Other games, like Goldeneye 007, a belated tie-in to the similarly named James Bond film, set the standard for multiplayer games: The Nintendo 64 was the first major console to support four controllers at once. And then there were just the sheer number of odd, popular games that Nintendo and its partners pumped out for the console: Pilotwings, a game where you just paraglide around through hoops; Mario Party, a series of virtual board games where you challenge your friends to increasingly ridiculous minigames; and Super Smash Brothers, a game where Nintendo characters hate each other and beat each other up for no good reason.

The marketing

Much like the games, and just about everything else in the 1990s, the advertising was colorful, loud and intense.

The reaction

Pretty much sums up how everyone felt at the time.

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