There's something almost criminal about how Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards gets overlooked in those "best N64 games" conversations. I mean, everyone rattles off the usual suspects—Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye—and fair enough, those are masterpieces. But then Kirby 64 sits there like the quiet kid in…

There's something about sitting in front of a massive CRT on a Saturday afternoon, analog stick getting properly sweaty as you guide a gorilla through jungle canopies, that modern gaming just can't replicate. The N64 era gave us platformers that felt like they were carved from pure joy,…

Six AAs. That's what stood between you and portable 16-bit bliss back in 1995, and let me tell you, the Sega Genesis Nomad burned through those batteries like they were made of spite and false promises. I remember seeing one in the wild for the first time at…

I'd been tinkering with my N64 controller collection last night—cleaning the analog sticks, replacing that infamous bowl-shaped plastic bit that always wore out—when my daughter wandered over and asked why the controller looked "so weird." Three prongs? Who designs a three-pronged controller? Fair question, really. But as I…