9 ‘adult’ games we’d like to see in Nintendo Switch Online’s new N64 app

Image: Nintendo Life

The arrival of Rareware’s classic Perfect Dark and Acclaim’s Turok: Dinosaur Hunter via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack was a very welcome announcement in the June 2024 Nintendo Direct. Both titles are the first entries in Nintendo’s new, separate N64 app with a ‘ MATURE 17+’ label.

Following on from the Japanese version that launched when GoldenEye hit the market in 2023, this ‘adults only’ app will be a repository for all M-rated games with blood, language or other naughtiness that the ESRB deems unsuitable for younger players. gamers. In the case of Perfect Dark and Turok, it’s the gore and violence that sets them apart from the other family-friendly N64 games on NSO.

This of course opens the door for other adult-only N64 games, so we’ve put together a selection we’d like to see on Nintendo Switch Online. As you’ll see, they’re not all stone-cold classics, but we’d say NSO is perhaps the best and most convenient location for games you wouldn’t spend money on, but are somehow still intriguing and worth it to investigate. Few people would buy a standalone version of Winback, for example, but as part of a service you already pay for, you might like it.

It should also be noted that some of the games below do already ported to Switch. However, as evidenced by the arrival of Turok, this does not preclude them from being added to the expansion pack and we would still appreciate having access to them ‘for free’. We left out the Quakes and Doom 64, but we couldn’t resist adding others.

Let’s start with the most obvious and celebrated ‘adult’ game in the N64’s library…

Look, we’re not suggesting this will spoil a list of the best N64 games, but Ion Storm’s FPS is a curiosity worth investigating, and not just for its infamous “John Romero is about to…” marketing. The title page was apparently inspired by Zelda’s Master Sword, and the main character, Hiro Miyamoto, was of course an homage to Nintendo’s most celebrated design guru, Eiji Aonuma.

What!? Just checking if you were awake.

The point is that, despite the game’s reputation as a real steamboat, there is a purpose, history and heritage to Daikatana that makes it of scientific interest to video game enthusiasts. It is a perfect in our opinion a candidate for an NSO release. We’d also like to see the Game Boy Color version added.

Duke Nukem 3D came to the N64 under the imaginative new title Duke Nukem 64, but 1999’s Zero Hour was exclusive to Nintendo’s console and a game we’d love to see become more accessible, especially since we never got around to it to play yourself.

Again, we’re not dealing with a classic here by any means, but Eurocom’s third-person spin on the Duke’s M-rated escapades was always on our agenda. If-we-are-it-cheap list of old. We never did, so put it on NSO, please.

Resident Evil 2 is, in a way, where the modern series as we know it began. The first game was terrifying, but the production values of the original version – with its cheesy FMV sequences and questionable dialogue – placed it in the realm of the straight-to-video horror genre. That would be resolved with REmake, but Resident Evil 2 significantly raised the bar in every respect and established the look and feel that the series embraced from then on.

The Nintendo 64 version of the PlayStation classic is a technically incredible port in its own right, with the GameCube version being sharper but arguably less interesting. Given the absence of the original Resident Evils on Switch, NSO feels like the perfect opportunity to show this off.

Another curiosity that scratches the same itch as Doom 64, Hexen also arrived on Nintendo’s console in 1997 with a reasonable port that had the usual cartridge-based caveats (no FMV or CD-style audio). It offers a decent fantasy take on a Doom-style shooter, although with GoldenEye arriving just a handful of months later and totally disrupting the FPS scene on consoles, Hexen was destined to be overlooked even with a library so small like that of the N64. .

All these years later, we would jump at the chance to try again.

The N64 wasn’t blessed with many fighting games – and very few good or great ones – so we’d happily pick up a Mortal Kombat or two. Trilogy was a decent summary of all MK up to that point (1996), albeit with a few caveats such as missing characters and inferior audio quality on the N64. Mortal Kombat 4 offered some more modern and satisfyingly gruesome fighter fare two years later.

Mythologies: Sub-Zero? For the sake of completion, sure. But that’s not the one we would choose first. Or second.

This 1998 FPS has been remastered courtesy of Nightdive Studios (who else?), but has not yet appeared on Switch. You control a hoverbike that can move completely 360 degrees, so while Forsaken is technically a first-person shooter, that label might give modern gamers the wrong idea if you’re expecting a guy running around with a gun. Set in a dystopian future, you’ll fly through underground tunnels while shooting scavengers to a soundtrack of drum and bass. Not an all-timer, but there’s a lot to like.

The Switch remaster of Nightdive (is there anything that studio not remastered?) is a great way to play, but for a game as undeniably dated as this, the asking price of ‘Has an NSO Expansion Pack sub’ might be the best way to introduce new players to this dark and obtuse gem trying out. Hailing from the same team that developed the 64-bit Forsaken – and based on the Valiant Comics series – Michael LeRoi (the titular Man o’ Shadow) has a vast and disturbing world to explore, and the lily-livered among us would be grateful to have safe states to fall back on while we do that.

Did we miss anything you’d like to see on Switch? Let us know your favorite N64 adult games from the list above in this poll, and comment below if you have something else you like.

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