Capcom is really hitting the nail on the head with their remakes of classic games, like Street Fighter and Bionic Commando. In one case, they've completely hand redrawn sprites frame by frame to bump them up to HD quality. And in the other, 3-D models were used to replace the 8-bit sprites. In both cases, however, the classic gameplay was intact, and that's all that really matters to retro gamers like myself. But Capcom also added an extra element that transcended the original gaming platform: online play. And of course, that's so essential now that any game without it is dismissed as being incomplete.
When you think about it, though, there are so many games out there that could benefit from the same kind of upgrades Capcom instilled in their classic franchises. There is one remake that nearly every gamer would love to see, though: GoldenEye of the Nintendo 64. If Nintendo had any sense, they would just plow through all the legal red tape that is preventing the remake, because that would undoubtedly be the game that would have disaffected gamers turning on their Wiis again.
Of course, this has not been lost on the many homebrew game developers and modders out there. The potential threat of lawsuits by Nintendo and Rare are no deterrent to these folks, and that alone should tell you how great an online high-resolution remake of GoldenEye would be. They've presented a trailer of their ongoing work, and it almost brought a tear to this retro gamer's eye:
Saturday, March 14, 2009
3/14/2009 - GoldenEye: Source
Thursday, August 23, 2007
8/23/2007 - Teaser video for the next Goldeneye stunt!
The "Undercover Filmer" is a true gamer. He performs these "stunts" on the Nintendo 64 phenomenon Goldeneye, which consists of maxing out all the difficulty settings in the game and (slowly) traverses select stages. Some of these stages take close to an hour, and it's all on YouTube. You get to see step-by-step how he manages to make something so incredibly difficult seem like a routine playthrough of a first-person shooter level. The fact that he can add voice-over to these videos without being boring or repetitive is amazing.
As he admits in this video, though, the stunts haven't exactly been a thrill a minute. While the difficulty of the stunts are ridiculous, the methodical approach he uses makes it incredibly slow-paced sometimes. His next pair of stunts, however, promises to be different and loads more exciting. In fact, this teaser video itself is incredibly exciting. It is perhaps one of the best example of advertising I've ever seen. The makers of movie trailers should watch this video to really see how to drive anticipation!
Saturday, June 2, 2007
6/2/2007 - Live Action GoldenEye 64 Recreation
A lot of people may disagree with me on this, but I think GoldenEye 007 was the best game for the Nintendo 64. Most people would put either Super Mario 64 or The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time above GoldenEye in their list, but as for myself, I just don't play those games anymore. Don't get me wrong, Mario 64 was a breakthrough in terms of being the first truly playable 3-D platformer and Ocarina of Time may be the greatest Zelda game in the franchise (I'd say it's a tie with a Link to the Past), but they don't have the replayability that GoldenEye has.
I played some Wolfenstein and Doom before GoldenEye, but I couldn't really get into those games because playing them with a keyboard was very limiting. The Nintendo 64's controller may have its detractors, but it was the ideal controller for me in terms of playing a first-person shooter. I would use the control pad to move the character and the analog stick to aim. It was so natural to assign the Z-button to be the trigger. GoldenEye added something else that made it more true-to-life, the element of stealth. Being able to slap a guy to death or use a silencer to prevent others from hearing you was sheer genius. LAN parties are cool, but using the split-screen for multiplayer wasn't too shabby.
The Perfect Dark game that came after it was a great game, too, but I prefer the old-school weapons of GoldenEye. I can always rely on GoldenEye to give me a good time, and this video is a nice tribute to it:
