GoldenEye - out now on Switch & Xbox

[Tomdominer]

1 hour ago, StoooTube said:

Awesome thanks, I found a video a couple of pages back but haven’t watched it yet. I’ll try it on PC later, need to dig out USB cables for all our Xbox controllers 

The plan is, after lockdown, to get 4 player as a regular weekly thing!

I've got loads of pads to hand (massive gaming "flex"). I'll give four player a go for ya and report back.

[Tomdominer]

Yeah, works with four pads plugged into a pc, via the xenia emulator. Worked with two wired 360 pads and two wireless xbox one pads. I can imagine it would work with any pad that works with direct input (so that means it won't work on a PS4 pad wired in, unless you use some sort of app to convert the input).

 

 

[SteveH]

Nice piece on this over at Ars Technica, chatting with two of the guys who worked on this remake. Apparently there is a more complete version than this leak, but they reckon it will never see the light of day.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/02/ex-rare-devs-open-up-about-the-canceled-goldeneye-007-remake-for-xbox-360/

[dataDave]

How good is the soundtrack?

 

Peerless.

[PikaStu]

Shameless piece of self promotion, sadly I couldn’t find more polished gig footage, but this is from an early rehearsal where we started learning “Dam”

 

 

[Vimster]

2 hours ago, Fallows said:

How good is the soundtrack?

 

Peerless.

Considering the limitations of the system the music is phenomenal. It has that clean mid-90s film vibe, does a lot with just a few sounds. 

[PikaStu]

So there’s 3 “new” multiplayer maps?

Dam, Depot and Frigate.
Frigate will be awesome in death match!

 

I had to Google Depot... even then I didn’t recognise it?!

[Pistol]

How do you set up multiplayer on PC?

[Marlowe]

The cheat unlocking time attack aspect of this adds an entirely new dimension. Each level becomes a puzzle where you have to refine your best route, commit the enemy placements to memory, decide which enemies you can safely ignore, where to tactically draw them out with gunfire to get them to open doors, etc. I'm amazed how much of it I seem to have committed to memory from the N64 days.

 

[dataDave]

31 minutes ago, Marlowe said:

The cheat unlocking time attack aspect of this adds an entirely new dimension. Each level becomes a puzzle where you have to refine your best route, commit the enemy placements to memory, decide which enemies you can safely ignore, where to tactically draw them out with gunfire to get them to open doors, etc. I'm amazed how much of it I seem to have committed to memory from the N64 days.

 

It's an absolute fucking crime that we've only ever had GE/PD (and to a similar extent Timesplitters) representing this sub-genre/fork from standard FPS formula, before everything rapidly went to shit with checkpoint systems and regenerating health.

 

The 'rinse & repeat' aspect is what I love the most about video games. It's why I'm in the hobby, why Perfect Dark is still my favourite game of all time, and why my top10 list is so diverse. I wouldn't even class myself as a FPS fan.

I tried building a clone in Unity but it's just far too much work on my own, especially with my limited skills. I could learn and improve, but would have to do it full-time which is impossible. I'm really surprised no one else has stepped up and done the equivalent of what the BallisticNG guys did for old WipeOut. There's an active Perfect Dark modding community, but no branches into a stand-alone love letter title, thus far.

[schmojo]

Anyone tried doing multiplayer on this with Parsec? Feels like a no-brainer for my next remote 4-player retro night if so.

[Tomdominer]

18 minutes ago, Fallows said:

It's an absolute fucking crime that we've only ever had GE/PD (and to a similar extent Timesplitters) representing this sub-genre/fork from standard FPS formula, before everything rapidly went to shit with checkpoint systems and regenerating health.

 

Yeah, I completely agree. Its also interesting to me that the people that created this type of FPS experience didn't take it any further. Lets face it, from a single player point of view, Timesplitters wasn't a patch on Goldeneye or Perfect Dark. I think one of the key blockers is that Goldeneye and Perfect Dark (with the super accurate and hard aiming combined with the long hit reactions) isn't something you can replicate on a mouse, it takes all the skill out of it.

 

I'd love to bring this type of game back. Let's do it together! WHO IS WITH US?!

[Meers]

10 minutes ago, Tomdominer said:

I'd love to bring this type of game back. Let's do it together! WHO IS WITH US?!

 

I am! I can't code (except for VBA and Excel) but I am a structural engineer so can do the 3D modeling.

 

What are we going to call it? MukEye? GoldenMuk?

[Marlowe]

1 hour ago, Tomdominer said:

 

Yeah, I completely agree. Its also interesting to me that the people that created this type of FPS experience didn't take it any further. Lets face it, from a single player point of view, Timesplitters wasn't a patch on Goldeneye or Perfect Dark. I think one of the key blockers is that Goldeneye and Perfect Dark (with the super accurate and hard aiming combined with the long hit reactions) isn't something you can replicate on a mouse, it takes all the skill out of it.

 

I'd love to bring this type of game back. Let's do it together! WHO IS WITH US?!

 

Timesplitters 2's first level was so good that I was thinking this could be Goldeneye/PD tier, but then the levels get progressively worse. I don't think the lack of thematic consistency you get from the time travelling conceit helped in that regard.

 

100% agree on controllers too. Find them far better for single player FPS experiences, though the games do have to be built with them in mind. The looseness of the aiming and the more restrained pace of moving your viewpoint is much more immersive.

[Tomdominer]

I didn't mind Timesplitters, but a lot of the fun of PD/GE was the puzzle / mission objectives aspect, combined with the security / alarm / sentry features. It just made for a much more rich experience. When you reduce it to just the combat, it doesn't stand up as well and becomes rather more of a mundane corridor shooter. I think that, yeah, having the time travel aspect means you have to reduce / remove a lot of the gadgetry that supported the objectives system, good point!

[Nick R]

59 minutes ago, Marlowe said:

Timesplitters 2's first level was so good that I was thinking this could be Goldeneye/PD tier, but then the levels get progressively worse.

 

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect had a much better single player story mode than TS2. Where TS2 based its first level on GoldenEye's Dam, Future Perfect had a skyscraper infiltration and descent mission that felt a lot like a spiritual sequel to PD:

 

 

 

PD had slow-mo Combat Boosts; that TS level had slow-mo grenades (shown off at 9:57 in that video).

[GwiDan]

2 hours ago, Meers said:

 

I am! I can't code (except for VBA and Excel) but I am a structural engineer so can do the 3D modeling.

 

What are we going to call it? MukEye? GoldenMuk?

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm rllmeye at these names.

[Meers]

23 minutes ago, GwiDan said:

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm rllmeye at these names.

 

And rightly so, they are terrible aren't they? 

[Sketch]

3 hours ago, Fallows said:

 

It's an absolute fucking crime that we've only ever had GE/PD (and to a similar extent Timesplitters) representing this sub-genre/fork from standard FPS formula, before everything rapidly went to shit with checkpoint systems and regenerating health.

 

 

I agree. That and the differing objectives in higher difficulty levels. Later FPS games, the higher difficulties just meant more enemies, or tougher enemies, or less health for you, or more health for them.

 

I really can;t emphasise enough how much I love the design of GE - the differing objectives being an idea of Ken Lobb, I seem to recall.

 

Take the Dam.

 

Easy mode - just run to the end.

 

Medium - Neutralise alarms, then run to the end.

 

Hard - install covert modem, intercept data, neutralise all alarms, and THEN run to the end. But first go through the tunnels to reach the mainframe.

 

It was almost like 3-games-in-1. You could get through Easy fairly quickly. Medium took much longer. Hard difficulty took me over a year to finally beat. Then as you say, the cheats which added another layer to the mechanics.

 

Over the years I keep seeing people say the following:

Goldeneye was good at the time, but it's aged really badly. Once you've played a modern FPS it's not all that.

 

This is bullshit which makes me angry. Maybe the framerate and draw distance has aged, but the mechanics, the design, it's all miles better than Call of Duty, or Halo, or any other console FPS anyone cares to mention (excluding Perfect Dark, natch).

 

After the millennium I stopped playing console FPS because they became simpler and dumber. Recharging health! Pffft. And gravitated to slav jank FPS, like STALKER. Something with a little complexity to it.

 

For me, GE/PD was really the last high-water mark for console FPS. I hated Halo and COD. Doom and Far Cry didn't grab me. They all seemed to go in the same direction. Too hard as well. Sure, 00 Agent on GE was hard, but the easiest setting acting as a nice "whole game" tutorial. See the levels, enjoy the guns, really savour the world, then challenge yourself on higher difficulties. I dunno, newer FPS I find myself standing around waiting for my health to come back, and just being bored of it.

[Fry Crayola]

15 year old me would be all over having added objectives on higher difficulties, wringing every little drop of replayability out of the game.

 

39 year old me is swamped with choice that I'm going to feel put out if I don't see everything a game has to offer on the first play. The chances of me going back through to do it all again with added extras is extremely slim. Not impossible, but not likely.

[Sketch]

5 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

39 year old me is swamped with choice that I'm going to feel put out if I don't see everything a game has to offer on the first play. The chances of me going back through to do it all again with added extras is extremely slim. Not impossible, but not likely.

 

Interesting. So do you feel a sense of anxiety with games which offer multiple paths/solutions, and vast tracts of gameplay which - by design - are impossible to experience on the first go, and even the 2nd or 3rd?

 

Not a criticism. I'm just curious if you have any negative emotions at the knowledge you have not, and cannot, see all the content contained within a game. Like Way of the Samurai, which has dozens and dozens of multiple branching paths and final variable end-game scenarios.

 

Because I've played a lot of games where you can only see some sections on the 1st playthrough, and I've never done a 2nd playthrough, and I kind of love that. Like, what I saw was unique to me based on what I did. I kinda like that the disc has things within it that I will never know.

[Fry Crayola]

Nah, I think in this case it's to do with the generally linear experience that the games have, and so deliberately selecting fewer objectives feels like skipping past the actual mission. Take the Dam level in Goldeneye - the easy mode sees you just get to the end. What was the point, eh?

 

Whereas in something like Doom Eternal I'm fine not bothering with optional fights and arenas if they're giving me trouble, because they're not really the objective. They're an extra. Even though in many respects, it's the same end result of not seeing everything on offer.

[TomatoConvenienceStore]

2 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

15 year old me would be all over having added objectives on higher difficulties, wringing every little drop of replayability out of the game.

 

39 year old me is swamped with choice that I'm going to feel put out if I don't see everything a game has to offer on the first play. The chances of me going back through to do it all again with added extras is extremely slim. Not impossible, but not likely.

I wouldn't think of it like having to go through it more than once, but rather choosing the difficulty you want to play on.

 

Like having to collect (or drop off) an item in a particular room on the map isn't exactly extra 'content' but rather an extra challenge that is more interesting than just having additional enemies or taking more damage.

[Death's Head]

Perfect Dark has that great mission where, on the lower difficulties you have to use a sniper rifle to rescue a hostage negotiater from high up on a ridge. On the hardest difficulty you are the negotiater! Trying to think if there are any similar examples like that. 

[dataDave]

2 minutes ago, Death's Head said:

Perfect Dark has that great mission where, on the lower difficulties you have to use a sniper rifle to rescue a hostage negotiater from high up on a ridge. On the hardest difficulty you are the negotiater! Trying to think if there are any similar examples like that. 

 

Nothing else as extreme as that. Some levels open up locked doors and alternative routes depending on your actions during prior levels. Such as when entering Area 51, you don't want to kill the guy by the hover bike, as he will come in and open up a door on the top level for you once you're in during the next stage. Exit this door and it'll take you to a secret route which ends with a room containing the Phoenix gun - making the rest of the level relatively easy.

In fact that string of three Area 51 missions is one phenomenal piece of video game architecture. After a couple of runs you can clearly see that it was designed as one massive stage.

I think Crash Site changes slightly too, depending on what buttons you press during the Air Force One flight.

[RubberJohnny]

I'll be honest I didn't really like the structure when going back to it, I failed the missions the first time through because I could get to the end but had forgotten where the side objectives are/what to do. There are plenty of modern games that combine linear or exploratory levels with side missions - say Dishonoured, Prey and the other immersive sims, but they at least offer optional objective markers, contextual dialogue, and a map, which Goldeneye really needs with those mazelike levels.

 

It's a formula that worked really well for where most people were in the late 90s, kids with little money who could buy one game and had to play the hell out of it, so learning all the levels and where the objectives were to progress and then having to do so again on every difficulty made the game feel more substantial, but I think it would piss people off nowadays, and then they'd just look up the solution online. You can't go home again.

[Death's Head]

5 minutes ago, Fallows said:

In fact that string of three Area 51 missions is one phenomenal piece of video game architecture. After a couple of runs you can clearly see that it was designed as one massive stage.

 

Yeah, definitely. Great missions. And of course there's the alternate end isn't there, where you either get in the flying saucer or, i think, escape on a bike? 

[Fry Crayola]

1 hour ago, Openrob said:

I wouldn't think of it like having to go through it more than once, but rather choosing the difficulty you want to play on.

 

Like having to collect (or drop off) an item in a particular room on the map isn't exactly extra 'content' but rather an extra challenge that is more interesting than just having additional enemies or taking more damage.

 

I'd have to disagree - taking Dam as an example again, on the easiest level you don't have to go anywhere near the bunkers to complete it. The design can, in theory, lead to whole sections of levels that you don't need to visit at all, other than to simply carry out a clean up. Without an explicit mission to go places, they can - again, in theory - be missed.

 

Goldeneye's not a bad offender though. Resident Evil 4 skips some content entirely if you play on an easier skill level, you can't even optionally undertake the challenge. A load of bullshit, that one.

[Fry Crayola]

Thinking about it, the obvious solution is to just make the various parts of the mission optional objectives at lower difficulties rather than removing them entirely.

[Nick R]

1 hour ago, Fallows said:

 

Nothing else as extreme as that. Some levels open up locked doors and alternative routes depending on your actions during prior levels. Such as when entering Area 51, you don't want to kill the guy by the hover bike, as he will come in and open up a door on the top level for you once you're in during the next stage. Exit this door and it'll take you to a secret route which ends with a room containing the Phoenix gun - making the rest of the level relatively easy.

In fact that string of three Area 51 missions is one phenomenal piece of video game architecture. After a couple of runs you can clearly see that it was designed as one massive stage.

I think Crash Site changes slightly too, depending on what buttons you press during the Air Force One flight.

 

The other example is that you can finish the Air Base mission either by going into Air Force One through the passenger entrance (requiring you to fight a few extra enemies), or via the ladder into the cargo bay (requiring you to navigate a set of laser barriers). Which one you choose affects where you start the next mission on board Air Force One.