Sixtyforce: Nintendo 64 Emulator

January 13, 2004
By Lee Heidel
Reviews
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Sixtyforce is the premier Nintendo 64 emulator for Mac OS X. The latest release is 0.7.5, which fixes bugs with OS X 10.3 and some USB devices.


Mario Kart 64
For the review, I played three classic Nintendo 64 games on the unregistered version of sixtyforce. For a $15 registration fee, you receive full-screen support, enhanced game controller functions, and screen capture ability. As with all emulators, you have to provide your own game ROMS. Legal issues apply, so make sure that you have the rights to any games on your system.

Pros: Sixtyforce is incredibly simple to use. Menu commands allow you to browse to ROMS on your computer and launch play. It does take some time to learn the keymapping for the controller functions. The gameplay video is sharp and mimics the originals well. It's a small download and easily installed by dragging the application folder onto your hard drive.

Cons: On my demo system, the audio was jerky. Gameplay was not affected; but the start/stop of the soundtrack was disorienting. Playing the games without audio sped up the frame rate and removed the distraction. There are no toolbar icons, so you do have to search through menus or learn key combinations for commonly used tasks.

Verdict: Despite the audio problems, Sixtyforce is a great application to relive the fun of the Nintendo 64. As it hasn't reached 1.0 status yet, it deserves a lot of attention for what it achieves. Sixtyforce's solid playback and a unique gaming experience help to fill the void left by the less-than-stellar options for emulation and new titles for OS X.

Review Specs:
sixtyforce 0.7.5 (unregistered)
Games Tested: Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 54, Diddy Kong Racing
OS X 10.3 (Panther)
G4 667 Mhz Powerbook

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