My seventh favorite multiplayer video game of all time:
Turok – Rage Wars (N64)
Really, this entry applies to the Turok series as a whole. Rage Wars is just the installment I remember playing the most.
The key to Turok was in its 4-player deathmatches. There was a single player campaign, sure, but I don’t think I ever touched it. This game felt like it was designed from the ground up as multiplayer gold.
Even so, it wouldn’t even place on this list without one single game type: Shoot the monkey. I never saw anything like it before, and haven’t since. One player is randomly chosen to become a small, screeching monkey running around the level. Everyone else’s goal is to shoot that monkey. Once the monkey shuffles off this mortal coil, someone else becomes the monkey. At the end of a time limit, he with the most monkey kills wins. Variations had the target as a chicken or lizard. Whoever came up with this idea gets a gold medal from me. Multiplayer in first person shooters such as this rarely brings anything new to the genre besides graphics and new guns. A little creativity goes a long way.
I spent many an evening in high school crowded around a Nintendo 64 and taking turns at this gem. Highly customizable battles added to the shine – especially unique weapons like the cerebral bore, inflator gun, shrinking gun, and freeze gun. Every round was fun in a new way.