Quarantine Control #64: Brave the Ultra Elements

It’s true that the ledes for these posts have become a little repetitive, but there are facts worth repeating several times. The COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over, and the underperforming vaccination rate in the United States is about to prove how the virus can still spread despite free vaccines being available in every area of the country. Hesitancy and moronic anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories means the new more contagious Delta Variant is spreading around areas with lower vaccination rates, which will mean more cases and deaths. Other countries like the United Kingdom (in a way) and Canada should make sure not to make the same dumb mistakes the US is making right now. Let’s hope this doesn’t get any worse, but we’ve already seen plenty of horrible surprises in a little more than the last year. Prepare yourself.

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Geoffrey Barnes

Nintendo 64 (1996)
Source: My Nostalgia
Episodes: My Memories

The listing above should make it clear that I’m doing something a little different this week. Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo 64’s launch in Japan on June 25th, 1996, a system that plenty of people who were kids at the time, me included, have a copious amount of nostalgia for. This occasion combined with the number of this Quarantine Control entry was a coincidence that I couldn’t pass up.

Coming from the Nintendo Entertainment System and succeeding Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the kid version of me had plenty of baked-in hype for the Nintendo 64 even before most of the games were shown. The mere thought of my favorite Nintendo franchises getting new installments taking advantage of then-new 3D technology was exciting, along with the mere prospect of getting new games on a new toy to play with. Seeing screenshots of games in magazines along with gazing at the supposed potential of the system’s power with the arcade version of Killer Instinct II made me realize I had to have the system immediately.

The feeling of excitement intensified after I gazed upon Super Mario 64, which I first saw running from a Japanese console in the window of an independent gaming shop in South Philadelphia. (The name escapes me, but the store wasn’t there for long before it was replaced with a FuncoLand.) It wasn’t too long before Nintendo revved up the promotional efforts in America, with demo kiosks featuring the game at Toys ‘R Us stores (RIP) across the country. I’m sure my parents adored it when I made them take me to the stores every weekend to play the game, leading up to the US launch in September 1996 and slightly beyond. This gave me enough experience with the system to adjust to using the analog stick to play games in 3D, and find all the Stars in Bob-omb Battlefield.

It also made me sick of that first World by the time I received a copy pf the game, because I’d known it as well as my last name by that point. But that wasn’t far into it, so the rest of it felt fresh.

I was blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding with publishers and Nintendo behind the scenes at the time. But this later hit me like a slap in the face upon seeing how lackluster the launch lineup was, even by lineup standards at the time. There were more games like Mortal Kombat Trilogy and the semi-home port of the aforementioned KI2, Killer Instinct Ultra, released after launch, but the N64’s lineup was slow to fill out. I realized that I also needed a PlayStation to keep up with the newest games, the place where I discovered just how great this so-called Japanese RPG genre was.

This isn’t to say the N64 was a bad system. If that was the case, I wouldn’t be writing about it here. I didn’t use it as frequently as I did the PlayStation after I got one, and it didn’t take long for the PSOne lineup to outdo the N64 one in size. But there were plenty of good games released after Mario 64, even though the sequel to that game I was hoping for (reportedly planned for the Nintendo 64DD at one point) never materialized. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was also a favorite, the first (confession!) Zelda game I ever finished, which did get a sequel in Majora’s Mask. Rare’s games were also a treat, including the Banjo-Kazooie titles, Jet Force Gemini, and too many more. I could go on here, but I think you get the point.

The multiplayer games were where the system’s software shined, undoubtedly thanks to its four controller ports. I didn’t always have an opportunity to arrange four-player sessions or participate in them, but Mario Kart 64 and Super Smash Bros. were always fun to play with others in the room.

The N64 was a good system, even if it didn’t get its deserved appreciation until the next console generation and those beyond — especially outside the US. It would be lovely if Nintendo could get on creating and releasing that Nintendo 64 Classic, assuming technology allows for it or whether they could recreate four controller ports on a miniature system. If not, N64 games on Switch will suffice. The non-Rare games deserve to be preserved — and not temporarily.

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Joseph Daniels

Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender have been wanting more ever since the end of Aang’s journey to master the four elements, and with how divided fans were over Avatar: The Legend of Korra, especially with how much season two retconned the way the universe worked, as well as how terrible the live action movie was, the upcoming projects Netflix has in the works are being looked at with cautious optimism.  It’s also been a pretty popular topic of conversation, with several new speculative articles posted on various sites literally today.

Myself, I’m concerned that any series made for Netflix isn’t going to be allowed to run its course in a natural manner and is going to end prematurely.  It used to be that streaming services were seen as the place where cancelled shows went to be rescued, like Longmire was when A&E canned it and Designated Survivor when ABC didn’t want it any more, but now it seems like shows need rescuing from Netflix, like when Tuca & Bertie was cancelled after only one season and then a second was ordered by Cartoon Network.  If new Avatar projects do end up coming to Netflix, I have no doubt that I’ll eventually see new episodes on network television instead of a streaming service at some point.

I’ve been thinking of Avatar recently because a good friend of mine linked me to the first episode of a new Avatar-related podcast pretty much as soon as the first episode was available.  And yeah, as of this writing there is only one episode, sorry.

Avatar: Braving The Elements (2021)
Source: Podcast
Episodes: Ongoing (currently 1)

Have no fear, though: new episodes are uploaded every Tuesday and the second episode is going up tomorrow (Friday, for anyone who doesn’t read this column on the day it goes up), so there might actually be two episodes to listen to by the time you read this.

The series is hosted by Janet Varney (she played Korra in A:TLoK) and Dante Basco (he played Prince Zuko in A:TLA) and… wow, 64 weekly columns and this is the first rewatch podcast I’ve recommended?  Huh.  Anyway, this is a rewatch podcast, and it’s planning on going in depth with each episode of both the first and second shows, talking about the way the series handled world building and foreshadowing, analysing the composition of scenes and basically being a long form “Avatar: The Last Airbender is Great and Here’s Why.”  This is a concept which I was thinking of writing one day but until then, here’s a podcast that’s going to do the same over a longer period of time and cover a lot more ground than I would’ve.

Given the episode count of the Avatar universe, there’ll be enough material for about two and a half years, depending on if the new Netflix projects happen before 2024 or not.  Personally, I’m happy that I can finally recommend a podcast that I’ve listened to all of the currently available episodes beforehand, rather than joining it years down the line and having a lot of catch-up to do.

And hey, if my contribution to helping you kill time is a bit disappointing this week, you could always binge watch the original shows.  The Last Airbender is fully available on Netflix and The Legend of Korra is fully available on Netflix in the United States and available up to the end of season two on Netflix in Canada.  Maybe Canada was so angry at what happened at the end of season two that they don’t want to think about seasons three and four?

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Mask mandates have been repealed all over the US and in other countries, for those that had them in effect at all. But whether you think you can go without one depends on trust. After what we’ve all been through in the last year, do you really think you can trust others you don’t know?  The US is a country that made the basic task of mask wearing a political statement, after all. Stay as safe as you can, and no one should fault you for continuing to social distance despite it not being “cool” anymore.