Weird shaped controllers, weirdly developed games and an emulation scene that still hasn’t managed to completely crack the perfect emulation of a piece of hardware that’s now a couple of decades old. 

The console was known for bringing Mario into the 3D world, revolutionising how games were made post-Zelda and for whatever reason, still heralded as the console with the Mario Kart of choice between weirdos. 

There’s no reason to really check out many Nintendo 64 games, but the few that are worth a shot like Paper Mario, Starfox 64 and the various Rare games you can now get quite easily through Game Pass. 

The top emulator for the Nintendo 64 is Project64, which has been going for quite a number of years at this point. While not perfect for every game, if you load in a rom, you’re probably going to get the desired results. 

However, you’ll want to also check out the RetroArch core, as this also provides a similar if not marginally different performance experience. 

We have a guide for how to load up this core over at our dedicated guide.