Wave Race 64: Kawasaki Jet Ski

The Good
Water effects are outstanding, even now.

The Bad
Difficulty curve is steep.

The Bottom Line
It took a few months for the Nintendo 64 for a new game, and when it game it met with glowing reviews. I do remember playing this slightly as a kid, and distinctly remember having a lot of trouble with it due to being awful at it. However, it was only short goes as it was a friend’s copy of the game.

Wave Race 64 is a jet ski racing game. Not only do you have to complete the circuits, but you have to pass buy buoys on the correct side. Miss one and you’ll lose some power, miss five and you’ll fail that race.

It’s difficult to get across the look of Wave Race in screenshots – the ocean and how it moves is the main impressive part of the game. The ocean moves in a realistic way and it still stands out as water in games is still not easy to do today – to the point that it’s really games that are entirely focused on water that have proper wave simulation (games like Sea of Thieves). The water is also not just for looks – it affects the movement of your jet ski and you’ll have to work out how to race using them to your advantage.

The levels in Wave Race also manage to feel distinctive, which is not an easy task for water based games. While I’ve just praised the waves a lot, one stand out level is Drake Lake – which doesn’t have waves. The level starts off foggy but clears up as you progress, with the lake having a silvery reflective surface. There’s something really beautiful about this level, even today.

Another very memorable one is Southern Lake. In this level, the tide is going out. Each lap, the obstacles will be different due to the level of the water. A big pier blocks the way on the first lap, but you can zoom through its supports on later laps. Unfortunately, the game only has 8 courses (plus a bonus training course)

There are three main difficulties in Wave Race, however the difficulty doesn’t just alter the enemy racers. Instead, the locations of the buoys are different, making navigating the levels much more difficult. You need to truly master the waves to succeed at the game and your reward is reverse mode, where you race across the tracks backwards, which makes the levels feel a lot different.

Outside of the main championship mode, Wave Race offers time trial and a stunt mode. You can set your own high stores in the stunt mode as you have to make it to the next checkpoint while hitting rings and performing tricks. The other main move is a 2 player race.

Wave Race 64 doesn’t contain a lot of stuff, but there’s so much detail in what it does do that it makes up for it. It’s a really fun game that rewards skill and offers a significant challenge. Wave Race got a sequel on the GameCube, but there’s nothing out now that’s quite the same.