Secrets of the N64 Mouse | Punching Weight | SSFF

Welcome to Punching Weight, where we celebrate the strange, the ambitious and the unnecessary, and in this episode we won't talk about games, but about a very special and unnecessary peripheral: the N64

mouse

! Yes, the Nintendo 64 had a

mouse

! It's real, it's official, it's beautiful and... I have no idea if any game actually uses that damn thing, so I have my bag... Grra! ...and we... let's try! You probably never knew the Nintendo 64 had a mouse, and that's because it wasn't sold on its own or outside of Japan. Like the Super Nintendo Mouse, it came with a game: Mario Artist.

Mario Artist was basically a sequel to Mario Paint, but it was exclusive to the Nintendo 64DD, the disc-based system's companion that sold very poorly and never left Japan. But while the Super NES Mouse was available separately in certain parts of the world, the N64 Mouse is only available with copies of Mario Artist, and unlike Mario Paint, Mario Artist didn't go on to sell a few million copies, so , There aren't many Nintendo 64 mice. The idea of ​​a console system having a mouse may seem strange today, but they were more common than you think! As we mentioned earlier, the SNES had a mouse included with Mario Paint, but it was compatible with a few other games, such as Wolfenstein 3D.

The PlayStation 1 mouse made games like Clock Tower, Alien Resurrection, and Quake II a considerably better experience, and the Sega Dreamcast not only had a mouse, but a keyboard too! Who needs a PC? Got the Dreamcast mouse AND keyboard for Quake III Arena online! Don't @ me!! I wanted to make this video because there simply isn't much information about the N64 mouse available and after receiving a very generous donation (thank you Mr. McMuscles), I had a duty to do the heavy lifting. I did my own research, so... I have my games. I got the mouse. Let's see what this strange peripheral can do... let's be honest and unnecessary.

Oh, and since I've become a console mouse connoisseur lately, I'll be using my PlayStation mouse pad. Well, let's get started, and there's no better place to start than with Mario 64. Let's go! MARIO: "Press Start to play!" Ah, Mario 64! I love playing with Mario's face. Uh oh. Uh, there's no Home button. I actually can't start! This is not a good start for the N64 mouse! I was able to cheat the game by plugging in a real controller and then swapping it for the mouse. Okay, let's do this! Very good... The movement is actually quite good, this thing is really sensitive!

Except I can't really walk. I had no idea what to expect, but it seems that the mouse emulates the analog stick, so dragging the mouse emulates holding the joystick in a certain direction, making it really difficult to go anywhere. I dropped my hamburger. And the right and left buttons seem to emulate A and B. That means I can move by jumping and kicking. Yes, watch out world! It's Mario jumping, ready to save all the princesses! Oh no, my greatest enemy! A well!! I have no doubt that a Mario 64 superfan could play this entire game jumping and kicking, but I can't.

So it's not really possible to play, but the mouse technically works! Let's do another early title: Wave Race 64, one of my personal favorites. I remember seeing that water for the first time and thinking the graphics can't get any better than this. In my opinion, it is still a very attractive game. I jumped into the training stage to get my feet wet (heh) and found the controls to be pretty good, this thing is really responsive! ANNOUNCER: "To begin racing, select 'Start Race' from the pause screen menu." But I ran into another problem: I can't exit the training stage and start a real race because I don't have a Home button to access the menu!

I'm already noticing a pattern here. But when I got into the race, it wasn't that bad! It took me a while to get used to the turn, but I was still able to get first place. Although it's a bit embarrassing to miss out on so many points in Sunny Beach. ANNOUNCER: "Don't miss any more!" Again, it looks like it's supported, but it only uses the analog stick and the A and B buttons. But Wave Race isn't that complicated of a game, so it's more supported than Mario. Well, the system's other launch title: Pilotwings 64. This game has more variety and each vehicle controls a little differently.

The hang glider simply turns and lands, no problem with the mouse. Movement in the rocket belt is a bit complicated. It is impossible to turn the gyrocopter. Birdman has a similar problem when spinning, as he simply cannot hold the stick. Again, great accuracy - I've always had the problem of overcorrecting in this game, and the mouse mitigates it, but overall it's not a better way to play. Okay, we're out of the game, let's get to the heavy

weight

s: Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Do you have special compatibility? ... and not! Turn it on and it directly says "No controller"!

He didn't even register it! But using a controller and swapping when the game started allowed me to use the mouse, so again, it's supported, but with just a slight movement of the analog stick and the A and B buttons. This got me thinking: There are a handful of games out there. N64 that exclusively use the D-pad instead of the analog stick. Mischief Makers is one of those games and, indeed, it is not dice. I can grab and jump, and that's it. Shake, Marina! Shake it off, Marina! I want you to shake it so bad, why don't you do it?!?

I can't get it to shake anything... Yoshi's Story! I didn't even recognize the mouse. But again, starting with one controller and swapping seems to fix that problem. Yoshi's Story controls pretty well, but without the Z button, there's no way to shoot eggs, so it's basically unplayable. Well, I'm starting to see a pattern: games that register the mouse, and even those that didn't register it right away, do so as if it were a normal controller, but a controller with only the A and B buttons and the analog stick. , so in a way, maybe all N64 games are mouse-friendly!

They are basically unplayable due to the lack of buttons. That pretty much eliminates any game that requires the Z button or exclusively uses the D-pad. But that just means we have to be creative! Wave Race worked because the analog stick was for steering instead of actual movement, so let's try some more racing games: The most appropriate game for this video, Mickey's Speedway USA! Hey, it's a mouse controlling a mouse! And it controls pretty well, again, sensitivity is very good on this thing, but there's no way to use weapons, which makes it not ideal. And I bet Mario Kart works the same way.

Yes, it's more or less what I expected. There is no way to use items or swipe power. What a shame, because it controls quite well! These games have too many buttons, which is why Wave Race worked, so let's go with something a little simpler: F-Zero X! This is really cool! The control is amazing, but it's difficult to take sharp turns and the lack of side buttons means you won't be able to lean for tight turns, which would make subsequent tracks virtually impossible. No, we have to become simpler! Adventure racing with beetles! Oh man, this game is great!

And in the grand scheme of things, a much simpler game: it's just Accelerate, Brake and Handbrake, that's if you're driving in automatic. Controls very well, I managed to finish the first level in first place and get many

secrets

. Wide corners are still a struggle, and if I ever had to shift into reverse or restart on the main road, I wouldn't be able to do it, but I could still maneuver through the corners with just Accelerate and Brake. I'm sure selecting the best handling car also helped, but overall it's one of the most compatible games yet, further proof that Beetle Adventure Racing is one of the best games on the system!

We would have to move on to other genres, but racing games so far are the most compatible with the mouse. Starcraft 64, here we come, this was the game that fueled this entire video! I read online that this game is fully mouse-friendly and was released after Mario Artist, so maybe it's actually mouse-friendly? Man, this is disappointing, but it's just like any other N64 game. The point-and-click functionality feels great, but the interface is different than on PC. Clicking on units does not show the option to build things. All of that is done exclusively with the C buttons, and without C buttons available, there's no way to build units or buildings, which basically means a big "No." The same goes for Command & Conquer: without the Z button means you can't access the menu to create anything.

It's a shame, because clicking and dragging feels much better than on a controller. Oh no, does the lack of a Z button make it unsupported? Oh God, say it's not like that!! No, Pokémon Snap!! You would be so good with a mouse!! I want to take a photo of you, Pikachu. I so want to take a photo of you, Pikachu! Are there controller options? Z button settings, that's it? Man, this is legit and it turns me off. This game should have mouse support. We just need a sequel to this game. Now wait a minute, controller options!

There's one game I know of that allows you to customize your controls however you want: Doom 64! You'll need to use a controller to navigate the menus, but assigning Advance, Use, and Run to right-click and Shoot to left-click is fantastic. Heck, you can even change the sensitivity of the appearance! The only problem is that you can't change weapons. Oops! So I do NOT want that chainsaw! - and you can't strafe. But I'm sure it's possible to beat Doom 64 with just a shotgun, and I'm pretty sure there are plenty of Doom superfans who could beat this game with just a mouse, no problem.

Alright, that cheers me up a bit after Pokémon Snap. Doom 64 turns out to be a rare breed: no other FPS I had available had as much controller customization, so Duke 3D, Quake, James Bond: The World is Not Enough aren't supported because you can't move Shoot to a button. aside from Z. Although it just proves once again that Doom 64 is absolutely one of the best shooters on the system! However, there is at least one more shooter who doesn't use Z to attack: Hexen 64! By default, A and B are Attack and Jump respectively. If you don't mind dragging the mouse forward to walk, it's not so bad.

However, you will not be able to look up and down or select or use items. It's still a viable way to play Hexen... I mean, if you like playing Hexen, which... I don't. But you know what made Quake II and Alien Resurrection great on PlayStation 1 was the ability to use a separate controller along with the mouse. If there was a game that supported two controllers, you could just swap one of the controllers for the mouse! And I happen to know of two specific games that support two controllers: GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. You may not have known it, but with two controllers connected, both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark give you the option to play the single-player levels with two controllers, it's the closest you can get to dual analog controls in these older games on a real N64. .

You must first install a second N64 driver to be able to choose the two driver options. Choose style 2.4, resume the game, switch the controller mouse into slot 1 and bam! You're playing GoldenEye or Perfect Dark with a keyboard and mouse setup, with legitimate drivers, and on legitimate hardware! But... before you get too excited, that doesn't control how you would think. Appearance is only assigned on the first player's device. Walk/Turn and Look/Sweep are split between the two controllers for the other options. This is a good reminder that the console's FPS controls wouldn't be perfected until later.

And you can't remap Shoot, it's always in Z, so I had to learn to shoot left-handed. There's also no way to adjust the appearance sensitivity, which by default is very, very slow. And finally, because the Home button on the second controller doesn't work for some reason, accessing the menu will require unplugging the mouse and plugging the controller back in, making selecting devices in GoldenEye a pain. Still, it's the closest you can get to a keyboard and mouse style game without emulation! You can do some pretty amazing things with GameShark, so I'm sure there is some way to hack GoldenEye to make it work better with the mouse, so if there are any hackers out there, get to work, because maybe one day you will. let's do.

We will be able to use this mouse as we should use it. And it doesn't stop there, there are three more dual controller games I know of for the N64: First, Robotron 64! This is a real shooting game with two joysticks and can be played with one or two controllers. (Psst! You could do the same thing on the NES version of Smash TV!) And the mouse works great! Set the controller to port 1 and the mouse to port 2, set the options as such and you're done! The only real issues are accuracy, which isn't very important in a game where you can only shoot in eight directions, and constant fire, but the mouse is pretty sensitive by default, so it's not too much of a problem!keep shooting!

This may be the most compatible game for the N64 mouse, but it's not something you can't get with just one more controller. Then we have sin and punishment. By the way, this is an imported game. And this one is tragic, because while this game supports dual analog controllers, it doesn't offer enough customization to properly use the mouse. Now, you'd expect to be able to play the same way you play the sequel on Wii, with the Wiimote pointing and the Nunchuk moving, but the controller's only option that moves the Shooter away from the Z button also reassigns movement to the Z and R buttons, so shooting feels great, but movement is basically impossible, making the game basically unplayable with the mouse.

So close! And finally, Star Wars Episode 1: Racer. Is this a pod race? Hidden behind a code, there is an option to play with two controllers, one in slot 1 and the other in slot 3, oddly enough. It allows you to control each module individually, like a kind of Virtual On racing game. This means it's the only game that could possibly be controlled by TWO MOUSE, making it possibly the DUMBEST way to play any video game! Oh, those Star Wars prequel movies just keep giving, don't they? But for dual controller games, those are the only four I know of.

At this point I'm really going through my collection. I started double checking any games made after the release of Mario Artist, just to see if they would magically recognize the Mouse (Conker, Majora's Mask, Paper Mario) and had no luck. In the end, I tried about thirty games with the Nintendo 64 mouse and came back practically empty-handed. Now, that's not all the games on the system and not even my entire collection, but it was a pretty good sample size. Again, technically ALL games can work with the N64 mouse, there may be something that uses it better than Robotron, Doom, Wave Race and Beetle Adventure Racing.

Finally, a real spectacle: Superman 64! That's right, it starts from the top and ends from the bottom! Could the precision of the N64 mouse make this game good? The world needs to know! SUPES: "Then there is no time to waste!" No. It still sucks. Thanks for watching! Stop Skeletons From Fighting is a Patreon-supported show, a big shout out to all our radical patrons here! Want to see your name here or get cool perks like early access to new videos, SSFF Discord, and behind-the-scenes footage? Come and promise what you can! Thanks again for watching, stay mighty!