Wave Race 64 (1996)

Wave Race 64 may have some trouble bringing its mechanics and modes together in a cohesive whole but the smooth and colorful racing on these gorgeous tracks cannot be missed.

Wave Race 64 mainly consists of jetski races across a variety of watery courses. Players must complete three laps and follow buoys to ensure a set path, where subsequent buoys grant extra speed and misses lower speed and risk retiring the race. Players can choose up to four different racers of varying abilities (good turning, good speed, well balanced, etc) and use the skills they have available to reach the finish line!

Which is easier said than done. Wave Race 64 has a number of advanced mechanics but only some of them are useful to racing. Braking on waves to help lower jumps for speed, quick turns around corners, tapping to get back on the craft - some of these are essential to winning the race. Flips, handstands, and barrel rolls? As cool as they are to pull off, their execution rarely helps in races. A stunt mode is available to reward these stunts with extra points but the game risks making these cool tricks too unimportant to learn.

Tracks are widely varied and change in interesting ways with every difficulty. Extra obstacles in water, tighter buoy placement, and even gates that require advanced mechanics like diving under water are necessary to victory, while opponents ride with more speed and riskier maneuvers. Expect to get run over multiple times if you're not careful!

As for how the stages look, that's the real treat of the game. The waters of the beaches in this game are a sight to behold, with super advanced noise and wave simulation making for some bumpy yet beautiful rides. Sunsets, still lake waters, nightly city ventures, frozen glaciers, killer whales and dolphins... Wave Race 64 has it all, with eye-popping colors and easy listening tracks that would make Wii Sports proud.

Wave Race 64 is a game with challenging yet satisfyingly smooth controls that may risk some frustrating edges toward the higher difficulties (some characters simply being worse than others and many advanced maneuvers being useless to racing) but it's well worth giving a shot if you need a good racer to practice or just love the cool ocean waves.

Everyone has that game that they love but no one else seems to recognize or respect. For me, that game is Wave Race 64. I loved playing this game as a kid; it was right up there with Mario Kart 64. After many years apart, I finally got to play it again via the Virtual Console on the Wii U. And I got right back into loving it!

The controls are a little tricky to get the hang of, but they actually mimic real Sea-Dooing quite well. Instead of turning with a wheel, you're leaning back and forth to change directions and course correct. Once you get the hang of that mechanic, navigating the courses and getting around the flags becomes much easier.

The water in this game is incredible, too. It was made in 1996, yet it might have some of the best water I've ever seen. You really feel like you're riding around in the ocean. The tide impacts the courses, and the waves splash about, making natural ramps. Learning to use the water to your advantage is part of the trick of mastering the game. Which, I'll add, is quite difficult. It is not, by any means, an easy game.

When I first picked it up again, I wondered how I could possibly have been so good at it as a kid. It's difficult! But after a while, I got better, and when I finally crossed that last finish line in first place on Expert, I literally jumped for joy.

Speaking of which, I originally thought that "completing" the game, for my purposes, would include coming first in Reverse mode, but I decided that Reverse mode is more like a bonus mode than a final mode, as you're literally just going through the course backwards, and neither the courses nor the flags are designed to be traversed that way. It's incredibly difficult. Not that it couldn't be mastered, but I feel like that's more of a bonus challenge. I'll get to it someday, I'm sure, but I decided to consider this game beaten without finishing that part.

This game is awesome. If you're into racing games, and you have an N64, track it down. If you have a Wii U, go buy it right now. Just go do it. Now.