One of the genre's the N64 struggled with was fighting games, luckily Konami's Rakuga Kids (unreleased in the US) just about fills the classic 2D fighter void. Rakuga Kids essentially plays like a Konami version of Capcom's X-men: Children of the Atom arcade game. The game has all the usual Street Fighter II quarter turn and combos', but with newer gameplay mechanics like high jumps and aerial raves bringing it more into line with its contemporaries. Its not quite up to the standards of Capcom's classic offerings but it has a few of its own gameplay mechanics that mix things up a little (such as the super moves being split into offense, defense, or combo's), and the game actually has an awful lot of charm too. I would recommend the game be played at 60hz (the PAL version doesn't seem to be optimised) as it plays a little too slow otherwise.

Updated 2.5D version of the Mega Drive classic that had you racing miniature cars through huge real world environments (such as breakfast, or Snooker tables, garden paths etc). This is actually a port of the Playstation game Micro Machines V3, which included huge numbers of tracks and a variety of different vehicles (including tanks and such), and updated the graphics to polygons. As a port this is a good one, they added a number of turbo settings to make the game faster, and a couple of extra modes, whilst there are very few noticeable tradeoffs.

This is a very cool, and innovative (though a little rough around the edges) puzzle game that successfully brings back the ball rolling mechanics from the classic Marble Madness and combines it with 5th generation 3D platformer sensibilities. In the game you play as a glove that can walk around, jump, and ground pound, but also attach to, and manipulate a rubber ball which needs to be taken to the end of the stage through rolling, throwing, and bouncing. Its a smart game, and in many ways looks as though it influenced some of Sega's later games, such as Billy Hatcher, and Super Monkey Ball, causing a sort of short-lived renaissance of new Marble Madness descendents. Avoid the Playstation version, its an rushed port with inferior graphics, a lower framerate, simplified levels, and a slightly more frustrating camera.

Always one of the better Tetris style games to come out, the Puyo Puyo series featured an excellent core system which ended up working very well for combo-ing and competitive play. The game has you matching coloured blobs to remove them from the field before they build up and kill you, if you set the blobs up to create chain reactions as they're removed you can send them to your opponent as garbage to get in their way. Puyo Puyo plays as well as any other game in the series, and features updated graphics and sound as its pros

With the third game in the San Francisco series Atari eschewed any kind of pretence of realism and went straight for over the top futuristic action. This was a masterstroke and this change, coupled with a general honing of the gameplay provided a game that was a huge improvement over its predecessors. The racer has a big focus on elaborate short-cuts, and over-the-top crashes, expect loads of close calls and cork-screws through the air as you careen through the imaginative futuristic city courses.

The second Goemon game on the N64 went back to the classic 2D formula of the earlier SNES games (except now with a new 2.5D look), and actually stands as one of the best of these action-packed Goemon games ever released. The game is a fast action-adventure title that has you slashing and jumping through fiendish stages avoiding hazards and dispatching the multitude of enemies blocking your way. The classic 2D action is well done, and challenging, there's a 2-player co-op feature (and a hidden 4-player one), and the music is catchy and memorable.

Ingenious puzzle game from the Pickford brothers, whom some may remember for the SNES game Plok, or their earlier ZX Spectrum titles (Feud, Zub etc). The game has you building up a land mass in order to hold water, if the water leaks over the sides a meter builds up and you die when its full. It sounds simple, but as you progress more and more depth shows through as new elements show up which need to be carefully balanced, such as ice, and keeping the land mass' height low so as to avoid earthquakes (there are also a whole range of ways to multiply your points which I wont go into here). At first the game is a little unwieldy, but once you've gotten used to placing the pieces it becomes a very, very addictive, fun, and frenetic game.

With their first Castlevania game on N64 Konami had to make quite a few concessions to get it released on time, so whilst good it was still far from what they'd originally conceived, with some unpolished controls and camera implementation bringing it down a bit. Legacy of Darkness for all intents and purposes is a special edition of that first game, with improvements to the graphics, revisions to some of the levels, tightened camera and controls, and two entirely new character campaigns added to the two original ones. Overall this comes much closer to Konami's original goal, bringing Castlevania into a full 3D action adventure set-up of puzzles, combat, platforming, and memorable set-pieces. Writers of the time criticised Konami for rehashing the game at full price, saying this should've been the original release in the first place (a fair enough criticism), but these days it simply stands as the more complete version of the game for those who don't already own the good, but flawed original.

Aki did a great job transferring the sport of wrestling to gaming form here, creating an excellent, and fun fighting engine, and including a lot of cool features such as the ability to create your own wrestler (improved for this installment) and 4-player modes. Outside of the gameplay, the graphics here are very good, all in all they've done a great job of recreating the look and feel of the show. Even today No Mercy is still often touted as being one of the greatest Wrestling games ever created, and for good reason.

This plays like a pseudo-sequel to Factor 5's earlier game, Rogue Squadron, except this time using the prequel licence (making it a branch off of sorts I guess). Battle For Naboo, like its predecessor has you piloting a variety of craft trying to fulfill specific mission objectives whilst shooting down enemy vehicles along the way. The main change here is that unlike Rogue Squadron, which was primarily about flying dogfights, Battle for Naboo adds in a lot of new ground based missions. The graphics and sound here are phenomenal, and not only improve on the earlier game, but actually stand as some of the most impressive on N64, with an excellent draw distance, level of detail, and near CD quality music! Where the gameplay is concerned I'd say this is also a little more polished over Rogue Squadron, it feels easier to get into and less frustrating.