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'GoldenEye 007' will hit Switch and Xbox on January 27th
The Nintendo 64 classic 'GoldenEye 007' is coming to Nintendo Switch and Xbox this week. You'll need a Switch Online + Expansion Pack or Xbox Game Pass membership to play it. The Switch version has online multiplayer support.
'GoldenEye 007' is coming to Nintendo Switch Online's Expansion Pack with online play
More N64 classics including '1080 Snowboarding,' 'Pokémon Stadium' and three Mario Party games are on the way too.
Canceled Xbox 360 'GoldenEye 007' remaster is now playable on PC
Rare’s GoldenEye 007 for the N64 needs no introduction, and now it’s possible to revisit the game in a more modern form.
This week in tech history: Nintendo's N64 goes on sale in Japan
At Engadget, we spend every day looking at how technology will shape the future. But it's also important to look back at how far we've come. That's what This Week in Tech History does. Join us every weekend for a recap of historical tech news, anniversaries and advances from the recent and not-so-recent past. This week, we're looking at the N64, which arrived in Japan 23 years ago.
After Math: Gaming the system
With Gamescom 2018 now wrapping up and IFA 2018 just getting started, there's more than enough video game news to go around. But the latest salvos in the console wars weren't the only things going on in the tech industry this week. VW announced that it's investing $4 billion in a proprietary connected car architecture, Facebook phased out 5,000 ad options in an effort to fight discrimination on its platform and the CBP actually did something right for once. I know, I'm shocked too.
It's official: Playing as Oddjob in 'GoldenEye' was cheating
I thought this secret would go to the grave with me, but alas, my hand has been forced -- I have a confession to make. Back in gaming's early glory days, when Rare's seminal Nintendo 64 first-person shooter GoldenEye was the only game that really mattered, I would always play as Oddjob against my younger (clueless) sister. I told her the only reason she couldn't hit me was because her aim was rubbish and I was just better than her, but I knew it my heart this was a lie. Now the game's creators have ratted me out.
The hot new cyberattack that's sweeping the nation
On Tuesday, a powerful and terrifying new cyberattackworm emerged in Ukraine, quickly spreading to the Russian Federation and other countries no one cared enough to report on because they weren't the US. It was hard to tell which infection was worse: The cyberattack itself or the race to write and publish something (anything!) about it, framing it just like the last "massive" cyberattack explosion to hit the whole world.
Look at the Xbox 360's cancelled 'Goldeneye 007' HD remaster
It's one of those bits of gaming trivia that punches a specific generation of players square in the gut: There was once an Xbox Live port of Goldeneye 007 in the works, but it was cancelled. It's true -- Activation was porting the Nintendo 64 classic to the Xbox 360 back in 2008, but the project was canned when Microsoft and Nintendo couldn't reach a licensing agreement. The good news? Today we finally get a look at what the game would have been -- known leaker Rare Thief has posted 30 minutes of gameplay footage.
Fan-made 'Goldeneye 007' multiplayer-only HD remake released
Veterans of the Nintendo 64 likely remember Goldeneye 007, a surprisingly great adaptation of the James Bond film released in 1997 that changed shooters forever. After the 2004 release of Half-Life 2, itself a milestone propelling the genre forward, fans started toying with remaking their favorite old game with the graphics engine powering their new one. While they've sporadically released versions of Goldeneye: Source since then, the team is finally unveiling its first update in three years, a full overhaul that's free to download and play.
Nintendo wanted to tone down the violence in 'GoldenEye'
The classic N64 first-person shooter GoldenEye 007 is one of the most beloved games of the '90s and played a big part in ushering such games from the PC to the living room. It's the kind of game that a certain audience will never tire of learning more about, which is why this report from The Guardian is such an enjoyable read. GoldenEye's director Martin Hollis discussed the game at the GameCity festival in Nottingham England and dropped some details on just how developer Rare was able to bring such a violent game to the family-friendly Nintendo console.
Games of a Lifetime: Jessica's picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Tetris Grandma can beat you at Tetris. This was a foundation of my childhood and an irrefutable truth as I was growing up. Grandma would sit in her office, in front of a bulky 90s-era television, NES plugged in, and she would dominate level after level of rapidly falling tetrominos. My cousins and I would try to do the same and always end up supremely behind her high scores, but always ready to try just one more round. To this day, I'm still ready. Here's to you, Grandma, my own Original Gamer, and here's to Tetris, my Original Game.
Goldeneye director will Aim For Love with experimental matchmaking system at GameCity
Goldeneye 007 for N64 has quite a legacy regarding its multiplayer, but game director Martin Hollis has a different kind of multiplayer game he wants to try: in Aim For Love, players will take on the role of matchmaker (see what we did with the title now?) and try to set up real-life couples. The game will be part of the GameCity festival in Nottingham, England, which runs October 19-26. Two giant screens erected in a public plaza will provide the play area. Aim For Love will task players with picking out individuals from the plaza crowd and pairing them with a match that's good for them. Individuals being picked will see themselves being selected via the screens at the plaza. Matches can be platonic or romantic in nature, and the newly-formed pair work together to pick the next couple. "A massive challenge in the design of this thing is forecasting people's behavior," Hollis told Gamasutra. "You'll see, if you take the role of being a matchmaker seriously, how the two people react to each other, and how the crowd reacts ... the whole game is an experiment." Hopefully bad matches won't go all "slappers only" on each other.
BioWare was working on a spy game, 'Agent,' in 2009
Way back in the olden days of 2009, BioWare co-founder Trent Oster started work on a new, PS3-exclusive spy game called Agent, which "failed to survive the recession," Oster told Eurogamer. Agent was a mix of Jason Bourne and 007, Oster said, though we detected a hint of Deus Ex in his description as well:"The concept was to do the other half of GoldenEye," Oster said. "The idea being that James Bond isn't just a gun that walks around the world and shoots people. He's a suave manipulator, he's a talented martial artist, he's a secret agent. We wanted to cross that 007 with Jason Bourne, where he's been modified in some way; you're not sure what, but he's definitely deadly."We really wanted to push the acting side, the digital acting. We really wanted to be very high drama, very intense scenes. I always think of the scene in the second Bourne movie where Jason Bourne's choking the guy out with a book and he's right in his face and it's this very intense moment. That was one of the key things we wanted to carry off."No, Agent didn't have anything to do with the PS3-exclusive game that Rockstar announced in 2009, also dubbed Agent. EA "didn't believe in the concept" for BioWare's game and Agent was sent off on a mission from which it'd never return: counting all the grains of sand on a windy beach. Or just the recycle bin.
James Bond meets Virtua Cop: The development of Rare's GoldenEye 007
During GDC Europe 2012, former Rare developer Martin Hollis recounted his experience directing GoldenEye 007, one of the most fondly remembered games of its time and a landmark title in the history of console first-person shooters. Hollis had only worked on one game for Rare at the time, the arcade version of Killer Instinct. When the opportunity arose to pursue a James Bond game in early 1995, Hollis jumped at the chance; as the video above demonstrates, he was a pretty big fan.The rest is gaming history. Hollis went over far too much for us to condense into a single piece (in fact, we've already written two others), but we've compiled some of the highlights after the break. Read on to discover how one of GoldenEye's primary influences was actually Sega's Virtua Cop. In the gallery below, you'll find images of some of GoldenEye's original design documents and some behind the scenes stories from the original team. %Gallery-164095%
GoldenEye 007's multiplayer was added last minute, unknown to Rare and Nintendo management
You might know that the multiplayer mode for GoldenEye 007, the seminal N64 shooter, was only added to the game late in development. What you probably don't know is that the mode was also added unbeknownst to the management at developer Rare and publisher Nintendo. The revelation comes by way of GoldenEye 007's director Martin Hollis, who delivered a postmortem presentation on the game at GDC Europe.Hollis' presentation included stories from many of GoldenEye 007's developers, including Steve Ellis, who was responsible for programming the multiplayer mode, a feat he accomplished in a month. Wrote Ellis: One of the things that always strikes me as crazy in retrospect is that until something like March or April of 1997, there wasn't a multiplayer mode at all. It hadn't even been started. It really was put in at the last minute – something you wouldn't dream of doing these days – and it was done without the knowledge or permission of the management at Rare and Nintendo. The first they knew about it was when we showed it to them working. However – since the game was already late by that time, if we hadn't done it that way, it probably never would have happened.Hollis said that "quite a few features" were "snuck in" throughout development, which he chalked up to management trusting the team. "I'm sure there were six-month stretches where no member of Rare or Nintendo management came into the team offices," he said. "Which is really quite extraordinary, and all credit to them that they felt able to take that much of a leaned-back approach and place that much trust in the team."So there you have it, GoldenEye 007's multiplayer mode – a vital, fondly-remembered component of a landmark game – was unplanned, coded in a month and might never have existed at all if it weren't for some serendipitous managerial oversight.
Sky adds Bond Channel to its movie offering, will screen entire back catalog in high-definition
Fresh from his appearance at this year's Olympic opening ceremony, James Bond is getting his own dedicated channel on Sky. The UK broadcaster will start showing all 22 movies in high-definition from October 5th, gearing up to the British spy's latest adventure, Skyfall, which launches a month later. Android, iOS and PC platforms will be able to stream the collection through Sky Go, while its new on-demand service will also be showing the full gamut of Bond adventures in a few months. For England, James.
Modder conjoins two N64 controllers for dual-analog play in Star Wars Ep. 1 Racer, Goldeneye
We've seen a fair share of controller mods over the years, but a dual-analog Nintendo 64 pad intended for Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer? That's certainly a simpler concept that can apparently turn out to be quite intriguing -- and functional. As the story goes, a friend of a modder named Clarky is an avid player of the sci-fi title, especially a hidden mode that allows users to individually command both the left and right engines of their pod-racer using the joysticks of two controllers. To make the control scheme less fiddly, Clarky essentially chopped off the D-Pad section of one and the action button section on another to join the two as one. The final result is impressive as well -- we'd be hard-pressed not to believe it's some rare prototype from the Nintendo labs at first glance. The unit also functions with the classic shooter, Goldeneye 64, as well since the game supports a similar dual-analog mode. Notably, the gamepad plugs in with two cords, so it's unlikely you'd be able to reap its full benefits on most of the system's games. You'll find a video of the controller in action below, and a full build log at the source link. Now, if only we could get our 4MB graphics Expansion Pack to work with the titles as well.
Jaws and Drax actors reprise roles in 007 Legends, written by GoldenEye scribe
Activision has attached a few more names to the upcoming 007 Legends, which follows a virtual Daniel Craig through several old James Bond movies. The game is written by Bruce Feirstein, who wrote the film versions of Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough, and worked with Activision on Bond remakes and adaptations in the past, including 007 Everything or Nothing and 2010's Bloodstone.Richard Kiel joins the cast to reprise his role of Jaws from Moonraker, while Michael Londsdale appears as Hugo Drax, the villain whose aim is to destroy humanity. It was previously announced that Skyfall's Naomie Harris and Rory Kinnear will both appear in the game as well, as Bond's love interest and the MI6 Chief of Staff, respectively. We'll probably hear about even more cast and crew announcements for 007 Legends on the way to its release on October 16.
BMW My Remote app arrives in the US, 3-Series with stinger missiles due soon
BMW's My Remote iOS app has been available here in Europe for a while. Reenacting the car park chase from Tomorrow Never Dies is one of the principal ways to let off steam on a weekend. Sadly, the company has brought our exclusive fun to an end by releasing the app in the USA -- albeit without the weaponized vehicles from the movie. Once installed on an iPhone, you'll get remote locking, horn and headlights as well as a positioning app so you never get lost in a parking lot. The age and model of your Beemer will decide what features you'll be able to use (full details after the break) but remember Bond: you have a license to kill, not to violate the traffic laws.[Thanks, Mark]
GoldenEye 007: Reloaded preview: Bringing back Bond
Here we go again. It was almost a certainty last year that we'd see the version of GoldenEye 007 released for the Wii eventually brought out to the HD consoles, but it's fair to say that Activision surprised everyone with the reveal of GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, being released this fall as a full retail title. So yes, the odds are that we'll all be playing through GoldenEye (first created by Rare for the Nintendo 64 fourteen years ago, and reimagined by Eurocom for the Wii release last year) yet again. This new version has the modern story tweaks, the addition of Daniel Craig, and all of the other reimaginings from the Wii, but Eurocom is aiming for even more, adding in a new set of modes called MI-6 Ops, as well as co-op and full competitive multiplayer. If Call of Duty had a baby with Rare's classic, this is what would crawl out. %Gallery-128860%
