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 which launched when GoldenEye came to the service back in 2023, this ‘adults-only’ app will be a repository for any M-rated games with blood, language, or other naughtiness that the ESRB deems unsuitable for younger gamers. In the case of Perfect Dark and Turok, it’s the blood and violence that sets them apart from the other family-friendly N64 games on NSO.
This opens the door for other adult-only N64 games to come, of course, so we’ve rounded up a selection that we’d love to see on Nintendo Switch Online. As you’ll see, not all of them are stone-cold classics, but we’d argue that NSO is perhaps the best and most convenient venue for games that you wouldn’t spend money on, but are still intriguing in some way and worth investigating. Very few people would buy a standalone release of, say, Winback, but as part of a service you already pay for, you might be charmed by it.
It should also be noted that a couple of the games below have already been ported to Switch. However, as evidenced by Turok’s arrival, that doesn’t preclude them being added to the Expansion Pack and we’d still appreciate having ‘free’ access to them. We’ve omitted the Quakes and Doom 64, but we couldn’t resist adding others.
Let’s start with the most obvious and celebrated ‘mature’ game in the N64’s library…
Conker’s Bad Fur Day (N64)
Another iconic entry in the N64 catalogue from Rare, Conker’s Bad Fur Day stood out proudly from the pack of cutesy platformers as a fouled-mouthed, blood-filled, scatological comedy. We’re still a little blindsided that a Nintendo second-party dev put out a game full of swears, to be honest — even the Xbox remake bleeped most of them out. Conker was a technological triumph for the ageing 64-bit system when it launched in 2001, and while the movie parodies are very much of their time and the humour won’t hit the spot with everyone, the drunken squirrel still knows how to have a good time.
“I am the Grrreat Mighty Poo, and I’m going to throw my—” Oh dear.
Daikatana (N64)
Look, we’re not suggesting this is going to be troubling any list of the top N64 games, but Ion Storm’s FPS is a curio worth investigating, and not just for its infamous “John Romero’s about to make you…” marketing. The titular blade was apparently inspired by Zelda’s Master Sword, and the protagonist, Hiro Miyamoto, was, of course, a homage to Nintendo’s most celebrated design guru, Eiji Aonuma.
What!? Just checking you were awake.
The point is, despite the game’s reputation as a real steamer, there’s an intent, history, and heritage in Daikatana that makes it of scholarly interest to video game lovers. It’s a perfect candidate for an NSO release in our opinion. We’d like to see the Game Boy Color version added, too.
Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (N64)
Duke Nukem 3D came to the N64 as the imaginatively retitled Duke Nukem 64, but 1999’s Zero Hour was an exclusive for Nintendo’s console and a game we’d like to see become more accessible, mainly because we never got around to playing it ourselves.
Again, by all accounts, we’re not looking at a classic here, but Eurocom’s third-person spin on the Duke’s M-rated escapades was always on our If-we-see-it-cheap list of old. We never did, so get it on NSO, please.
Resident Evil 2 (N64)
Resident Evil 2 is, in a sense, 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 — put it in the realm of the straight-to-video horror genre. That would get retconned with REmake, but Resident Evil 2 upped the ante considerably in every way 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. Considering the absence of the original Resident Evils on Switch, NSO feels like the perfect opportunity to showcase this one.
Hexen (N64)
Another curio that scratches a similar itch to 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-themed take on a Doom-style shooter, although with GoldenEye arriving just a handful of months later and totally disrupt the FPS scene on consoles, Hexen was destined to be overlooked, even with a library as slight as the N64’s.
All these years later, we’d jump at the chance to give it another shot.
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (N64)
Nightdive’s remasters of the Turok trilogy renders this a little superfluous, but everyone should get to experience wielding the Cerebral Bore at least one time in their lives. If you’re not familiar with the best weapon from Iguana’s 1998 sequel, it shoots a homing bullet/drill that burrows into the skull of the target and splatters brain goo all over the shop.
Oh, and we’d take Rage Wars and South Park if they’re just throwing Turoks and Acclaim/Iguana first-person shooters at NSO.
Mortal Kombat Trilogy (N64)
The N64 wasn’t blessed with many fighting games — and very few good or great ones — so we’d gladly take a Mortal Kombat or two. Trilogy was a decent summary of all MK until that point (1996), albeit with a few caveats like missing characters and inferior audio quality on N64. Mortal Kombat 4 offered some more modern and satisfyingly gruesome fighter fare two years later.
Mythologies: Sub-Zero? For completion’s sake, sure. But that’s not the one we’d pick first. Or second.
Forsaken (N64)
This 1998 FPS has been remastered courtesy of Nightdive Studios (who else?), but it hasn’t made it to Switch yet. You pilot a hoverbike with full 360-degree movement, so while Forsaken is technically a first-person shooter, that label might give modern gamers the wrong idea if you’re expecting a bloke running around with a gun. Set in a dystopian future, you fly around underground tunnels shooting scavengers to a soundtrack of drum and bass. Not an all-timer, but there’s a lot to like.
Shadow Man (N64)
The Switch remaster from Nightdive (is there anything that studio hasn’t 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’ is perhaps the best way to get new players to try out this dark and obtuse gem. Coming 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 huge and disturbing world to explore, and the lily-livered among us would be grateful to have save states to fall back on as we do so.
Have we missed something you’d love to see on Switch? Let us know your favourite adults-only N64 games from the list above in this poll, and comment below if there’s something else you fancy.