Memories from My Childhood, The N64 Rumble Pak

With the advent of modern era gaming consoles like the Nintendo Wii, it may be easy to forget where you came from.  The Wii, innovative in its own right, had roots in providing a gaming experience that date back to the introduction of the N64 Rumble Pack, er “Rumble Pak” as Nintendo marketed it.  As the Rumble Pak was released in the Fall of 1997, IGN remarked that it “adds an unusual burst of arcade ecstasy to the game”. Clearly they knew what they were talking about. As a third grader in 1997, I got to experience this arcade ecstasy through Golden Eye 007 (Developed by Rareware, now a part of Microsoft) for N64. I remembered the first time that I shot a weapon, and felt my controller give me feedback – I was instantly intrigued and knew that I had found something that would occupy me for hours. The first time I tried the Rumble Pak, I sat down and went through my available weapons option options and began shooting at the walls, just so I could feel the feedback sensations provided by each awesome weapon.

I ended up playing Golden Eye 007, (the first N64 game I got that was actually compatible with a rumble pack) for like a month straight with my elementary school buddies. We had Golden Eye 007, which was like $45 bucks at the time, Rumble Paks and 4 controllers and a huge new 32 inch CRT TV, which for the day was really sufficiently large. We’d run around the basement and shoot each other for hours until we held the flag for the longest amount of time, killed each other, or the little triple A batteries ran out of juice.

Those were the days that paved the way to today’s modern and high tech systems like Xbox 360 and the Wii, subtle advances in technology like the Rumble Pak prepared the gaming public for the awesomeness that was coming. I’m just glad I was a part of it.

Enjoy this video of the Rumble Pak….

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~ by Scott on December 15, 2009.