“There’s no need to lose your head, Ned.”
Chances are, if you were to ask someone who was around at the time which N64 games were the best, Goldeneye 007 would be somewhere on their list. Which s why it’s a shame that the game is mired forever in rights issues. Namely, while there was an attempt to remaster the game for the Xbox 360 (They even recorded interviews for it to be included in Rare Replay), it ultimately never saw the light of day.
Until now.
Graslu00, a Spanish streamer and longtime fan of the game, was basically handed a complete ROM from near the end of development on the remake. After verifying that the ROM was legit, he recorded a full playthrough on “00 Agent”difficulty (the hardest the game has to offer), before streaming the footage and discussing the game with chat on Friday.
As to how he got hands on one of the holy grails of gaming history, he said the following to Ars Technica:
I was sent the build anonymously and told to wait [until a certain date to reveal it].
Th files came with a cryptic note: “Never say never, release coming soon, James.”
As to why he’d get sent something like this? Well, one quick look at his channel pretty much reveals the answer. He even has a 00 in his screen name! It’s no surprise that he caught the leaker’s attention.
As for the game, the longplay does highlight the improvements made to much of Goldeneye 007‘s geometry and textures. That said, it’s still incredibly faithful to the original; it even features a seamless mode-swap button that reverts everything to how it would look on the N64! Graslu00 didn’t use this feature in his playthrough, since he wanted to maintain focus on establishing playability (through Xenia emulator; a happy coincidence on the name). Coincidentally, according to him, the game will run on genuine hardware, and shows up as being “signed as retail”, meaning it will also likely run on emulators as well. The handful of visual glitches and bugs he ran into in his playthrough were, therefore, endemic to the build that he was provided, and not a matter of hardware or emulation. The build number is, however, a mystery, as the game doesn’t include that information on the menu or anything.
Nonetheless, the game is a top to bottom recreation with a staggering number of improvements, easily eclipsing the Perfect Dark remake’s scope. While his video is more of a speedrun, Graslu00 does pause occasionally to admire the improved scenery in his video.
As to that note he was sent with the ROM, though, we’ll simply have to wait and see.
Half of everything is luck, James.
Source: Ars Technica
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