An almost forgotten classic (pic: Microsoft)
A reader celebrates the return of GoldenEye 007 to modern consoles and laments the fact that its many innovations have been ignored or forgotten.
It’s finally happened! After years of back and forth between Nintendo and Microsoft, GoldenEye 007 has finally been re-released on both Xbox and the Nintendo Switch. They’re basically just ports, not even really remasters, but I’ll take what I can get for what I consider to be one of the greatest video games ever made.
When it was originally released in 1997, on the N64, it was the first ever first person shooter I had played, and I’m sure that was the case for many console gamers. It completely blew me away on every level, not just with the basic concept but the sense of immersion, the quality of the graphics, the intricacy of the story campaign mission design, and the endless fun of the multiplayer.
It was a massive critical and commercial hit and yet because of the Bond licence, and Microsoft buying developer Rare, it’s never been re-released again. Imagine if Doom or Halo or Half-Life or any 10/10 classic, regardless of genre, had only ever appeared on one format and despite being massively successful was never seen again. It’s unheard of and yet that’s exactly what’s happened To GoldenEye.
The problem with playing GoldenEye today is that it’s aged a lot in the last 26 years. All games do in terms of graphics but there’s also the issue of the controls, which were designed around the N64 controller that only had a single analogue stick. There was a sort of dual stick mode if you used two controllers but I’m pretty sure nobody did, so any modern day recreation either has to muddle it’s way through trying to use the old scheme or invent a modern one instead.
I’ve only had time to play an hour or so of the Xbox version of the game, because it only came out on Friday, but this is what it does and while it’s a perfectly logical route to take it does immediately remove one of the original’s most distinguishing features.
The real problem with the game having been unavailable for so long is that people haven’t had time to get used to how it’s aged. All those other first person shooters I mentioned have been available on other formats forever and while N64 games haven’t often been re-released it’s still relatively easy to play classics like Super Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, especially after the launch of Nintendo Switch Online.
You’re able to prepare yourself for how these games look and play, and the very low frame rates of the time, and it’s not so much of a shock. But with GoldenEye… I think it’s impossible that anyone could come back to it after a quarter of a century and not be disappointed in how it looks. There’s probably never been a bigger gap between the fondness with how you remember a game and how it seems when you play it now.
I’m only immune to this because I’ve still got my N64 knocking around and play it occasionally with my brothers, just as we always did. And that’s the reason why I think it is still the best of the classic retro games. It’s more fun and varied than either Doom or Half-Life and while it doesn’t have online multiplayer neither did the first Halo, and I found GoldenEye far more entertaining in split-screen.
The other big problem with GoldenEye disappearing for so long is that many of the ideas that it started have been side-lined or completely ignored. When GoldenEye came out first person shooters were a relatively new idea in general – Rare were inspired by Virtua Cop more than they were Doom – and the way the missions are all little sandboxes with multiple secondary and hidden objectives… you do get that in some games today, but it’s never been common and few realise that GoldenEye started it.
Doom is just a map with monsters to shoot in it, whereas every mission in GoldenEye is different, including vehicle sections, run ‘n’ gun sections, sieges, and more. GoldenEye was also doing stealth a year before either Metal Gear Solid or Thief: The Dark Project and, again, it’s largely been forgotten that it is one of the prime reasons why that concept became so popular.
And then there’s the multiplayer. No simple deathmatch here, with far more imagination and variety put into the weapons and modes than games that were coming out 10 or 20 years later. GoldenEye had it all and it had it all decades before anyone else. So welcome back you old classic and maybe in another 26 years we’ll get a remake, or a new game, that properly honours your legacy.
By reader Gaston
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A reader celebrates the return of GoldenEye 007 to modern consoles and laments the fact that its many innovations have been ignored or forgotten.
