Despite the many drawbacks, there is something great about Goldeneye finally arriving on modern systems, and I think it is worth mentioning.
Preservation in the game industry stinks. It's awful. It's worse than film and music. And Goldeneye is just one of many classics that has languished in limbo for over 20 years. The reality is 90% of people who like games won't touch emulators, and if a game isn't on an official storefront they won't revisit it. So, Nintendo and Microsoft sitting down and getting this done, no matter how compromised, is commendable.
But now that I've said that; boy is it compromised!!!!
The modern control layout on Xbox is awesome, and for a few levels it will feel like a truly reinvigorated experience. But quickly, that novelty wears off and the ugly edges become hard to ignore. Rendering the game at 4K, but using the same ugly textures and absolutely god awful text is a crime. Not remastering the all-time great soundtrack is a WAR crime.
The lack of online multiplayer, presumably tied up in some sort of negotiations, is what really kneecaps it, although the spectre of the cancelled 360 remake also looms large.
Many of the improvements made in that version would have been appreciated here, like halos around mission critical items which, today just like on the N64, can easily be missed as they fly off enemies into the grey texture blob that makes up the level.
In a roundabout way, this release is a wonderful preservation of the original because it's a warts and all presentation. The awkward objectives, no checkpoints, no VO, and local only multiplayer means that people are at least getting an accurate recreation of 1996.
Preservation in the game industry stinks. It's awful. It's worse than film and music. And Goldeneye is just one of many classics that has languished in limbo for over 20 years. The reality is 90% of people who like games won't touch emulators, and if a game isn't on an official storefront they won't revisit it. So, Nintendo and Microsoft sitting down and getting this done, no matter how compromised, is commendable.
But now that I've said that; boy is it compromised!!!!
The modern control layout on Xbox is awesome, and for a few levels it will feel like a truly reinvigorated experience. But quickly, that novelty wears off and the ugly edges become hard to ignore. Rendering the game at 4K, but using the same ugly textures and absolutely god awful text is a crime. Not remastering the all-time great soundtrack is a WAR crime.
The lack of online multiplayer, presumably tied up in some sort of negotiations, is what really kneecaps it, although the spectre of the cancelled 360 remake also looms large.
Many of the improvements made in that version would have been appreciated here, like halos around mission critical items which, today just like on the N64, can easily be missed as they fly off enemies into the grey texture blob that makes up the level.
In a roundabout way, this release is a wonderful preservation of the original because it's a warts and all presentation. The awkward objectives, no checkpoints, no VO, and local only multiplayer means that people are at least getting an accurate recreation of 1996.