I mentioned on Bluesky a little while back that I had “a lot of 6 on its way” for the N64 Project and wasn’t spoiling what was in it until it showed up. Well, it showed up. Six carts, one lot, one seller, and not a single one of them is a game I would have sought out on its own merit.

Here’s what came in: Madden Football 64, Madden NFL 99, NASCAR 99, NFL Quarterback Club 98, WWF War Zone, and WCW Mayhem. A full sports and wrestling starter pack, basically. The WCW Mayhem case still has a Blockbuster rental sticker half peeled off the label, store number and all, which is a small detail I didn’t know I needed until I saw it.

The Six N64 Project Games

Madden Football 64 – The first Madden on the system, and a weird historical footnote: Acclaim held an exclusive license for NFL games on N64 through the 1997 season, so this one shipped with no real team names, logos, or players. Just vibes and John Madden’s commentary.

Madden NFL 99 – EA got the real NFL license back for this one, so it’s the first Madden on the system with actual teams and players. One year and a world of difference from the cart above it.

NASCAR 99 – The odd one out genre-wise, and honestly the one I’m least likely to ever load up. Racing sims without power-ups or shortcuts have just never been my thing.

NFL Quarterback Club 98 – Acclaim’s own answer to Madden, built in-house by Iguana Entertainment. Explains why Acclaim was so protective of that NFL license that same year, they had their own horse in the race.

WWF War Zone – Also built by an Iguana studio (Iguana West this time), and Acclaim’s first real 3D WWF game. Reportedly sold over a million copies in its first year, so it’s a bit surprising it’s this cheap loose now.

WCW Mayhem – The Blockbuster survivor, and a game with more behind-the-scenes history than I expected. THQ had published WCW’s games for years, but dropped the license in early 1998. EA picked it up and Mayhem was the result, their first WCW title. So this cart is basically a handoff moment for the whole wrestling game industry, developed by Kodiak Interactive and published by EA.

I’ll be honest, sports games are not my lane. I didn’t grow up with a Madden habit, and my wrestling knowledge starts and ends with recognizing Goldberg’s face when it’s yelling at me from a box. But that’s kind of the point of this project. Completing the N64 library loose cart by loose cart doesn’t care what I personally enjoy playing, it cares whether the cart exists and whether I own it. These six do, and now I do too.

There’s also a practical reason lots like this exist in the first place: sports games were printed by the truckload every single year to match the new season, which means the used market got flooded with them almost immediately and never really dried up. Five of the six barely register price-wise, sitting under ten dollars loose, with WWF War Zone the only one nudging past that at just over twelve. Compare that to some of the names I flagged as future headaches in the original kickoff post, Clay Fighter: Sculptor’s Cut and its almost two-thousand-dollar price tag are still out there waiting for me, and a lot like this feels like a nice breather before the expensive stretch really kicks in.

That puts the N64 Project at 24 out of 296, with 272 to go. I’ve updated the tracker to check these off and refresh the running list.

Now I just have to decide whether I actually boot up WWF War Zone or let it sit on the shelf as a completion checkbox. No promises either way.