After years and years of rumors, whispers, fan screams, and endless internet theories, Rare’s beloved Nintendo 64 first-person shooter, golden eyes 007, finally on modern consoles. And while this is something to celebrate, these new ports aren’t as good as they could have been.
First, the good news: After more than 20 years of waiting, golden eye It is now fully playable on Xbox and Nintendo Switch consoles. And everything else in this post aside, it’s still a really good idea to easily get access to this classic N64 game in 2023. Sure, emulation has always been there, but this is different. Now any random person with Game Pass, no knowledge of ROMs and the like can easily download and play it golden eye Like any other modern video game. that’s cool. And it would be ridiculous to ignore that, especially because – even today – that wouldn’t have been possible since multiple rights holders don’t see eye to eye about letting this game exist on more platforms.
Ok, now the bad news: This port is very abstract and basic. We knew before today that the Xbox port would lack online multiplayer – only the Switch gets that – but since its launch last night, fans have found other flaws as well. To be clear: if you just want to experiment golden eye Again for a few minutes – which I think probably applies to 70% of the people who will be playing this game this weekend – this Xbox port is fine. It still supports the classic split screen multiplayer too (Do you still have the cardboard screen divider?). However, if you wanted to spend more time with it or played the original game endlessly, perhaps even by means of an emulation, then you will probably be disappointed with some things.
For example, the game is locked to 30fps. According to the developers behind the portthat’s because The original ROM code is used To emulate the game on Xbox. Which makes sense, the original game was designed to run at 30 frames per second. However, fans have come up with ways to break this limit, and people have been playing for years golden eyes 007 On PC at twice the frame rate. And seeing screenshots of one of these fan-created mods points to another problem with the newly released Xbox and Switch port: low-resolution text. It’s hard to read how much ammo you have left because it’s so vague. Oddly enough, the in-game assets look better and clearer. Again, this is an issue that was fixed by fans years ago.
Other issues include strange audio bugs, incorrect decals and textures, and noticeable rips and seams in the geometry when walking around levels. the It suggests the developers behind this port That’s just a consequence The game switches from SD to HD And that many of these issues are present, but difficult to detect, in the original N64 version of golden eye. But golden eye Fan projects like 1964 GEPD It greatly reduced imperfections such as visible in-level seams even when playing at 4K.
Some are particularly militant golden eyes 007 Fans are requesting an update to patch and improve the game and fix some of these issues. But that’s unlikely to happen because it seems beyond the scope of this project, which seems more or less focused on just getting it on golden eye Works on modern devices Using the same N64 emulation technology developed for the 2015 retro compilation Rare re.
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Ultimately, while I’d love for this port to get some more enhancements, like 60fps support, I also understand that, given the legal baggage the game’s saddled with, it’s kind of a mini-miracle that GoldenEye 007 is playable at all on an Xbox console. If I want more bells and whistles, I know where to go and how to get it running on my PC. But if I just want to chill out on the couch and play some GoldenEye for a few minutes, this new port will do just fine. And maybe one day that Great looking remake leaked in 2021 It will officially see the light of day…