>luring kids with the icecream truck and then running them over >all the vehicles, boats and planes
based game shame about the terrible graphics and framerate though
Was this the first 3D GTA type of game? I thought DMA had something to do with Rockstar games
This was DMA's test run for several mechanics they would use in GTA3. If it failed, it wouldn't tarnish the GTA name and they could learn from their mistakes before putting out 3.
Just beat this for the first time after having owned it as a kid and getting stonewalled HARD at America stage 1.
Tips for new players-You can save anytime at the beacons, NOT just after you beat the level boss. Sometimes later levels have you return to an earlier level for a mcguffin-take the opportunity to save on the way.
You can warp between save points and your home base. If you lose a crucial vehicle in water, before an-heroing return to base station and reset world vehicles.
Most stages you will have to accept that you may need to 'feel' the stage out, what the objectives are, where and when harvesters spawn etc knowing full well you will die and restart. Accept this and once you have a hard stages 'quirks' known beforehand you can then have a 'real' go at beating it.
You don't need to kill all enemies in a harvester wave-just the harvester itself. This is vital to conserve ammo and to simply have time to reach another area in time before another harvester wave commences.
Health drops repair vehicles and, crucially, Adam(you) as long as the vehicle is at full hp. Don't need to get out of the safety of your vehicle to get the hp drop.
The special weapons aren't worth it-too hard to find without a guide, usually only available in the last stage of a world and can't be fired from inside vehicles(at least America's couldn't).
Stages that have been completed are safe to re-explore as no enemies ever respawn, useful to search for ammo if you need it.
Listen to npc's, some give good advice-if an npc says you can't reach a temple in Java by foot, you'd best heed that advice.
Don't waste fuel drops, run a car dry before attempting to use a scarce fuel drop on it.
OP again-a quick roundup of pro's/cons.
Pro's
-Nice serious tone, adult themed, rare for N64.
-Great ambient soundtrack and the sfx are nice, varied and suitable.Motorbikes, alien death screams, helicopters, shotgun blast, all sound appropriate.
Controversial take but the difficulty is 'just right', on Hero. Yes it is fricking hard, you will die, but each time you get closer and closer to the final stage processor(boss) and when that save beacon drops the sense of utter relief is overwhelming, like an oasis in a desert.
-Awesome variety of vehicles that correspond to the era. Little shitbox cars/trucks in Greece circa 1920, with houses having candles for lighting, ww2 era Java with Tiger tanks and Zero fighter planes, all the way to 1990's Siberia with VTOL jets, combine harvesters and houses with light switches.
-Great variety of stages, from Mediterranean Greece, to jungle Java, to city/desert America to snowy Alpine Siberia all the way to a lovecraftian comet, the home base of the Aliens.All stages have interesting lore drops in the form of books/npc's that go into a bit more depth about the alien invasion, the current era and other forms of mysticism (Atlantis in Greece/sacred temples in Java/American Indian culture in America/nuclear and chemical outbreak tropes in Siberia).
pros pt 2
-Most stages allow at least some flexibility in how you achieve an objective of how to beat the final boss of a stage. Yes, there is a 'defined' way of doing things and is hard set in some stages but others allow different ways of tackling an objective with a variety of different vehicles on hand.
-The variety of objectives is impressive as well, not just 'go to X on map and kill everything rinse repeat'. From putting out homes on fire with a firetruck, to saving stranded villagers from a volcano erupting in an old freighter whilst dodging lava, to visiting area 51 in America and saving literal men in black and greys from the bugs (being rewarded with an actual UFO to test drive!) to ramming an armored freight train through a bug stronghold and controlling and launching a SCUD missile to disable alien communications.
-Maps are fricking HUGE, and still impressive to this day. Really are, 5 of them as well. Can be quite overwhelming for new players who drive for a few mins, fight some aliens, check map and see they have barely moved from the starting location.
-Planes and helicopters are actually fricking easy to fly? Like wtf? And the game is very forgiving if the vehicle(including plane/chopper) you are in explodes due to enemy fire/crashing the plane. You simply pop out and can continue on foot. Many times i have been overwhelmed, car blows up, run to a close vehicle (there are usually vehicles everywhere, especially in areas where aliens congregate) while under heavy fire and make a quick getaway to regroup or turn around and continue the fight.
-Cool(if predictable) twist at the end with the evil antagonist that has been a thorn in your side for over 100 years and game has a satisfying conclusion with you getting to the mastermind behind all of this
pros pt 2
-Most stages allow at least some flexibility in how you achieve an objective of how to beat the final boss of a stage. Yes, there is a 'defined' way of doing things and is hard set in some stages but others allow different ways of tackling an objective with a variety of different vehicles on hand.
-The variety of objectives is impressive as well, not just 'go to X on map and kill everything rinse repeat'. From putting out homes on fire with a firetruck, to saving stranded villagers from a volcano erupting in an old freighter whilst dodging lava, to visiting area 51 in America and saving literal men in black and greys from the bugs (being rewarded with an actual UFO to test drive!) to ramming an armored freight train through a bug stronghold and controlling and launching a SCUD missile to disable alien communications.
-Maps are fricking HUGE, and still impressive to this day. Really are, 5 of them as well. Can be quite overwhelming for new players who drive for a few mins, fight some aliens, check map and see they have barely moved from the starting location.
-Planes and helicopters are actually fricking easy to fly? Like wtf? And the game is very forgiving if the vehicle(including plane/chopper) you are in explodes due to enemy fire/crashing the plane. You simply pop out and can continue on foot. Many times i have been overwhelmed, car blows up, run to a close vehicle (there are usually vehicles everywhere, especially in areas where aliens congregate) while under heavy fire and make a quick getaway to regroup or turn around and continue the fight.
-Cool(if predictable) twist at the end with the evil antagonist that has been a thorn in your side for over 100 years and game has a satisfying conclusion with you getting to the mastermind behind all of this
Ok now for the cons
-Elephant in the room. The game looks like ass. Greece was NOT a good introduction either and first impressions count. For me, Java is a very cool stage and looks great and the fog/heavy storm fit the setting nicely but 'Greece's 'fog' and eye-assaulting yellowness is bleh. Polygon models are basic, however the vehicles are pretty good.
-You, Adam, the protagonist, do not look 'cool'. You look like a fricking dork with your safety orange gear, dumb generic name (i guess going for an Adam/Eve concept even though this games 'Eve' is named Daisy wtf?) and gay ass visor.
-Weapon variety for Adam is limited, and does not change throughout era's. A shotgun in Greece is a shotgun in Siberia. Btw you pretty much will only be using the shotgun, and occasionally fall back to the smg if out of ammo.
-Objectives in the game can be a bit obscure and the ingame map could be a bit clearer. Sorely needs objective markers on map and not to be so vague when describing what to do and how to do it. Like i said, expect some trial and error until you figure wtf the game is trying to get you to do.
-The difficulty is a double edged sword, the relief you feel spending 30-45 mins on a hard stage (Java 3 4/America 1/Siberia 1/Comet 1 and 2) to finally beat the boss and save is fricking palpable but when you die to a silly mistake, like accidentally reversing off a cliff into the water below after 40 mins near the boss only to slowly drown to death.....is absolutely brutal.
-End bosses are interesting and look suitably alien however most devolve into simply circle strafing in the hovercraft and 'pro-tipping' it (shoot it till it dies).
-Comet, last level, is a bit underwhelming in the sense the main hook of Body Harvest (using a variety of different vehicles to complete a variety of different objectives) is gone in favour of a quasi gauntlet mode of just rolling around in the hover craft shooting everything on the way to the alien city.
Body Harvest beats the below-
Banjo tooie
Mario Party 2
Perfect Dark
Sin and Punishment
Starfox 64
This is all subjective of course-if you are a BIG fps head i guess Perfect Dark beats it and if you are a BIG platformer head Banjo Tooie beats it. At the end of the day bt is a lesser bk and pd is a lesser ge, but all things considered Body Harvest beats the above games listed because there is NOTHING else like it on the N64, not even close. Maybe vigilante 8 is the closest and that is a fricking stretch. For sheer variety alone it belongs in the top 10.
>Super Smash Bros >Goldeneye/Perfect Dark >Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask >Ogre Battle 64 >Conker's Bad Fur Day
>Harvest Moon 64 >Pokemon Stadium >Star Fox 64 >Mario Kart 64 >Mario Party 3
Rated by the most time I spent playing the games on the system. People can debate if there are better games, but this is the only effective and objective metric I care to give.
The WCW games are good but those WWF games are overrated. Yeah they have the same engine but the WWF games fricked up the perfect format that had with Revenge.
Honestly I'd dump:
F-Zero X (No sovl or point, the original was a Mode 7 tech demo, this was just a weak racer)
Mario Party (all of them)
both Banjos (frick that game)
Paper Mario
Personally, I'd also dump both Zelda games because I can't stand any Zelda game, but I know the wider public loves them.
However, I'd have to add back:
Star Wars Rogue Squadron
Episode 1 Racer (way better than F-Zero X)
Wave Race 64
Still room for Body Harvest, though.
If only I had known Body Harvest was as cool as it is back in the day, I thought from the back of the box it was a rail shooter and figured it would be short and I'd get tired of it soon. I would've killed for GTA-style gameplay back then.
Does this game emulator better nowadays? I tried like 4 years ago and I didn't have much luck. Though perhaps I was just being stupid.
I'd sure like to revisit this game.
All in all, at the very least this game deserves more recognition because it IS proto gta (along with space station silicon valley).
The template is all there, and DMA went on to form rockstar which created gta 3 and the rest is history. Beyond an obscure reference in gta san anadreas, even rockstar doesn't show this game any love or respect.
Even Nintendo fricking meddled with this game early on, tried to morph it into rpg as they saw they had NO tradtional rpg's in the pipeline, blew out the release date and then crab walked away from the project after the changes weren't going to cut it and then renegged and refused to publish it.
Gta 5 is the best selling game of ALL TIME. And no doubt gta 6 will break that record. And it's all because of this little game about a time travelling space man, saving earth across different timelines from aliens coming to harvest their 'crop' they seeded eons ago, with only his orange suit, a shotgun and uncle frank's old pickup truck that is running low on fuel.
This is a true 'hidden gem' that is clearly too hard for vtubers and lacks the 'omg so kawai <3 that they all crave so much. This is a mans game with man difficulty and will kick your arse over, you just gotta Randy Marsh that shit and get back up and say 'i didn't hear no bell'
It should've hotten a sequel ten times over already. One thing I didn't like was how slow Adam walked. It plays like one of those nightmares where you know you can run faster, but you aren't able to.
Could be a nice alternative for people who are tired of GTA. I got my copy from a bargain bin. Just like two other friends, this game just didn't sell.
I love the music entering houses. Very cool game. Is it a top 10 game? Probably. I don't have time to count out the top games. When I played through I think something glitched out when I got up to the America "Vision Quest" and it skipped part of the mission or something, but maybe it was intentional, I don't know. It was a long time ago.
Does this game emulator better nowadays? I tried like 4 years ago and I didn't have much luck. Though perhaps I was just being stupid.
I'd sure like to revisit this game.
I just completed it on real hardware, no issues here (fun fact-my crt exploded during java, no cap fr fr. Opened it up and found the chip, a protection circuit, i guess it did it's job and protected otheer components from a surge? Replaced the chip and seems to be working fine now idfk).
Which emulator plays this flawlessly? I've tried replaying it over the years but there are game ending bugs like stairs, bridges that don't have collision which are needed to get to parts that move the story forward.
i acknowledged this game looks like ass, but srsly no one is playing N64 games in 2024 for the gfx.
Swap MP2 for MP3
>Super Smash Bros >Goldeneye/Perfect Dark >Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask >Ogre Battle 64 >Conker's Bad Fur Day
>Harvest Moon 64 >Pokemon Stadium >Star Fox 64 >Mario Kart 64 >Mario Party 3
Rated by the most time I spent playing the games on the system. People can debate if there are better games, but this is the only effective and objective metric I care to give.
ok but idgaf, talk body harvest or take your rankings to the 5-6 other top ten threads, don't shit up the one yearly body harvest thread /vr/ see's.
I've got the cart like eight feet from me.
One of my favorite games on the system.
Gives a weird, subtle sense of dread and loneliness even though there are people in the game.
Yeah it's pretty awesome. Very morbid tone
It's cool exploring houses and talking to people. Wish there was more interactable stuff
>luring kids with the icecream truck and then running them over
>all the vehicles, boats and planes
based game shame about the terrible graphics and framerate though
Was this the first 3D GTA type of game? I thought DMA had something to do with Rockstar games
DMA design is rockstar(north) old name
This was DMA's test run for several mechanics they would use in GTA3. If it failed, it wouldn't tarnish the GTA name and they could learn from their mistakes before putting out 3.
>luring kids with the icecream truck and then running them over
Pretty sure that was a planned mission for GTAIII until one of the higher ups reminded the Devs it wasn't cool to kill kids
Oh and wasn't there a GTAII mission where you lured people into a van to turn them into hotdog meat?
Just beat this for the first time after having owned it as a kid and getting stonewalled HARD at America stage 1.
Tips for new players-You can save anytime at the beacons, NOT just after you beat the level boss. Sometimes later levels have you return to an earlier level for a mcguffin-take the opportunity to save on the way.
You can warp between save points and your home base. If you lose a crucial vehicle in water, before an-heroing return to base station and reset world vehicles.
Most stages you will have to accept that you may need to 'feel' the stage out, what the objectives are, where and when harvesters spawn etc knowing full well you will die and restart. Accept this and once you have a hard stages 'quirks' known beforehand you can then have a 'real' go at beating it.
You don't need to kill all enemies in a harvester wave-just the harvester itself. This is vital to conserve ammo and to simply have time to reach another area in time before another harvester wave commences.
Health drops repair vehicles and, crucially, Adam(you) as long as the vehicle is at full hp. Don't need to get out of the safety of your vehicle to get the hp drop.
The special weapons aren't worth it-too hard to find without a guide, usually only available in the last stage of a world and can't be fired from inside vehicles(at least America's couldn't).
Stages that have been completed are safe to re-explore as no enemies ever respawn, useful to search for ammo if you need it.
Listen to npc's, some give good advice-if an npc says you can't reach a temple in Java by foot, you'd best heed that advice.
Don't waste fuel drops, run a car dry before attempting to use a scarce fuel drop on it.
OP again-a quick roundup of pro's/cons.
Pro's
-Nice serious tone, adult themed, rare for N64.
-Great ambient soundtrack and the sfx are nice, varied and suitable.Motorbikes, alien death screams, helicopters, shotgun blast, all sound appropriate.
Controversial take but the difficulty is 'just right', on Hero. Yes it is fricking hard, you will die, but each time you get closer and closer to the final stage processor(boss) and when that save beacon drops the sense of utter relief is overwhelming, like an oasis in a desert.
-Awesome variety of vehicles that correspond to the era. Little shitbox cars/trucks in Greece circa 1920, with houses having candles for lighting, ww2 era Java with Tiger tanks and Zero fighter planes, all the way to 1990's Siberia with VTOL jets, combine harvesters and houses with light switches.
-Great variety of stages, from Mediterranean Greece, to jungle Java, to city/desert America to snowy Alpine Siberia all the way to a lovecraftian comet, the home base of the Aliens.All stages have interesting lore drops in the form of books/npc's that go into a bit more depth about the alien invasion, the current era and other forms of mysticism (Atlantis in Greece/sacred temples in Java/American Indian culture in America/nuclear and chemical outbreak tropes in Siberia).
pros pt 2
-Most stages allow at least some flexibility in how you achieve an objective of how to beat the final boss of a stage. Yes, there is a 'defined' way of doing things and is hard set in some stages but others allow different ways of tackling an objective with a variety of different vehicles on hand.
-The variety of objectives is impressive as well, not just 'go to X on map and kill everything rinse repeat'. From putting out homes on fire with a firetruck, to saving stranded villagers from a volcano erupting in an old freighter whilst dodging lava, to visiting area 51 in America and saving literal men in black and greys from the bugs (being rewarded with an actual UFO to test drive!) to ramming an armored freight train through a bug stronghold and controlling and launching a SCUD missile to disable alien communications.
-Maps are fricking HUGE, and still impressive to this day. Really are, 5 of them as well. Can be quite overwhelming for new players who drive for a few mins, fight some aliens, check map and see they have barely moved from the starting location.
-Planes and helicopters are actually fricking easy to fly? Like wtf? And the game is very forgiving if the vehicle(including plane/chopper) you are in explodes due to enemy fire/crashing the plane. You simply pop out and can continue on foot. Many times i have been overwhelmed, car blows up, run to a close vehicle (there are usually vehicles everywhere, especially in areas where aliens congregate) while under heavy fire and make a quick getaway to regroup or turn around and continue the fight.
-Cool(if predictable) twist at the end with the evil antagonist that has been a thorn in your side for over 100 years and game has a satisfying conclusion with you getting to the mastermind behind all of this
Ok now for the cons
-Elephant in the room. The game looks like ass. Greece was NOT a good introduction either and first impressions count. For me, Java is a very cool stage and looks great and the fog/heavy storm fit the setting nicely but 'Greece's 'fog' and eye-assaulting yellowness is bleh. Polygon models are basic, however the vehicles are pretty good.
-You, Adam, the protagonist, do not look 'cool'. You look like a fricking dork with your safety orange gear, dumb generic name (i guess going for an Adam/Eve concept even though this games 'Eve' is named Daisy wtf?) and gay ass visor.
-Weapon variety for Adam is limited, and does not change throughout era's. A shotgun in Greece is a shotgun in Siberia. Btw you pretty much will only be using the shotgun, and occasionally fall back to the smg if out of ammo.
-Objectives in the game can be a bit obscure and the ingame map could be a bit clearer. Sorely needs objective markers on map and not to be so vague when describing what to do and how to do it. Like i said, expect some trial and error until you figure wtf the game is trying to get you to do.
-The difficulty is a double edged sword, the relief you feel spending 30-45 mins on a hard stage (Java 3 4/America 1/Siberia 1/Comet 1 and 2) to finally beat the boss and save is fricking palpable but when you die to a silly mistake, like accidentally reversing off a cliff into the water below after 40 mins near the boss only to slowly drown to death.....is absolutely brutal.
-End bosses are interesting and look suitably alien however most devolve into simply circle strafing in the hovercraft and 'pro-tipping' it (shoot it till it dies).
-Comet, last level, is a bit underwhelming in the sense the main hook of Body Harvest (using a variety of different vehicles to complete a variety of different objectives) is gone in favour of a quasi gauntlet mode of just rolling around in the hover craft shooting everything on the way to the alien city.
SM64
OoT
MM
Star Fox 64
F-Zero X
Mario Party 2
Smash Bros
Goldeneye
Banjo Kazooie
Banjo Tooie
Sin and Punishment
Perfect Dark
Paper Mario
Which ones would you take out for this to make it into top 10? This game is more top 50 material, with the Turoks and the like.
>MM
>Star Fox 64
>Mario Party 2
>Smash Bros
>Banjo Tooie
Those.
Body Harvest beats the below-
Banjo tooie
Mario Party 2
Perfect Dark
Sin and Punishment
Starfox 64
This is all subjective of course-if you are a BIG fps head i guess Perfect Dark beats it and if you are a BIG platformer head Banjo Tooie beats it. At the end of the day bt is a lesser bk and pd is a lesser ge, but all things considered Body Harvest beats the above games listed because there is NOTHING else like it on the N64, not even close. Maybe vigilante 8 is the closest and that is a fricking stretch. For sheer variety alone it belongs in the top 10.
Swap MP2 for MP3
>Super Smash Bros
>Goldeneye/Perfect Dark
>Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask
>Ogre Battle 64
>Conker's Bad Fur Day
>Harvest Moon 64
>Pokemon Stadium
>Star Fox 64
>Mario Kart 64
>Mario Party 3
Rated by the most time I spent playing the games on the system. People can debate if there are better games, but this is the only effective and objective metric I care to give.
All you homosexuals forget WCW revenge/World tour and WWF WM2000/No mercy.
The WCW games are good but those WWF games are overrated. Yeah they have the same engine but the WWF games fricked up the perfect format that had with Revenge.
Honestly I'd dump:
F-Zero X (No sovl or point, the original was a Mode 7 tech demo, this was just a weak racer)
Mario Party (all of them)
both Banjos (frick that game)
Paper Mario
Personally, I'd also dump both Zelda games because I can't stand any Zelda game, but I know the wider public loves them.
However, I'd have to add back:
Star Wars Rogue Squadron
Episode 1 Racer (way better than F-Zero X)
Wave Race 64
Still room for Body Harvest, though.
If only I had known Body Harvest was as cool as it is back in the day, I thought from the back of the box it was a rail shooter and figured it would be short and I'd get tired of it soon. I would've killed for GTA-style gameplay back then.
Goldeneye is fricking dogshit and I'm tired of seeing it listed as one of the best games on the N64.
it's always listed because it's good ya dumb ass lol
Does this game emulator better nowadays? I tried like 4 years ago and I didn't have much luck. Though perhaps I was just being stupid.
I'd sure like to revisit this game.
>emulator
I meant emulate. I have brain problems.
Low level emulation works, don’t remember trying high level since many years ago when it was genuinely fricky like Blast Corps
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All in all, at the very least this game deserves more recognition because it IS proto gta (along with space station silicon valley).
The template is all there, and DMA went on to form rockstar which created gta 3 and the rest is history. Beyond an obscure reference in gta san anadreas, even rockstar doesn't show this game any love or respect.
Even Nintendo fricking meddled with this game early on, tried to morph it into rpg as they saw they had NO tradtional rpg's in the pipeline, blew out the release date and then crab walked away from the project after the changes weren't going to cut it and then renegged and refused to publish it.
Gta 5 is the best selling game of ALL TIME. And no doubt gta 6 will break that record. And it's all because of this little game about a time travelling space man, saving earth across different timelines from aliens coming to harvest their 'crop' they seeded eons ago, with only his orange suit, a shotgun and uncle frank's old pickup truck that is running low on fuel.
This is a true 'hidden gem' that is clearly too hard for vtubers and lacks the 'omg so kawai <3 that they all crave so much. This is a mans game with man difficulty and will kick your arse over, you just gotta Randy Marsh that shit and get back up and say 'i didn't hear no bell'
It should've hotten a sequel ten times over already. One thing I didn't like was how slow Adam walked. It plays like one of those nightmares where you know you can run faster, but you aren't able to.
Could be a nice alternative for people who are tired of GTA. I got my copy from a bargain bin. Just like two other friends, this game just didn't sell.
I love the music entering houses. Very cool game. Is it a top 10 game? Probably. I don't have time to count out the top games. When I played through I think something glitched out when I got up to the America "Vision Quest" and it skipped part of the mission or something, but maybe it was intentional, I don't know. It was a long time ago.
I just completed it on real hardware, no issues here (fun fact-my crt exploded during java, no cap fr fr. Opened it up and found the chip, a protection circuit, i guess it did it's job and protected otheer components from a surge? Replaced the chip and seems to be working fine now idfk).
Me too, probably over 20 years ago.
N64 games look worse than ever now
Which emulator plays this flawlessly? I've tried replaying it over the years but there are game ending bugs like stairs, bridges that don't have collision which are needed to get to parts that move the story forward.
Ares but you need a very fast CPU.
play on real hw
i acknowledged this game looks like ass, but srsly no one is playing N64 games in 2024 for the gfx.
ok but idgaf, talk body harvest or take your rankings to the 5-6 other top ten threads, don't shit up the one yearly body harvest thread /vr/ see's.
Yes, but we had Golden'eye, which was the best FPS.
>quality
>quantity
that says alot about the system if this is considered top 10 material
But listen to this (helps if you have a good sound system):
I've got the cart like eight feet from me.
One of my favorite games on the system.
Gives a weird, subtle sense of dread and loneliness even though there are people in the game.
how can people play with graphics like these and say they've aged better than PS1 and Saturn
>another shooter
It alright.
It's not Beetle Adventure Racing, but it alright.