At a time, the Nintendo 64 console was one of the best-selling consoles from the famous Japanese company. It gave access to a colossal number of video games, which kept many fans around the world nostalgic for years.
The personal challenge of a great nostalgic
AceGamerSam, whose real name is Samuel Girard, is a Quebec streamer who has set himself a very ambitious challenge: to complete the 296 Nintendo 64 games released in North America.
Above all, he is an inveterate collector of retro video games, whose passion began 12 years ago. The Nintendo 64 and the Dreamcast are the two consoles for which he has the complete collection, enough to give him the basis for his daring challenge!
The idea came to him while streaming when he was playing his favorite video games. By dint of playing live and talking about his very large retro collection, his viewers (the viewers of a streamer) began to ask him for N64 games he could play.
Also immersed in nostalgia, his audience kept offering Samuel a game, then another, yet another and so on. Responding to absolutely all the requests made, he had to set up a point system to filter viewer requests.
The more they watched his live, the more points they earned that they could spend on coming up with a title that Samuel hadn’t started yet. With this very ingenious system put in place, AceGamerSam was able to quickly retain its audience and allow it to start a good number of games.
Samuel ended his challenge with a great classic: Mario 64. This game had a special meaning for him since, in addition to being one of his favorites on the console, he has precious memories of it.
We can’t think of a better end than playing what accompanied him during his youth. Something to remind us of the very essence of retrogaming for great nostalgics.
In order not to spend a considerable amount of time on each game, Samuel inquired with other streamers on Discord on how to complete a game with the minimum required. We imagine very well that some who do not have a classic structure with a final boss to close them, can be vague about their ends.
For example, it is complicated to know when one can consider having finished a fighting or sports game. This is a subject that can be debated among specialists in these categories and each game has its own different answer.
The ups and downs of his challenge
Out of 296 games, there are surely some that are less interesting, less playable and less fun than the others. This is exactly the main difficulty of his challenge. After the classic games and lesser-known treasures, there are still many whose complexity leads to abandonment.
This is the case of Aidyn Chronicles, which could have been the subject of an entire challenge as it is, according to Samuel, “very difficult to understand”, and possessing endless lengths.
Fortunately, these few unpleasant titles did not stop him from continuing his challenge. Each new live game was a new start for him and remotivated him. After completing a hundred, he had more and more viewers on his lives, which greatly increased his motivation.
AceGamerSam does not hold the world record
Although several media have peddled this information, our favorite Quebec collector is not the first person in the world to have completed this challenge. It is important to remember that the world record was obtained by Patrick Wessels and 2018. The challenge is nonetheless extremely impressive!