So for today’s article I wrote, its a retrospective on GoldenEye 007. Specifically with a bent towards the odd legal mix it caught itself up in with so many different entities being rights holders.
I covered how it was made (a team of nine, most of which had never developed games before!), how it was received (to say ‘well’ is an understatement), how it didn’t fit in with what was typical on the Nintendo 64 at the time, and more besides.
Its not a hard-hitting piece, but it you wanna jump back in time and enjoy some nostalgia for the N64 or for GoldenEye, then you might enjoy my retrospective on it:
https://gardinerbryant.com/goldeneye-007-the-accidental-masterpiece-trapped-in-licensing-limbo/
I would faceplant open-mouthed into a pile of dog shit on the sidewalk if it meant Skate 2 got a PC release. I would settle for the game without a soundtrack at all. My theory is that the soundtrack was too good and they can’t re-release it due to all the big names on there and licensing all those songs.
I would still faceplant into the shit if the soundtrack was replaced with just one assembly code song by Tim Follin.
Nice article. I had no idea GoldenEye was rereleased a few years ago! I’ll have to check it out.
Helluva article
This was a great read. Thanks for sharing. I bought my N64 specifically for this game at the time, and it didn’t disappoint. 😊
Sadly, not having touched Nintendo products since their ClockWatch LCD handhelds years earlier, I struggled to find any other games I really liked on the N64. 🤷♂️ There were a couple, but it was all just filler to me.
I mean id rather play Perfect Dark anyway
You wouldn’t have PD without this game! But, I do remember being blown away with Perfect Dark, the “realism” was amazing for its time.
Never tried it, but am starting to consider it (:
A similar legal fate happened to NOLF as well: https://youtu.be/1eDs93O-5ck
I’m not convinced this isn’t an elaborate attempt at gaslighting me to think this game existed.
Dont try the N64 version. It has horrible controls that havent aged well. Theres a
portremake on the Xbox (and maybe elsewhere idk) that does it justice.The praise/hype at the time and the nostalgia towards it are well earned, but mostly due to the controls it does not stand the test od time.
It’s wild in retrospect how influential a throwaway movie tie in video game ended up being.
Part of that is because it wasn’t a throwaway movie tie-in game. The E.T. Atari game was appalling shit that came out the same year as the movie after a full 5 weeks of development and was definitely a throwaway tie-in. Goldeneye came out two years after the movie because the team thought it was the raddest shit ever and wanted to make it a good game. By the time the game came out, the movie was already long gone from theaters and had been out on VHS for almost a year.
And how crazily good this is, even by today’s standards, compared to the others from that era!
They really did change everything…all without really meaning to :)
