Palmer Luckey, a military contractor who makes killer drones, military gear, and surveillance equipment for the U.S. government, would like to sell you a Nintendo 64. I finally had the chance to try out the ModRetro M64, and it left me with a terrible emotional cocktail of love and loathing.
I had no place to direct these anxieties. Luckey, the CEO of weapons manufacturer Anduril, wasn’t in the room. But the M64 uses off-the-shelf silicon. So who could I shake my fist at? Myself? I was the one playing the thing, after all. I was the one considering writing this piece. You cannot talk about something without promoting it, without promoting the people who make it. There is no “death of the author” for console makers and war profiteers alike. Before I get into all that, the basics: The ModRetro M64 will launch on July 28 with several exclusive titles. AMD, the maker of the FPGA chip housed inside the console, had the system on display at its Computex showcase, including the controllers (which are sold separately). One of those titles, Extreme-G Turbo Fusion, was running in AMD’s booth. That dial lets you select menu items without a controller. © Kyle Barr / Gizmodo As a child, I owned the original Extreme-G for the N64. I was as terrible at it as I was at all games in 1997, when I was literally 3 years old. You can play it now through the Nintendo Classics collection on a Switch or Switch 2. Extreme-G Turbo Fusion is a double pack of the original game and its sequel, Extreme-G 2. Using the M64, I ran along one course at night, with rain pattering along the track. The game stuttered every time there was a lightning strike in the distance, as the hardware itself buckled, much as the N64 often did almost 30 years ago.
