Goldeneye 007 is arguably the biggest example of a late-'90s gaming sensation that has remained trapped in its era. Unlike other hits from the same period, which have received remasters and digital-download options ad nauseum, this 1997 Rare game has laid dormant on the N64, likely due to a tangled web of licenses and company-ownership issues.
Three years ago, however, we finally saw hard proof of what many had suspected: that original developers at Rare worked on, and nearly re-released, an Xbox 360 remaster of the 1997 original. (Don't get that confused with the ho-hum Goldeneye 'reimagining' on the Wii in 2010.) We took a hard look at a 2016 leak, which confirmed the Xbox 360 project's existence. At the time, we had ourselves a hard cry and moved on.
Split Screen On Ipad
But this week, a massive video leak has reopened the wound of wondering what could have been—and it comes during arguably the most amicable period that license holders Microsoft and Nintendo have ever shared.
Goldeneye Source Split Screen Protector
Unfortunately this will not be happening any time soon. This mod currently uses the 2007 version of the Source SDK and that version does not support split-screen along with not supporting Mac or Linux. In order to have split-screen support among other things they would have to port this mod to the 2013 version of the Source SDK. Aug 19, 2020 I don’t know about you, but I’ve been awaiting a chance to try my hand at Goldeneye on PC. I was a one-man wrecking potato on N64. Today I’m a slightly more accomplished potato on Goldeneye PC. The ‘Goldengun’ Age. For me, Goldeneye was an introduction to first-person shooter (FPS) games. I spent hours with family on 2×2 split screen. Well, this Half-Life 2 mod called GoldenEye Source, five years in the making, has just come out of beta and been fully released for free. The game is a creation of fans with the objective to bring the original experiences from GoldenEye on the N64 back to life. I remember spending hours upon hours playing GoldenEye on the N64, and was sad. GoldenEye: Source is a multiplayer only modification of Half-Life 2, with only one goal in mind; to bring the memories and experiences from the original Gold.
The most exciting footage is a pair of documentary videos, which add up to 30 minutes of polished, professionally edited interviews with members of the original Goldeneye 007 development team. One of the video files is titled 'Rare Replay: The Making of Goldeneye 007,' and it has been put together in a nearly identical format as the documentaries in that Microsoft-published Rare gaming anthology from 2015. While the video footage isn't dated, one interview includes a mention of fans thanking the development team '17 years later,' which would pin at least one of its interviews to 2014—arguably a reasonable window to have prepared a video for that disc's launch the following year.
Some of these development stories have made the rounds over the years, including information about its SNES side-scrolling origins and how its four-player mode came near the end of development as a lark. But many of the stories will likely still be new to series fans, including stories about Rare's photography of the film's original sets and the allegation that a slew of skins for the series' original actors as multiplayer characters nearly made it in... until Sean Connery's licensing hold-up meant all other classic actors had to be removed. Original producer Ken Lobb also offers some interesting business minutiae: that he convinced Nintendo to send extra rental copies of the game to Blockbuster Video stores in order to boost the game's visibility (a crazy move, considering how anti-rental Nintendo had been for years) and that the game's Christmas 1999 sales outsold the game's sales during Christmas 1997 and Christmas 1998... combined.
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This week's leak paired these documentary clips with a 30-minute explosion of B-roll taken from the Xbox 360 port of Goldeneye 007, which is even clearer and more demonstrative than the 2016 leak. After running through the entirety of the game's opening level, the gameplay footage revolves around the port's 'graphics toggle' button, which would have allowed players to swap between the original N64 version's textures and an updated slew of higher-res textures. Most impressively, this toggle showed a serious reworking of every major character's face so that each film character now actually looks like his or her real-life actor.
But why would Rare and Microsoft have produced a substantive documentary about a game that didn't see inclusion in Rare Replay? The collection included documentary snippets about unreleased games, and the company uploaded one mini-doc onto YouTube about a single game not on Rare Replay (the Game Boy Advance curio It's Mr. Pants). But by and large, Rare Replay's documentary content centered on games on the disc as opposed to missing games like Wizards & Warriors, Donkey Kong 64, or Taboo. Did Microsoft expect the stars to align for Goldeneye in time for Rare Replay's mid-2015 launch?
Neither Microsoft nor Rare have publicly commented on the classic game being close to retail launch on Xbox consoles, beyond Xbox chief Phil Spencer saying in late 2015 that 'Goldeneye rights are so challenging' and 'we've always given up.' After Goldeneye's 1997 launch, EA picked up the film series' gaming rights, which Activision consequently grabbed in a deal meant to expire in 2014 (which possibly expired a bit earlier). There's really no telling exactly why the licensing powers that be haven't joined forces to print money with a Goldeneye re-release, other than the likely answer that everybody wants a piece of the pie.
If it's just a matter of Nintendo and Microsoft butting heads, that conversation takes on a different tone in 2019, a year in which former Xbox-exclusive releases like Ori and the Blind Forest, Cuphead, and Super Lucky's Tale have found their way onto Nintendo Switch. But this week's leak doesn't include substantive information about why things didn't quite work out, nor does it include any speculation on whether there's an increased likelihood of a future Goldeneye remaster coming out.
Listing image by Rare
GoldenEye 007 | |
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Basic Information | |
Video Game | |
Rareware | |
Nintendo | |
First-person | |
First-person Shooter | |
Nintendo 64 Cartridge | |
Nintendo 64 Controller | |
Nintendo 64 | |
Retail Features | |
Ratings | |
European Release Date(s) | |
Nintendo 64 August 25, 1997 | |
North American Release Date(s) | |
Nintendo 64 August 25, 1997 | |
Japanese Release Date(s) | |
Nintendo 64 August 23, 1997 | |
Awards | Changelog | Cheats | Codes Codex | Compatibility | Covers | Credits | DLC | Help Localization | Manifest | Modding | Patches | Ratings Reviews | Screenshots | Soundtrack Videos | Walkthrough | |
Achievements GOG | In-Game | Origin | PlayStation Trophies | Retro Steam | Xbox Live |
GoldenEye 007 was a revolutionary first-person shooter by the then Nintendo2nd party developer, Rareware. The game had a huge critical and commercial success that was not duplicated until Halo in the next generation. It is often considered one of the only games of quality that is based on a feature film.
The game is hailed for it's stellar shooting action, smooth control, and expansive multiplayer options. The multiplayer mode could be played with up to four players in split-screen, using many different weapons and weapon sets in well designed maps. The maps featured hallways perfect for setting traps, vents to hide in, and other designs that are now popular mainstays in the FPS genre. There were even toilets.
The weapons were also diverse, featuring laser guns, several types of mines, and the elusive one-hit-kill Golden Gun. It is believed the zoomable sniper rifle was one of the contributions the game has made to the genre.
- 4Trivia
Plot[edit | edit source]
This section is incomplete
The game starts out with Bond infiltrating a dam somewhere in Arkhangelsk, Russia. After disabling the security personnel around the area, he bungee jumps off one of the platforms and ends up somewhere in the chemical facility. Eventually, Bond meets up with Alec Trevelyn, codename 006 and become surrounded by General Ourumov Arkady and his soldiers. Trevelyn tells Bond to 'finish the job'. Trevelyn is shot and killed as Bond makes his way out to the runway connected to the chemical facility. He steals the ignition key from a nearby building and escapes in an abandoned plane.
Bond appears in a snow-covered area, where he has to power down the communications dish and find the entrance to the bunker, in which he infiltrates and gathers information on an object called the 'GoldenEye' satellite and ends up escaping. He then finds himself infiltrating a nearby missile silo filled with non-combat scientists guarding and maintain a space satellite, and eventually finds Ourumov with a briefcase and flees the scene: Bond's chase ends up spreading to the Monte Carlo frigate in attempts to place a tracker on a helicopter.
Gameplay[edit | edit source]
Players take control of James Bond and travel through the various levels, using weapons and gadgets to kill enemies, destroy equipment, and steal data. Before every level, a debriefing screen appears giving valuable information on what Bond needs to do. Each level has four difficulty settings to choose from, which can only be unlocked by completing previous difficulties.
Overview[edit | edit source]
GoldenEye 007 is a first-person shootervideo game developed by Rare and based on the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye. It was exclusively released for the Nintendo 64video game console on 25 August 1997. The game features a single-player campaign in which players assume the role of British Secret Intelligence Service agent James Bond as he fights to prevent a criminal syndicate from using a satellite weapon against London to cause a global financial meltdown. The game also includes a split-screenmultiplayer mode in which two, three or four players can compete in different types of deathmatch games.
GoldenEye 007 was originally conceived as an on-rails shooter inspired by Sega's Virtua Cop, before being redesigned as a free-roaming shooter. The game received highly positive reviews from the gaming media and sold over eight million copies worldwide, making it the third-best-selling Nintendo 64 game. GoldenEye 007 is considered an important game in the history of first-person shooters for demonstrating the viability of game consoles as platforms for the genre, and for signalling a transition from the then-standard Doom-like approach to a more realistic style. It pioneered features that have since become common in first-person shooters, such as varied mission objectives, a zoomable sniper rifle, stealth elements, and a console multiplayer deathmatch mode.
GoldenEye 007 was followed by a spiritual successor, Perfect Dark, also developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64. A reimagining of the game, also titled GoldenEye 007, was published by Activision and released for the Wii and Nintendo DS in 2010, and later re-released as GoldenEye 007: Reloaded for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 the following year.
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- At one point in the development, the game existed as a rail shooter.
- The infamous 4-player split screen multiplayer mode was not added until very late in the development cycle.
Development[edit | edit source]
Goldeneye Source 5.0 Split Screen
GoldenEye 007 was developed by an inexperienced team; eight of its nine developers had never previously worked on video games.[1][2] David Doak commented in 2004, 'Looking back, there are things I'd be wary of attempting now, but as none of the people working on the code, graphics, and game design had worked on a game before, there was this joyful naïveté.'[3] Due to the success of Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007 was originally suggested as a 2D side-scrollingplatformer for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System,[1] but Martin Hollis, the director and producer of the game, proposed 'a 3D shooting game' for Nintendo's in-development 'Ultra 64' console.[2]
The intention for the first few months of development was for the game to be an on-rails shooter similar to Sega's light gun gameVirtua Cop;[2]GoldenEye's gas plant location was modelled by Karl Hilton with a predetermined path in mind.[1] Although GoldenEye is controlled with a pad rather than a light gun, Hollis credited Virtua Cop as an influence on the developers' adoption of features such as gun reloading, position-dependent hit reaction animations, penalties for killing innocent characters, and an alternate aiming system that is activated upon pressing the R button of the Nintendo 64 controller.[2] In addition to Virtua Cop, Namco's light-gun shooter Time Crisis has also been cited as an influence on the game. [1]
The development team visited the studios of the GoldenEye film to collect photographs and blueprints of the sets used in the movie.[1][4] Silicon Graphics Onyx workstations and Nintendo's NINGEN development software were used to create the geometry for virtual environments based on this reference material.[2][4] However, many of the missions were extended or modified to allow the player to participate in sequences which the film's James Bond did not.[2] Hilton explained, 'We tried to stick to [the reference material] for authenticity but we weren't afraid of adding to it to help the game design. It was very organic.'[1] Initially, the designers' priority was purely on the creation of interesting spaces; level design and balance considerations such as the placement of start and exit points, characters and objectives did not begin until this process was complete.[2] According to Martin Hollis, 'The benefit of this sloppy unplanned approach was that many of the levels in the game have a realistic and non-linear feel. There are rooms with no direct relevance to the level. There are multiple routes across the level.'[2] Hollis also noted that the concept of several varied objectives within each mission was inspired by the multiple tasks in each stage of Super Mario 64,[2] a game whose 3D collision detection system was also influential for Hollis.[1]
Final N64 specifications and development workstations were not initially available to Rare: a modified Sega Saturn controller was used for some early playtesting,[1] and the developers had to estimate what the finalised console's capabilities would be. The final Nintendo 64 hardware could render polygons faster than the SGI Onyx workstations they had been using,[2] but the game's textures had to be cut down by half.[1] Karl Hilton explained one method of improving the game's performance: 'A lot of GoldenEye is in black and white. RGB colour textures cost a lot more in terms of processing power. You could do double the resolution if you used greyscale, so a lot was done like that. If I needed a bit of colour, I'd add it in the vertex.'[1] At one time, developers planned to implement the reloading of the weapons by the player unplugging and re-inserting the Rumble Pak on the Nintendo 64 controller, though this idea was discarded at Nintendo's behest.[1]
GoldenEye 007 introduced stealth elements not seen in previous FPS games.[1] David Doak, one of the game's programmers, explained how this was implemented: 'Whenever you fired a gun, it had a radius test and alerted the non-player characters within that radius. If you fired the same gun again within a certain amount of time, it did a larger radius test and I think there was a third even larger radius after that. It meant if you found one guy and shot him in the head and then didn’t fire again, the timer would reset.'[1]
Rather than trying to release the game in tandem with the movie, the Stamper brothers made sure to give the team as much time as they needed.[1] It was developed through two and a half years, the first year of which was spent developing the engine and producing art assets.[2] The game's multiplayer mode was added late in the development process; Martin Hollis described it as 'a complete afterthought'. According to David Doak, the majority of the work on the multiplayer mode was done by Steve Ellis, who 'sat in a room with all the code written for a single-player game and turned GoldenEye into a multiplayer game.'[5] The game was released on 25 August 1997, nearly two years after the film. The game's cartridge size was 96 Mb (12 MB).[6] In addition to the Nintendo 64 game, a racing version was in development for the Virtual Boy, but was eventually cancelled before release.[7]
Sequels[edit | edit source]
Although Rare did not hold the license to the Bond series after this game (EA took over from there), Rare produced Perfect Dark as a spiritual successor to GoldenEye instead. EA made more James Bond FPS games, but not until GoldenEye: Rogue Agent did they try to cash in on the GoldenEye name and reputation.
The team behind GoldenEye split up into several different groups. Most of them have created their own team, Free Radical, which developed the extremely similar TimeSplitters and TimeSplitters 2. It can be believed that the TimeSplitters games are also spiritual successors to GoldenEye.
GoldenEye 007 was remade for the Wii in 2010. Goldeneye 007 was also remade for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, being released under the title Goldeneye 007: Reloaded. It offers various features such as online multiplayer and the ability to collect achievements and trophies, respectively.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.001.011.021.031.041.051.061.071.081.091.101.111.12Paul Drury (15 May 2011). The Making of Goldeneye. NowGamer. Archived from the original on 2 April 2012 Retrieved on 26 August 2011
- ↑ 2.002.012.022.032.042.052.062.072.082.092.10Martin Hollis (2 September 2004). The Making of GoldenEye 007. Zoonami. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011 Retrieved on 22 December 2011
- ↑'Desert Island Disks: David Doak'. Retro Gamer (6): 41–45. July 2004. ISSN 1742-3155. Archived from the original on 7 September 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050907191142/http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/retro/retro6.shtml.
- ↑ 4.04.1GoldenEye 007 Development. Nintendo (24 February 1998). Archived from the original on 24 February 1998 Retrieved on 26 August 2011
- ↑'Desert Island Disks: David Doak'. Retro Gamer (6): 41–45. July 2004. ISSN 1742-3155. Archived from the original on 7 September 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050907191142/http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/retro/retro6.shtml.
- ↑N64 Goldeneye 007 Retro Review. Casually Hardcore (15 April 2011). Archived from the original on 31 March 2012 Retrieved on 31 August 2011
- ↑GoldenEye 007. GT Anthology. GameTrailers (11 July 2009). Retrieved on 7 May 2011
Goldeneye Pc
External links[edit | edit source]
- Official Nintendo GoldenEye 007 site (Archive)
- Official Rareware GoldenEye 007 site (Archive)
- Official Nintendo Japan GoldenEye 007 site
- GoldenEye 007 at MobyGames
- GoldenEye 007 at the Internet Movie Database
Goldeneye Source Split Screen Windows
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Goldeneye 007 Pc Game
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