The water has waves!

You'll be hard pressed to find any games that have better water physics than this game.

It's hard to really describe to younger generations just what it was like.

I'm an elder millennial (1984) and the changes to games within my lifetime has been breath taking and staggering.

The first game I remember playing is River Raid on my brother's Atari. I was a vaguely plane shaped black block.

A couple years later, I find myself playing Super Mario Bros. A few more and it's SMB3 and I'm holding a gameboy in my hands on the road trips to Florida to see my grandparents.

Then the jump to SNES and Genesis. Seeing that depth and life seep into the characters... The music gaining in complexity...

I even had a Sega CD and I remember how mind blowing it was when Sonic turned and ran towards the back to go through a loop instead of just side to side.

Then for it was PS1 with Final Fantasy 7... Graphical cut scenes like moving works of art.

After this point, yes there was still obvious and sometimes bigger jumps... But this is where it all was SO different each generation. Not just seeing extra small details and polishes. Large, discrete jumps forward

I wish I could give my wonder to anyone who never got to experience it. It was an amazing time to live.

Some of y'all are gunna learn today that on this same system there was StarWars Pod Racing, and you could use 2 controllers, one for each engine. You're welcome.

So... This is kinda where I wish graphics stayed. It's probably not the majority opinion, but I wanna feel like I'm playing a video game and not really life. Plus, I feel there was a bit more creativity in making graphics. I'm old, but I loved stuff in Doom and Duke Nukem and EverQuest. Everything now kinda just looks... Brown and dark? Or similar?

I dunno. Might just be the rantings of an old person!

I still remember seeing this for the first time, absolute mind blower for sure back then.

The first time I interacted with water and it did something in response instead of being static blew my mind.

Seeing my own reflection in a game hurt my brain.

It's really funny to think about now, but we really were blown away by how nice this game looked.

I'm still impressed by the way wave race feels, not going to lie.

Wave race was legit. I still think about that game and I'm an old gamer

I never had an N64, but my buddy across the street did. Waverace 64 was incredible for its time.

Its crazy how much graphics evolved during that time period, just two years later we got this:

Splashdown was the gen z equivalent. Loved those racing games.

Splashdown had like a sea monster that would throw you back if you went outside the map. Was fun

When Sony saw Crash Bandicoot running on a PS1 for the first time, they had no idea how the PS1 actually was able to run it.

When even the developers of the system you are using have no idea of how a program is running on their new system, they you know you have some advanced stuff:

https://youtu.be/pU_7Id8D-1A

Gimmie these graphics with amazing physics and gameplay over the polished turds they make today. Thanks.

It's tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time, it's tricky

Wow those waves are GORGEOUS for N64 graphics. Dang! I remember I loved Blue Storm on the GameCube. I spent a while just moving that little bubble around the main menu hahaha. It's still gorgeous!

Still looks fine tbh Can't say that about most games from that time

Water still looks and moves better than most games.

Also…

“FOLLOW THAT DOLPHIN!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3qbEGVIthI

We are old, but it was a great generation.

Fuck, dude, remember VirtuaFighter?

Honestly, it's still impressive that they were even able to do that on the N64.

Here's a deep dive into how the game works:
The waves of Wave Race 64 -MVG

Honestly, it holds up. Sure there's fewer polygons, but more polygons doesn't mean it looks better.

Going from the bleeps and bloops of the 8-bit gaming era to VR is quite a leap. VR was the realm of scifi, and now it exists as a reality. Is it perfect? No, and the steep psychological learning curve can be off-putting to some, but it's really good even as it is now.

I heard the announcer voice as soon as I saw the image. Waverace!

The soundtrack for this game is incredible.

Sunny Beach has such a good energy

This is three dimensional and the water reflects what is above?? The future is now!

I really love the atmosphere and ambiance of Wave Race 64

the PlayStation Nintendo 64 can produce mind-boggling effects.

Wave Race!

I remember I somehow owned a Gameshark at one point and figured out how to add in Turbo and Big Head mode. I also dimly remember the title music for the game, which was awesome.

https://youtu.be/3JHjd4bkKhw

This was shit graphics even back in 1996 because it only uses primary or fully saturated colors. It's "dev art", made by someone with no artistic talent. Or maybe made for 4 year old kids. I missed out on a lot of games with good gameplay because I just can't stand on this abomination of a color palette.

The worst thing? When games actually went with a more pastel or naturalistic color palette, moronic games journalists would say the colors look "drab" or some shit.