Wave Race 64 coming to Switch Online

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/wave-race-64-is-the-next-n64-game-coming-to-switch-online/

Nintendo has announced that Wave Race 64 will be added to Switch Online’s Nintendo 64 library this week.

The iconic jet ski racing game will join the service on August 19 and will be available to Switch Online Expansion Pack subscribers.

Wave Race 64 was originally released for the N64 in 1996 and was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto.

The game was considered groundbreaking at the time for its water physics, which arguably still hold up more than 25 years later.

Players ride jet skis on a series of courses, with the aim being to not only finish in first place, but to do so while slaloming between a series of buoys to keep their jet ski’s power topped up.

The game was originally set to feature transforming speedboats, but this was later changed to jet skis and the game became a sequel to 1992 Game Boy title Wave Race.

When it comes to Switch Online this week, Wave Race 64 will be the 18th game released on the N64 service in the west, following the addition of PokémonPuzzle League in July and Pokémon Snap in June.

Once it’s added, the full list of N64 titles on the service will be as follows:

• Banjo-Kazooie
• Dr Mario 64
• F-Zero X
• Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Mario Golf
• Mario Kart 64
• Mario Tennis
• Paper Mario
• Pokémon Puzzle League
• Pokémon Snap
• Sin & Punishment
• Star Fox 64
• Super Mario 64
• Wave Race 64
• WinBack
• Yoshi’s Story

Thoughts, SW? Will you be checking this out? It comes with an online mode now. I remember this game from back in the day, but trying to remember if I played much of it. Will definitely check it out at some point since I’m already a Switch Online member. Would love to see 1080 Snowboarding and WWF No Mercy make its way to the service!

No mercy would be great but licences would be the issue. Might need to get the expansion pack for wave race remember getting it with my N64 at Christmas.

Honestly surprised it took this long to see Wave Race hit the service considering it's Wave Race and it has never been anything special compared to other major classics from that era.

I would give it a shot but I'm not paying for the service cause it's a total rip-off at this price point and what it offers. Renting DLC isn't that big of a deal to me either cause I'd rather buy the DLC outright if I enjoy the base game enough. Not be forced to keep renting it like I'm 12 again and this is the only way I can play Dragon Ball GT Final Bout on Playstation so I keep renting it from Blockbuster week after week eventually spending far more than the game itself was worth.

As for games I wanna see hit the service still there's Snowboard Kids, Mischief Makers, Bomberman 64, and Diddy Kong Racing.

Would love them to somehow get the original conkers bad fur day.

Unfortunately there's too many people who think it's somehow a good deal. We will continue to see services like GamePass, PS Plus Premium and Nintendo Switch Expansion Pack get more and more expensive.

At least with PS Plus there IS an option to outright buy some of the classics- although overpriced, I saw Syphon Filter was $9.99 USD.

@mysticaldonut: Yea I would love if Nintendo let us buy these games to own. Imagining a virtual store with every game. 🤩

What’s the difference between that and the one in the Xbox collection?

Dang, this is why over 40 million subscribe to Nintendo Online, it’s just the best.

@mesome713: yeah...

Lol but which percentage have the Expansion Pack?

@mysticaldonut: Not a fan of any sort of subscription service these days and just prefer to purchase content, even digitally, over renting for years at a time. Every so often I might do GamePass if there's a good deal and a few games I'm interested in but don't have any other way of trying. Snag it for a month on like a $1 deal, try out what I want, make my purchases, and let the subscription lapse.

Can't even remember the last time I turned on my PS4 Pro to look at the PSN Shop. Same thing with my Switch.

Well the N64 version runs at 10fps....

That's a difference 🤣

Good, a few notables still missing:

DK64

Super Smash Bros

Mario Party 1/2/3 (they probably won't for multiple reasons)

Pokemon Stadium 1/2 (despite the broken gen 1 mechanics I wish they would be bold and add these for once)

Goldeneye/ Perfect Dark

Diddy Kong Racing

etc

eh could care less about wave race it was a showpiece back in the 90's as a launch title for n64 now a days its crap

Any chance for Castlevania 64? I hated it then. Most likely I hate it now but I'd like to finish it.

This is one of my favorite N64 games. I will check this out for sure. I do wish they would let me just buy the game, but this is where Nintendo is at.

Yes! When Nintendo had fun games.

I mean, sure but I hope it would be the Shindou version & not the Wave Race 64 version.

Really good game, very much enjoyed it when it first came out. I wish we could just buy these though as I still don’t want to subscribe to their Expansion Pack Online service.

Original Conker had multiplayer games you could play with friends. Xbox replaced all that with that crap ass shooter class based online game mode.

Its on the nintendo online infrastructure. How laggy is it?

This isn't just the Switch Online, you gotta pay extra for the N64 tiered offerings. That's a pretty small list to pay extra for. But I'll bite if/when Tetrisphere 64 ever makes it on there, I won't be able to resist that.

I mean.. it’s like a 20+ year old game, I would hope it’s not laggy lol.

Time to fire up the switch soon

50 dollars a year for absolute crap.

Wah-hoow

Unfortunately half of the N64s best games were by RARE.

I love that game. But I will not be paying for a service to play it. Let me buy it, or let me be

Um, hooray? A lot of those games on Nintendo expansion pack should have been there day one. For me and for others, the price of the service is not worth it and you can't pass on the Virtual consoles games on Switch.

If you're already a Switch online member (presumably to play online), that's $20. So the Expansion Pack is only an additional $30 a year. It can't be that bad, right? But I agree that I would love to just straight out buy it.

It has online multiplayer or it's streamed? Because all the sources I've checked don't mention anything about online play.

Looks like new graphics king for Switch.

If I remember correctly, the Xbox version was censored.

It's the original Xbox aka Live & Reloaded release of the game, compared to the N64 version, there was quite a lot of censoring. It did have censoring in the original N64 version, but MS actually censored more words and phrases in the Xbox release. Ironically it was originally going to be subtitled "Live & Uncut" and have less censoring, but the decision must have been made to censor it even more later on (and even censored some of the visual elements that were shown in the Live & Uncut version) so changed the subtitle to "Live & Reloaded" instead since Uncut was, well, not really a good description of it anymore.

I'm still disappointed that it wasn't part of the Rare Replay though. Strangely MS instead had the N64 version of it in the collection instead. Shame they didn't give you the option of selecting which version to play like what Halo Anniversary/2 did switching between remastered & original.

Nope. Didn't play it back in the day, no interest in it now. Wish they'd just let us buy the games. Who the **** is ok with waiting 5 years into the console's life to get Wave Race 64? lol

Their online infrastructure is 20+ years old too. It's probably laggy.

@Litchie: Its actually really good, you can try it out for free for a week and form your own opinion. Nintendos online subscription is amazing, thats why it has like 40 million subscribers and still growing.

@hardwenzen: Nintendo can’t be stopped.