Right so, you know those dullards on Twitter who have heard someone's spicy take and then parrot it back to their mates, thinking they're dropping some absolute truth bombs when the reality is the only thing they're dropping is other people's opinion of them? You know the ones. The ones who give it "ACTUALLY, every Sonic game was bad." Those ones.
Well, I was one of those with Goldeneye. Wait, let me explain. I had my reasons.
So, obviously as a man well into his thirties, I loved Goldeneye when it first came out. Bought it day one and I might as well have glued the fucking thing into my N64 for at least the next year. We all know the deal - it brought revolutionary 3D first-person shooter multiplayer into the domain usually reserved for Mario Kart and also happened to have a really entertaining single player portion to boot. The three main difficulty settings that add new objectives into each level, requiring you to fully explore them and experiment with Bond's gadgets in order to succeed couple beautifully with unlocking cheats by beating par times - basically speedrunning levels - meaning Goldeneye constantly required you to refine your approach to each of the levels.
Great times, great memories are attached to Goldeneye, so of course I tried to replay it in more recent times. This is where the problems start to appear. On original hardware, the framerate is extremely poor (exponentially worse in multiplayer, which can almost become a slideshow in some instances) and on emulation, there's something not quite right about playing N64 games without an N64 controller.
So, when I heard it - "Goldeneye was a bit overrated" - that was my go-to line. Whenever this legendary game was discussed, I'd always be the one to bring everyone down a few pegs, to let them know to leave it as nostalgia and to not go back. Leave it in '97. If it can't hang with shooters in 2021, was it really ever that good to begin with? Besides, Doom 64 was better.
Earlier this year, the long-rumoured XBLA port of Goldeneye was leaked online, allowing anyone with an Xbox 360 emulator (or native hardware, if you had a badboy machine) to play a fully re-textured, 60FPS locked version of Goldeneye with controls that are reworked with a now-standard dual analog controller in mind. With all of those issues I had when trying to replay it now removed, all of the stuff that Goldeneye does well - those missions, the near perfect difficulty curve, great atmosphere, satisfying, varied weapons - all gets a chance to shine once again and it turns out that Goldeneye is a total breath of fresh air when compared to the millions of shooters post-COD4 that are still riffing on that formula.
I was an idiot for saying it was overrated and whoever it was who I saw saying it in the first place is also an idiot too.
Well, I was one of those with Goldeneye. Wait, let me explain. I had my reasons.
So, obviously as a man well into his thirties, I loved Goldeneye when it first came out. Bought it day one and I might as well have glued the fucking thing into my N64 for at least the next year. We all know the deal - it brought revolutionary 3D first-person shooter multiplayer into the domain usually reserved for Mario Kart and also happened to have a really entertaining single player portion to boot. The three main difficulty settings that add new objectives into each level, requiring you to fully explore them and experiment with Bond's gadgets in order to succeed couple beautifully with unlocking cheats by beating par times - basically speedrunning levels - meaning Goldeneye constantly required you to refine your approach to each of the levels.
Great times, great memories are attached to Goldeneye, so of course I tried to replay it in more recent times. This is where the problems start to appear. On original hardware, the framerate is extremely poor (exponentially worse in multiplayer, which can almost become a slideshow in some instances) and on emulation, there's something not quite right about playing N64 games without an N64 controller.
So, when I heard it - "Goldeneye was a bit overrated" - that was my go-to line. Whenever this legendary game was discussed, I'd always be the one to bring everyone down a few pegs, to let them know to leave it as nostalgia and to not go back. Leave it in '97. If it can't hang with shooters in 2021, was it really ever that good to begin with? Besides, Doom 64 was better.
Earlier this year, the long-rumoured XBLA port of Goldeneye was leaked online, allowing anyone with an Xbox 360 emulator (or native hardware, if you had a badboy machine) to play a fully re-textured, 60FPS locked version of Goldeneye with controls that are reworked with a now-standard dual analog controller in mind. With all of those issues I had when trying to replay it now removed, all of the stuff that Goldeneye does well - those missions, the near perfect difficulty curve, great atmosphere, satisfying, varied weapons - all gets a chance to shine once again and it turns out that Goldeneye is a total breath of fresh air when compared to the millions of shooters post-COD4 that are still riffing on that formula.
I was an idiot for saying it was overrated and whoever it was who I saw saying it in the first place is also an idiot too.