t come out until I think it was like 1999 or 2000.
And so this actually predates that by a year and in theory was supposed to predate it by
another couple of years before that, but you are able to take people’s clothes and do stuff.
It’s got in the embassy.
There’s a part where you stick like smoke generator things like smoke bombs in the vents to make
it seem like there’s a fire.
You get everyone to evacuate.
You go steal a fireman’s outfit and come back and try to evacuate people because now you’re
there to save the day.
There’s a lot of really cool stuff like that.
There’s a lot of changing disguises putting on masks like in the movie to become someone
else, though, the way it’s animated is a little strange, but you go through and do stuff
like that.
And then lastly, spoiler alert, there is a part where you are no longer Ethan.
You’re acting as a sniper covering Ethan while he tries to get through a busy train station.
And in 007 First Light, which came out this year, you don’t do exactly that.
But there is a part where you’re sort of working through an area and you have someone who is
a sniper covering you and you sort of collaboratively, you’re fighting people and you say, hey,
can you get that guy for me?
And I was like, dude, this is just like mission impossible.
And it’s been years.
So I think there are a lot of really cool set pieces.
Obviously the dangling on wires and syncing your hair, a number of times thing.
Also, there’s a lot of stuff in this game that was pretty unique.
And in some cases, I wouldn’t say revolutionary, but at least to some extent innovative.
I think even today, there’s not a lot of games that pull necessarily those particular
cards.
And I think that’s pretty cool.
So I think I would go with the pass on this one.
Yeah.
No, it’s not.
My mouth, those are all the points I was going to try and touch on as well.
To be honest with you, Hitman and Metal Gear Solid, I would say those games do later on
and they’re more successful franchises, I think were teased and hinted at with mission
impossible here.
And the game was, had it struggles, but the ambition was definitely there.
So it was innovative or, and I think it would have been even more innovative, had it been
given all of the opportunities to be developed the way that they were hoping to.
But yeah, so scale wise and breaking up the missions in the way that they do, I think is,
it was different.
And at the time, it was very much World One, World Two, World Three kind of thing and the
missions would be a mission to be self-contained.
The fact that missions one through four kind of get bundled together and oftentimes exist
in the same spaces, but then four or five might be unique.
That was cool.
And as you mentioned, yeah, they do hit on some of the key moments, the train scenes in
particular were interesting and obviously the hair-singing was cool and just being able
to take scenes from a recognizable movie and recreate them in a playable way, arguably
been done better and differently in other games before and after this one, but get added
to the pile as to how impressive this game was under the hood.
So I would agree and I would say this is definitely more past than fail.
So I would pass this one too.
I agree it is pretty wild to think that the game got delayed for so long because they had
to scale it down because they were so ambitious.
It makes you wonder what would have come from the development cycle if they were able to
achieve all that.
I think that’s going to be a pass.
Test number five, Joysticks gymnastics test.
Yeah.
Woohoo!
Yes!
How well does this game play today?
Are the controls and cameras still enjoyable?
Or are they working against the player?
Quickly?
No, they’re not enjoyable.
They are not.
Fail.
Yeah, the last test we rambled for quite a while.
This one, the controls are not very good.
Fail.
I think that’s about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s a chunky movement.
It sucks when you have to navigate jumping over floor tiles and weird random lava pits and
acid pits in hallways.
There’s a lot of like weirdly dangerous hallways in these buildings and the gameplay is
just not designed for any form of precise platform.
It’s really annoying.
You’ve got explosive blocks just like blocking the hallway doors and some it’s just weird.
Some of the hazards in this game just seemingly were designed for a totally different move
set.
This doesn’t really make too much sense.
Aiming is very forgiving, which I think is telling that they knew that they didn’t have a
particularly good aiming system on it.
It’s much easier to shoot from the hip, or in some cases trying to shoot from the hip,
and run over and just start punching people because apparently your fists are as powerful
as bullets in this game.
Oh, yeah.
And it’s just kind of clunky.
When you’re sneaking around and you’re avoiding combat, cool.
I get that.
That’s one of the big points of this game is something that they were trying to work
towards as we know.
But the whole gameplay around gunplay is a miss.
I will say that switching items is interesting how they’ve tried to accomplish it, but it’s
pretty poorly mapped.
I sat there trying to do the face mask swap over the first guy for a long time.
I had to look up online a couple of times how to actually do it, read the answer, and still
couldn’t fucking do it.
So it was kind of annoying.
I went to get a hang of it, you get a hang of it, but it was frustrating.
Considering they make you do that as one of the first things in the game, I imagine
there were quite a few people that were gated from experiencing the large majority of what
made this game good.
I mean, the whole first snow level is abysmal.
The fact that they stick you out and there before they let you get into the meat of the
game in my opinion is a shame.
And the joy stick gymnastics is a good point, a good opportunity to kind of talk to that is
that just this clunky struggle that is the mechanics of how you control the game really
detracted from the whole thing.
So for that reason, I would give it a fail, but I will give it one, besides the ease of
shooting and the forgiveness that they give you in the aiming, they also do the body dragging
for you.
In the few instances where you have to hide the body, it just humorously jumps to a cut
scene where you see the feet, like sort of being dragged around the edge of a table or
chucked in a bathroom stall or whatever it might be.
And that’s good because one of my least favorite things in video games is when you’re trying
to loot a body or move a body and you end up picking them up and then it takes you
10 minutes to go through the set them down animation cycle and you’re getting shot at by others
whatever it is.
Assassin’s Creed games are notorious for this.
It’s very frustrating.
So I like the fact that they just kind of cut to the chase and they’re like, hey, let’s
just show this person comically being removed from play.
Only comes into play when it’s a storyline beat.
Everybody else just sort of magically raptures and evaporates once you kill them, but you know,
important bodies seem to get hidden.
And that was one of the things that I did like that they didn’t have to force me to have
to do that on top of all of the other annoying things I have to do just to give someone a
note or an invitation or where they’re masked.
I will say I have one more point on this.
It’s clear that you did not go to spy school because I think the true hallmark of any
good security posture is the treacherous hallway.
I think it’s kind of just a known industry sort of standard thing that if you need to have
a strong security posture treacherous hallway is at the top of the list.
And explosive boxes are probably not as high as probably in the middle somewhere, but yeah,
the hallway that just shows your ignorance to the spy craft, I think.
So I have no counterarguments with that.
So fail to you, but also fail to the categories.
It’s got aggressive.
Test number six, the bum to the base test.
How good is this game’s audio?
Does it have a memorable music iconic sound effects or the kind of soundtrack that sticks
with you long after you put the controller down?
Got an opinion on this one?
I mean, I think we’ve already established that the voice acting and stuff like that is
not great, but the music is not bad.
You know, obviously the rock steady, the mission impossible theme itself is pretty iconic
and very well known.
Famously named the theme for mission impossible.
That’s the official name of it.
That’s pretty good.
Like, Leilo Schifferen, Schifferen, I think.
The theme for the TV show, Mash, is called like Suicide is Painless or something.
Like it has like a theme or a name outside of that, but no, on this one, they were like,
what should we call this?
I guess mission impossible.
Man, that’s sick.
Let’s go with it.
Yeah, that’s pretty crazy, but well, not even that.
Let’s call it the theme from mission impossible.
Very on the note.
Yeah, I think a lot of the music during the levels and stuff is not bad either.
I think otherwise it’s a bit of a sound effects and stuff aren’t the best, but the
music is pretty okay.
So I think it’s, and again, based on the, just how, totemic, it is how big and how well-known
and recognizable immediately, even through mouth-generated sound effects, if you heard it at
the end of the last episode.
The mission impossible theme is, I think that alone is probably worth it.
Just the fact that they got it in there, they had the official theme, they had the official
license.
They did not have Tom Cruise.
We’ll talk about that a little bit more in a minute.
But yeah, I think overall it’s pretty good.
I think I will pass it for the music.
Yeah.
The mission music repeats itself an awful lot and it’s not particularly impressive, but it
does have the theme for mission impossible in it.
And that, you know, that was my ringtone for a couple of years.
That’s iconic music.
Everyone knows that.
So it has to pass, I think.
All right.
That’s a pass, then.
Test number seven, the Smash invite test.
Will this battle-er live up to expectations?
Does this game have characters, worlds, music or ideas worthy of a place in Super Smash Brothers?
So this one is a bit tricky because Ethan Hunt is a legitimate contender from a mixed media
perspective, you know, kind of like Solid Snake was when he got at it.
But the thing is, the nomination has to be from this game.
And I think the Ethan Hunt from this game would not really be the appearance that would make
it into Smash.
And I can’t really say that that’s a winner as far as getting the nod.
Tom Cruise.
Yeah, if you get Tom Cruise in the game, I think he should make it into Smash.
I think that’d be cool.
You know, he has his super fast running powers and his weird Scientology, my manipulation
moves and stuff like that.
Maybe have a Maverick Top Gun jet fighter, final smash or maybe just a sweet volleyball montage.
I’m not sure.
All about that.
I’d say if he would put his likeness in the game, go for it.
We know that’s not going to happen.
But this version of the weird blocky headed sounds like an old man protagonist that is
apparently Ethan Hunt and the assorted cast members that go along with him, the levels.
I just, I don’t think that there’s really any chance that any of this could be put into
the, put into this game.
You mentioned it already, actually.
What was the scenario with Tom Cruise, like specifically not wanting his likeness in this
game?
Yeah, I don’t know if it’s necessarily what the reasoning is, but he is, I guess, famously
always asked that his likeness not be used in games.
So there have been Top Gun games.
There’s been a minority report game.
There’s been a days of thunder game and he did not appear in any of those.
If his character did, it would either have his name and not look like him or it would just
have a different name.
It was just in that universe.
And I don’t know.
I think some of it could be, I don’t know.
I wouldn’t necessarily want to see myself getting killed in a game.
I wouldn’t want to be in Fortnite where it’s like the whole point is run around and get
killed.
But I guess if they pay you enough, plenty of people have done it.
They’re about to M&M, R&M Grande and some of these folks, but there’s something about
it that he does not agree to that.
And so to this day, he has still never been in a game even with some of those movies being
well over 40 years old.
So he says no.
And so I agree with you that if it were Tom Cruise in the game would be pretty cool.
But here it’s not.
And that could be partially why there’s no sequels as well.
I think maybe some of it too is if he’s in a movie and it’s good in the game is bad, people
may associate the two together like, well, the movie can’t be that good because the movie’s
bad or the game is bad or something.
I don’t know, but.
Yeah, fair enough.
Yeah, I think the only other thing we have mentioned is that the music is pretty good,
but I don’t know that the music alone necessarily, it’s good, but it does its own thing.
I mean, it’s honestly, it’s great, but it’s not something that necessarily fits first
smash.
So we touched on the music earlier and I think the music is a standout point to this,
but the music isn’t from this game.
The game has that music in it.
I can see the mission of possible theme being a cool thing to be added into Smash Brothers,
but you know, at that point you might as well put James Bond theme and jaws and all of
that because you’re not really paying a lot of specific game.
You’re just doing pop culture music from media movies.
So I would agree.
I think this one is still a fail.
That’s a good point.
That’s a good way of putting it that it is not that the music from the game is what gets
featured.
The music of the property that happens to be in the game that doesn’t really fit in the
same way.
I think that makes a lot of sense.
So I’m going to also go fail.
We already gave the point on the audio because of the music.
I don’t think we can give them two points for that one.
So this is all you get, Tom.
Sorry.
That’s a fail.
Test number eight, the 101% test.
Oh, they are running up the score.
Is this game worth fully completing?
Are there extra challenges, collectibles and secrets worth the effort?
So this one was weird because the plot of the movie, you’ve already mentioned that the game
kind of deviates from the main plot beats to flesh out the full game and some things that
recreates and some things that retell, some things that kind of just skips.
But the main plot ends.
And then you get like another mission back in the snow that kind of mirrors all of the
worst parts of the initial setting, just to kind of throw together some cool action set
pieces.
You just seem to like want to get these all in the end.
So this is called night vision on top of a moving vehicle section.
There’s a gun turret on top of a gunship and that’s cool and all, but it’s just, it’s
really disjointed.
So the end of all of that, you just get this really weak finishing cinematic where you and
your low poly lady friend get a smoochy kiss on top of a submarine.
And that’s, that’s pretty much the cutscene that you get.
Besides that, you do unlock this retread where you get to go back into the mansion area mission
and you get to kind of walk around this bonus area where all of the NPCs are representative
people from the development team.
So you can just walk up to them and they’ve got like awkward textured faces on them that
supposedly represent the very boxy faces of the people that worked on this game.
And you can just go up to them and they have some sort of inside joke that clearly makes
sense to them or they find hilarious, but you just feel totally on the outside of as you’re
walking around and they just say, you know, I’m the programmer, I do this.
And I don’t know, it’s extremely self indulgent and definitely more rewarding for the development
team that it is for someone just slugged all the way through mission, impossible in my
opinion.
But that said, as an amateur indie developer myself, I think it’s a great idea and I would
love to put myself in the end of my own video game and joking aside, it could be a really
cool way to incorporate people like Kickstarter backers, for example, or extended audience
folk.
I don’t know if you need to force it into the game the same way that they kind of ham fisted
it into the end of a mission, possible.
But you know, it’s a notable addition.
So I think it’s cool that they did that.
I don’t know how well they executed it, especially after the crappy scene beforehand.
They try to then one up that by having another smoochy kiss in the hallway of the mansion,
at which point all of the programmers and developers stand around and clap for you while
you smoochy kiss, for what seems like five minutes.
I don’t know why it lasts as long as it does.
And there’s like confetti and everything and that’s the ending.
You just watch and do it again.
So that part was weird, but despite all of the idiosyncrasies of the ending and the weird
timing, I am going to just, I’m going to go with a pass on this one.
Okay.
I do agree.
I think I always admire the amount of work that people put into making games.
I think that’s really cool.
So to kind of take this little moment of self indulgence, it is kind of a funny sort of,
a little bit of maybe self aggrandizing thing, but I do think it is cool.
I one thing I think is kind of funny too is that the difficulty levels of the game are
possible and impossible, instead of like easy and hard.
I think that’s kind of funny.
And so if you go through, you beat the whole game, you get through it, you do it on
impossible and all this other good stuff.
I don’t know that it’s worth it, but I do think that it’s kind of cool.
You don’t see a lot of games do that where they put themselves front and center and they
have the quirky piano music playing while you walk around in this embassy.
So it’s a little weird, but I do think it’s, it’s funny enough.
And if you do happen to see it, you’re like, I wasn’t expecting that at all.
It’s kind of like in the first Lego Star Wars game where you collect absolutely everything,
but it’s based on the prequel trilogy and then when you get it, you get like another
small section that’s based around the original trilogy and it’s like, that’s kind of cool
that I did that.
Yeah, I remember that.
I think it is an unusual pass, but I think I will also give it a pass.
So let’s, let’s call that a pass.
Okay.
Test number nine, Wario’s wallet.
Oh my god.
Is this game worth the price of admission today?
If you’re spending modern collector money, are you getting your money to worth?
So according to price charting, the loose price for this is a very reasonable $5.62 US and
complete in the box with manual.
You’re looking at $37.88.
So quite a jump up if you want to get that, but if you’re looking for a clean eBay cart,
you’re looking at about eight, ten bucks, but she’s shipping.
That’s to me an easy pass.
This game is not available on any other services.
There’s no other way to play this.
You can play the PlayStation version of it if you want to, but as far as collecting games
for an Nintendo 64, that price point, it’s kind of an O-brainer.
I think it’s worth doing.
I think the value is there.
The game for all of its faults isn’t one that I necessarily can say that I strongly recommend,
but from a collector perspective, there’s very low barrier of entry.
And I think this is an affordable addition more than it is a worthwhile play.
Yeah.
I think I agree with that.
It is, like you said, there’s nowhere else to play it.
If you want to play it, it’s pretty inexpensive.
I mean, you can’t even get a burger at a fast food place for $5 or $6 anymore.
It does look like the PlayStation version is right around the same as far as value goes.
I just looked it up on price charting.
It looks like it’s in the $5.99 or so range, so probably within a dollar or two of this.
Even if you absolutely hate it, it’s only $5 or $6.
Or maybe 10 to 12, by the time you have it shipped and everything.
I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
If it is something where you are seeking out, you are collecting the game.
It’s a very small ask to have something else in your collection.
I think that’s a pass.
Yeah, it’s important to know that both Adam and I do collect games.
We probably have a pretty big library of games that we grab and pick up with the intent
to play and then we don’t actually get around to it.
Take that with a grain of salt, but it’s $5.62.
That’s true.
I’ve got some absolutely awful games for the PS3, but I’ve got 150-something games and
I’m like, this is terrible, but I have it and no one else does.
Why not?
Yeah.
I would say pass.
I think I’ve got like five PS3 games, so that’s impressive.
You have 300 or 200 and something in 64 games, so we’ll meet in the middle somewhere.
Yeah, but one of them is mission impossible, which is not doing very well in the score chart
right now, so I don’t know how impressive that collection is either.
But only a scant less than $10.
There you go.
There you go.
Pass.
Test number 10.
The last one here is the nostalgia goggles test.
Does this game genuinely hold up today or is it’s reputation being carried by nostalgia?
So Adam, this one was your suggestion.
This was your game that you played.
Where do you fall on this?
I think it does not necessarily rest on nostalgia a good bit.
I kind of like the music.
The admiration for the property and the franchise as a whole is greater than for this game specifically.
So I don’t think that the game holds up particularly well, though I did enjoy it as a kid and playing
it now.
I’m like, oh, I remember this, but it wasn’t like, I remember this because of how much I
loved it.
It’s just kind of like, it’s not the worst game I’ve ever played, but it isn’t very
good.
And I don’t think there’s a lot of people even enjoying it a good bit as a kid.
I don’t look back fondly and go, that’s one of my favorite games I’ve ever played.
So I think that it is, it is not necessarily propped up by a great deal of the stuff.
And like we said, we said earlier, there are probably people out there.
It’s been so long that they go, I kind of wish Mission Impossible had a game because
they may not even realize that it had one.
So it does not have a great deal of collective memory and admiration around it to the level
that the movies or the TV show might.
Yeah, yeah.
I’m going to just default and follow along with you there because I didn’t have the nostalgia
going for it, but I will say that I had not heard anything favorable about this game
in the years since.
So I think as far as it being in the zeitgeist, I don’t think it has a big reputation that’s
held up and I don’t think it’s really talked about from an nostalgic perspective.
It does do some pretty cool, you know, nods to other things in there.
I mean, like we said, it recreates some of the scenes from the movie really well and you
could be nostalgic for that movie, but I guarantee you, you’re much more likely to be like,
hey, you know what, I feel like watching Mission Impossible more than you would feel like,
hey, you know what I want to dust off my copy of Mission Impossible?
Sure.
Yeah.
So I think what you’re saying is is the fondness for the franchise and the movie more than
more than this game’s actual execution.
Another thing that they did that they recreated that I loved made me laugh out loud.
We didn’t get a chance to mention it earlier.
So I’m just going to chuck it in now.
The Han Solo chasing the Stormtrooper scene.
Again, in one of their hazardous hallways that they have in this game, you chase after a trooper
because you’re able to shoot them pretty easily, jump over some awkward puzzle and you shoot
the guy move onto the next one.
You do this a couple of times.
You get to this guy and you don’t get a shoot him.
He just runs away.
So then you just start chasing him down this hallway.
You chase him around a corner, you chase him around a corner and then you get around
the corner and he’s turned around and there’s four dudes behind him and they’re all shooting
at you.
I’m like, oh, they did the Han Solo thing.
Like in the Death Star hallway.
I did appreciate that and that may be nostalgic for other things.
But yeah, I can’t, I mean, I never played this game before.
So I can’t say I’m nostalgic for it.
And with the exception of you suggesting we play this, I don’t know if it would have come
back around in my life.
Should I not have become a amateur podcast attempt to a collector?
Sure.
Well, and I think if we weren’t planning on playing every game, I don’t know that it’s
one we would have revisited, what our goal here is to hit the majority of them.
So it was going to come up eventually.
And I do think that that is, you know, not to pull another thing from Tom Cruise, but it’s
like people are more more excited about the top gun movie than they would be any of the
games that have come out and there haven’t been very many people are going to be more excited
about the days of Thunder movie than they are the game.
And I think it’s the same thing here.
There’s some really good, exciting movies to watch.
There’s a game that isn’t quite as exciting.
And some of that is is the nature of video games, you know, most people, if it hasn’t been
updated, you have to go dig out some piece of hardware or buy some new piece of hardware
to play it in a modern sense.
It’s not going to resonate in the same way, but there are games that people will go out
of their way to find.
And this is not going to be one of them.
All right.
With that all said and all categories completed, what’s the final score for a mission
possible?
Surprisingly, for as many things as we said about it that were not favorable, it got
a 50.
Okay.
So not terrible.
I don’t even think the worst that we’ve seen, but it is not real close, but still shy of
being certified 64.
Yeah.
I just mean, the price is right.
And the franchise is cool, but is this an essential element to any Nintendo 64 library?
I would argue, no, it’s not going to get.
It’s not going to get the norm.
Not, yeah, not likely.
Cool.
All right.
Well, there you go.
So 50, not quite certified 64.
So what do you think this game could do to get over the line?
What do you think they could have added or what would you change with a little bit of arm
share engineering to get it that extra couple of points it would need to become?
What would you consider certified 64?
One, get Tom Cruise.
I guess.
And also, I would have liked to have seen sequels.
I know that doesn’t affect this game specifically, but I really like Mission Impossible 2, 3 is very
well respected for how good it is.
I think sequels would have been great if maybe someone gave it a chance, but I think based
on things that could have realistically happened, there was a good bit of ambition.
We mentioned a couple of times.
I appreciate the amount of effort that went into this game for it to still come out and
have some amount of innovation.
It leads you to very much wonder what else could have been there.
So if there was some way, they could have either gotten a larger capacity cart to get more
sound or get more graphical assets and stuff into it.
I would have liked to have seen how it would have turned out because it may have been a pretty
impressive thing by the time it was done.
Yeah, definitely got a bit of a bad shake, but had it got a chance to be what it was originally
intended, I think we’d be having a very different conversation.
One thing that they could add to it, and this is just me riffing on it, the Mask Swap animation,
you touched on it before, it’s weird looking.
So when you change masks in this game, which is obviously based off of the movie where
they would have these realistic masks where Ethan would be able to portray different people.
In the game, when you change into this mask, you kind of just like weirdly move your hands
around your face and then you slowly fade into another polyagonal, why is that word hard
for me, model or re-texture and your clothes change as well.
So he does this weird kind of like dance maneuver thing with a camera on his face with the
slow cross fade and it’s really, it looks like he’s shampooing his hair.
So like if they added some sexy saxophone music in the background or like a Vadasasoon logo
in the bottom corner, I think that would be a pretty good addition.
And that’s obviously a dumb ask, but I would get excited about it.
And then the other thing is John Reno’s character.
John Reno was always my favorite part of that first movie.
I love that guy, I think he’s amazing.
His character was mentioned in a cutscene, but he doesn’t feature.
He’s the guy piloting the helicopter in the final train mission, well, not final train mission
because this game decides that a final boat mission needs to be the final mission.
And he was just like totally cut from the game and that’s a shame.
So if they had him back in there, I’d have been happier to see some more characters that
I recognized because I got rules.
But yeah, that’s a shame.
So put him in the game with some sexy saxophone shampoo and this would be a 10 out of 10
for me.
It is kind of weird because it’s such a thing in the movie that’s like, oh wow, that’s
so cool.
And they’ve obviously stuck to it a handful of times throughout the rest of the movies that
it is a very poorly presented thing that they it’s really poorly done considering it’s
like the main gimmick.
Right.
And because it is such like a main component of what they do, like they shoehorn it in
like many times, like in the first, I don’t know, probably three or four levels, you do it
multiple times.
And so it’s just kind of like this never ending thing where it’s like, if it’s going to
look so awkward, if you’re going to do it that much, you’ve got to make it look a little
more or just you hide a body with just a fade to black and come back and let’s just do that
again.
I just it disappears.
I come back and I’m a different guy instead of the awkward, what is it, herbal essentials
or whatever where the ladies like moan in the shower or yeah, pretty much.
And then all of it like one of the missions you disguise yourself as a firefighter.
So like why not just have him go off screen and then come back out wearing the firefighter
outfit, but no, he does this weird, herbal essence commercial and then like a helmet with
visor materializes around your face.
It’s just really weird.
Yeah, it’s not even a mask at that point.
It’s like you just literally morph into completely different clothes.
Yeah.
And it’s like, I don’t think that’s how that happens even with technology.
Yeah.
So that’s that’s a bit of a miss.
And I think that that would have been an opportunity to improve the game, whether or
not that would have made the whole thing certified 64.
I don’t know, but yeah, room for improvement.
Sure.
So moving on, let’s go into the Lobo learning section.
In this segment, we take a look at today’s game through the eyes of an indie developer
or an aspiring indie developer.
That’s me.
What lessons can we learn from this game decades later?
What ideas are worth borrowing?
What mistakes are worth avoiding?
What made this game work?
And how might these same principles apply to modern game development?
Lobo learning is brought to you by Lobo Destroyer, which is our own Nintendo 64 inspired 3D
platforming adventure currently in development.
If you’re enjoying the podcast and you’re a fan of the Nintendo 64, please consider giving
us a look up.
You can find us over at LoboDestroyo.com.
That’s L-O-B-O-D-E-S-T-R-O-Y-O.com.
And because that’s ridiculous and hard to spell, all of these links will also be in the show
notes.
So yeah, looking at this game from the perspective of someone who’s trying to make a game today,
it was actually a little bit reassuring to see how the longer development time struggles
and the moving targets affect even a legitimate professional team like this.
And it makes it exponentially harder to deliver a game the longer your development cycle takes.
So if you hit technology, snafu’s, or shifts, or expectations change, or funding issues,
or whatever it might be, other games can beat you to the market, which we absolutely
saw with Gold and I on this one.
So then you have to rethink things on that front.
And this is all stuff that has happened to LoboDestroyo multiple times.
So I take a quantum of solace, hard, hard, knowing that this happens to other franchises
and other teams as well, and has been happening for nion 30 years now.
So I don’t know if it’s something I necessarily learning from this, but it does make me feel
a little bit better about my own shore coming.
That is definitely, I can see that being, a reassurance that even the big guys miss sometimes.
And so it’s good to know that them hitting those same delays with dozens of times the
resources you have means that it’s not just you, you know, and that’s definitely a, a,
puts a positive spin on things.
That’s a very nice thing to say, but I mean, we obviously have much more on our side of
shore technology goes now.
You can do a lot more with a lot less people because there’s just so many more tools and
resources available.
So I can’t pat myself on the back too much, but it is interesting to see that these struggles
show up over time in different capacities and they have historically and they’ll continue
to do so.
That’s something that I become acutely aware of since starting working on a little bit
of stroy.
Yeah.
And for anyone who wants to go look, check out the catalog of ocean software because they
really did put out it and they didn’t always develop sometimes they developed, sometimes
they published, but they had a very large number of very large name movie and TV show based
games.
So it is, it’s pretty surprising to see the licenses they were given.
So, yeah, it’s definitely quite the catalog.
All right.
Well, that’s the end of it for this episode.
I’m not all that shocked at the final result having just played this new and recent as someone
that doesn’t really have a fondness for the game from its original release, but I was,
I’m glad I got to play it and this was a good, this is kind of what this podcast is all
about and what the collection for me is all about as well.
It’s making me play things and appreciate things that I wouldn’t have otherwise given
the time of day two.
And yeah, so thank you for suggesting this one.
I will try and repay the favor and pick an equally good game for you to have to pull
through through, maybe with better controls.
We’ll see when it comes to my turn.
Well, at some point we’re going to pick them all, but I guess depending on how you’re feeling
a certain week or certain day, you can pick something a little more punishing to get back
at me.
So I guess we’ll see how that goes.
Yeah, we will.
All right.
Thanks guys.
Appreciate it.
We’ll see you in the next one.
[MUSIC]
Then there’s no time to waste.