Wave Race 64 is a jet ski racing game, developed by Nintendo and released on the N64 in late
1996.
The game was a critical and commercial hit, becoming a million-seller for Nintendo.
As a result, this game is incredibly easy to find, and cheap to buy.
This is an arcade-style racing game, racing jet ski’s across various aquatic locals.
This was an ambitious project back in 1996, requiring a lot programming prowess to accurately
capture the feeling of racing across water, and of course, waves.
Wave Race 64 starts off letting you select one of four characters.
The character select screen doesn’t tell you their stats, but you’ll quickly feel
a difference in their speed and handling capabilities.
In addition to this, you can tweak their stats more to your liking, which is a curious inclusion.
From here, you’re off to the normal championship and the game begins.
Wave Race 64 immediately succeeds as a terrific racing game by having awesome track design.
While they look basic on the map screen, you have to navigate buoys which greatly increases
their complexity.
Passing by a buoy will increase your power meter, allowing you go a few miles per hour
faster.
Missing a buoy will reset your power meter back at zero.
Additionally, missing 5 buoys will retire you from the race.
This adds a subtle bit of strategy, as sometimes it will be to your advantage, to miss a buoy
and cut a corner.
The normal championship is fairly easy, but winning it does unlock the hard championship.
This is a gauntlet through 7 courses, and the buoy placement has been made more challenging
as well.
This championship might be one of the funnest arcade racing experiences, I’ve ever had.
I played through this for hours on end, experimenting with different characters, trying to beat
this bugger.
You earn points for your finish, up to 7 points for first place, and a single point for last
place.
As the championship progresses, there is a point threshold that must be met to continue.
Wave Race 64 requires you accumulate 28 points to clear this championship.
This is where a few minor flaws rear their ugly head.
First, you can’t restart a race, only restart the championship.
Most racing games give you a few retries in case you have a bad race.
Wave Race 64 offers no such luxury.
The second issue is that it takes a few seconds to get back on your jet ski when you fall
off.
On more than one occasion, the physics turned against me and I flew off my jet ski for seemingly
no reason.
Because it takes a while to recover, this can ruin your race completely.
As their are no restarts, it can be frustrating.
Finally completing hard mode will unlock expert mode.
Beating expert mode will unlock reverse mode, which I’ve yet to accomplish.
***
Graphically, Wave Race 64 is terrific.
The low polygon models for the characters and jet skis has a certain charm to it that
I find appealing.
The water certainly doesn’t look realistic by today’s standards, but the way the water
flows, reflects the scenery, and how the waves crest into a solid white, from their previous
opaque state, is really awesome.
But what makes Wave Race 64 so visually stunning are all the little details.
The use of color is outstanding.
The icy blue waters of Sunny Beach, combined with the green palm trees, makes you feel
like you’re on a Caribbean island.
This contrasts nicely with Drake Lake, which feels like a lake from my neck of the woods.
The water is calm, deep blue, and surrounded by a thick forest.
With each lap, the fog lessons until completely gone.
The attention to detail on each of Wave Race 64’s courses is simply outstanding.
You’ll see fish swimming in the water, birds in the sky, and plenty of marine mammals making
brief appearances.
However, it seems Nintendo was sleeping when it came to the music.
It’s not very good.
It’s a sleepy, lazy sound that would seem more at home in an 80’s infomercial, and
just doesn’t fit the fast paced arcade nature of the game, at all.
Rounding out Wave Race 64 is a stunt mode that I really couldn’t get into, and a two-player
mode that I didn’t get to try out.
As a whole, Wave Race 64 is a terrific game that absolutely holds up 19 years later.
The controls are nearly perfect.
The jet skis feel like they are floating on water and crashing through waves.
The track design is truly superb, and the buoy mechanic adds a lot of challenge and
depth, to a seemingly simple game.
Wave Race 64 is nearly perfect.
Four out five.