Andrew Man wrote:

Wow, a lot of crying about Mario 64 and the N64 controller. First off, how are the controls slippery in Mario 64? Mario is so maneuverable and controls quite tightly IMO. As for the controller, I am with Syd. The controller felt sooo comfortable in my hands, playing games like Mario Kart just felt so fucking excellent on it. Super Mario 64 is absolutely playable, I have beaten the shit of it on every possible platform (N64, DS, Wii) and I enjoy it every-time.

the controls are slippery because Mario doesn't always go where you tell him to go. He also doesn't stop when you tell him to stop. It's also hard to control his speed because the N64 joystick fucking sucks. This is an even bigger complaint on the DS version where they somehow expect you to replicate a joystick with a touch screen stylus.

The camera is fucking terrible because instead of giving you free rotation, it gave you preset choices to fuck with. sometimes those choices weren't always useful. Instead of pressing a C button and having the camera move a certain amount, how about letting me hold the C button to manually move the camera? Sometimes the camera even moves, then moves back to where it started for no reason. Lastly, the camera gets stuck on things and refuses to move until you move Mario. Makes those clock levels lots of fun, right?

The controller is fucking horrible. The joystick is too loose, the D-Pad and L button were completely pointless due to being in a stupid spot, and some games were severely handicapped by the fact that there were only two action buttons, forcing the use of The C buttons which were uncomfortable. The controller was too light without a rumble pack, and way too heavy with one, and you had to take the memory card out to use one to begin with. Whoever designed the damn thing CLEARLY didn't think about anything past Mario 64.

Sure, the game is TECHNICALLY playable, but only in the frustrating "I want to have fun. I really do." sense. You shouldn't have to overlook tons of very frustrating flaws to enjoy a game like Mario, especially considering it was supposed to be the big hurrah of the N64. Seriously. Take off the nostalgia goggles for a minute.

You shouldn't HAVE to employ long finger stretches. Look at the SNES controller. Everything was perfectly laid out. You could press any button on that controller immediately. That's how you design a controller. The N64 controller was just loaded ip with gimmicky bullshit that made it impractical for any game that wasn't specifically built for the console from the ground up, and even most of those are hardly functional. Did you enjoy playing MK4 or Duke Nuken on that controller? I sure didn't. Did you think it made sense to have to use camera buttons for things like climbing the ropes and running in a wrestling game? Did it feel right having to stretch your thumb over from the pad to the stick to taunt and do special moves? How sensible was it to have to use the camera buttons to jump in smash bros? If the controller holds up and gets the job done so well, why has it's design never been emulated again, even by nintendo themselves?

Yeah, with practice you can get good at Mario 64. With enough practice you can get good at ANYTHING. That doesn't mean it's a good game. If you suck enough dicks youll develop a great technique, but when all is said and done, you're still taking shots in the mouth when you'd rather be eating pussy. The minute I picked up Mario 3 or super Mario world, the game felt comfortable. Same thing with crash bandicoot. The challenge was in getting good enough to avoid all the obstacles and enemies and complete the levels. When you pick up Mario 64 there is an adjustment period that is quite frankly more frustrating than rewarding. The challenge of the game now becomes trying to maneuver Mario so that you don't get him killed by not controlling him properly.

You can try and defend the game all you want. You enjoyed it as a kid and all that shit and are therefore incapable of admitting it's obvious and glaring flaws. Everyone eats it up because they love nintendo like i love capcom, and will buy and play anything that theyre told to, but I played, got good at, and beat Mario 64 when it first came out, bit as a serious gamer, I will never play it again for anythingore than nostalgia. It's really not that good, and other games have done better and made this clunk fear obsolete.

Thunderhorse wrote:

Am I alone in thinking the Gamecube had the best Nintendo controllers?

The SNES had the best nintendo controllers. The gamecube controller is just as bad as the n64 controller. It has an equally loose and terrible joystick, I comedically tiny d pad, button placement that might be worse than the n64's, and what the fuck is up with that c stick? Why they even bothered to port and games like Capcom Vs snk 2 or 007: agent under fire is beyond me. Soul caliber 2 also required me to put the controller on my knee, reconfigure a bunch of buttons, hold the left hand in such a way that I could touch the d pad with my thumbnail, and press the buttons with my right hand like I was using a joystick.

Come to think of it, the classic controller and the nunchick on the Wii also have that shitty loose joystick, bit it's okay now, because you'll be too bust waving your dildo around with the Wii motion plus attachment to notice.