5 Hit N64 Video Games No One Remembers Today

Nintendo closed out the '90s with a new, ground-breaking 64-bit home console: the Nintendo 64, which launched in 1996. The hardware brought the company's biggest franchises into a full 3D presentation and gameplay while emphasizing the fun in party-style multiplayer games. The N64 was Nintendo's primary home console until the arrival of the GameCube in 2001 and its last home console to use cartridges until the Switch. Decades later, gamers hold a deep fondness for several N64 titles, including its best-selling game of all time, "Super Mario 64."

However, not all N64 games that connected with players continue to resonate or enjoy enduring recognition all these years later. This time we're not talking about hidden gems for the Nintendo 64. We're looking at games that did see success during their initial release, but have since seen that glory faded. They're games that no one remembers today despite their critical and commercial success, and we're highlighting five of these forgotten titles.

There were racing games of all sorts in the early 3D gaming era, especially on the Nintendo 64, which saw several winter sports titles. This includes 1998's "1080° Snowboarding," which was developed and published by Nintendo itself, with celebrated industry figure Shigeru Miyamoto as its producer. The goal of the game is to win downhill races or achieve high scores by pulling off impressive stunts and tricks on the slopes. Players can choose between a variety of snowboarders from around the globe, and the game also featured multiplayer modes.

Though 1080° Snowboarding didn't have the same cartoonish '90s N64 snowboarding game appeal as the 1997 release, "Snowboard Kids," it outsold that game by a solid amount. While "Snowboard Kids" sold an impressive one million copies in the United States, "1080° Snowboarding" sold over 1.2 million.

The game spawned a 2003 sequel on the GameCube, "1080° Avalanche" but, by then, it felt like wider interest in snowboarding had cooled. Outside of team-up games between Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics, Nintendo hasn't ventured much into winter sports since.

The aquatic racing game "Wave Race 64" was actually one of the very first titles for the Nintendo 64, despite releasing a few months after the console's launch. A sequel to the 1992 Game Boy title "Wave Race," the game retained the high-speed jet ski racing premise, translated to 3D. The game benefited tremendously from the N64's technical capabilities, not just in the shift in perspective and upgraded visuals but to meticulously constructed water physics. In addition to three different single-player modes, the game included a two-player competitive multiplayer mode to share the fun.

Predating "Mario Kart 64" and the home console port of "Cruis'n USA," "Wave Race 64" was the premier racing experience on the N64 for the console's earliest months. N64 owners responded in kind, and the game sold over 1.9 million copies in the United States alone during the console's lifetime.

Nintendo replicated this strategy by positioning its sequel "Wave Race: Blue Storm" as a GameCube launch title, with the sequel being one of the best GameCube games of all time. However, there's been little movement on the "Wave Race" franchise since, while "Wave Race 64" was subsequently overshadowed by games like "Mario Kart 64" and "Diddy Kong Racing."

One of the more ambitious titles on the Nintendo 64, in terms of what it asked of its players, was 1998's "Mission: Impossible." The game loosely adapts the inaugural 1996 movie in the film series while bookending the story with original missions featuring Ethan Hunt and the Impossible Missions Force.

Taking on a third-person perspective, players control Hunt as he tries to find a traitor within the IMF who turned on the team during a botched mission in Prague. Gameplay favors stealth and strategy over pure action, using disguises and high-tech gadgets, though there are completely action-oriented levels too.

In less than a year, "Mission: Impossible" sold over 1.1 million copies, which developer Infogrames considered a solid commercial success. However, there hasn't been a new "Mission: Impossible" game since 2003's "Mission: Impossible — Operation Surma" for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. This may be a result of neither the 1998 game nor "Operation Surma" being all that well-received critically, limiting the video game franchise's staying power. A precursor to the strategy and stealth-heavy gameplay of the "Hitman" series, the 1998 "Mission: Impossible" has fallen into relative obscurity.

We've got one last racing game to include here, since the genre saw so much success on the Nintendo 64. The original "Excitebike" had been an early standout for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the '80s and received an ambitious sequel 16 years later on the N64.

"Excitebike 64" not only took on a 3D animation style and change in perspective. It also offered a whole variety of game modes for players to choose from. This includes different racing challenges, a soccer mode with players hitting an oversized soccer ball, and a procedurally generated desert roaming mode.

The wealth of gameplay modes alone, with most of them beautifully and intuitively realized, makes "Excitebike 64" an impressive N64 title. The game's soccer mode feels like the inspirational foundation to games like "Rocket League," albeit with dirt bikes instead of cars.

Despite being released relatively late in the N64's lifecycle, the game went on to sell over two million copies worldwide. But with attention already gearing towards the next generation of home consoles, it does feel like "Excitebike 64" got lost in the shuffle. It hasn't gotten the appreciation it deserves in a long time.

While the 1997 James Bond video game "GoldenEye 007" had been a resounding success for the Nintendo 64, its sequel, "Tomorrow Never Dies," went to PlayStation. However, 007 resurfaced for one more movie tie-in adventure on the N64 with 2000's "The World Is Not Enough."

Based on the 1999 movie of the same name, the game was a first-person shooter return to form as Bond battled a terrorist plot to control oil pipelines in Turkey. Like "GoldenEye" (and unlike "Tomorrow Never Dies"), "The World Is Not Enough" also featured a variety of four-player multiplayer modes.

Though it's not quite as polished, in terms of gameplay, as "GoldenEye 007" or "Perfect Dark," "The World Is Not Enough" is definitely a course-correction from "Tomorrow Never Dies." The game recreates the broad strokes from the movie, with the N64 tie-in selling more than one million copies in the United States.

The multiplayer modes are also a reliably fun feature, making them among the more entertaining options as far as first-person shooters go on the N64. "The World Is Not Enough" is an underrated James Bond game that competes with "GoldenEye" in terms of presentation and fun factor, even if it isn't as fondly remembered.