Video: Digital Foundry Puts GoldenEye and Perfect Dark to the Test on N64

Nice to see they turned some attention to two of the greatest games of all time. Perfect Dark was a great improvement to Goldeneye, especially in the way they came up with some cool, original weapon designs that fit well with that new universe.

Funny thing is when Rare programmed 007, they didn't have the real hardware, but only dev kits, so they actually guessed on what the N64 specs would be. They were spot on.

I think GoldenEye is one of those games that really overcomes its poor performance. It's really one of the best shooters ever made.

@BarryDunne I'm not sure you watched the video, as Nintendo 64 is obviously struggling with both of these games (especially with Perfect Dark).

Some of the greatest games ever made had performance problems. Ocarina of Time dipped into the 20's. Majora's Mask RAN at 20 and DIPPED into the 10's!

We're spoiled

I've always preferred Perfect Dark over Goldeneye.

They were amazing games, and to some extent, they still are. Nowadays, all we are hot for is 1080p and 60fps. Anything lower than that and apparently, your game is automatically deemed crap.

Never mind the story and actual gameplay that might still make the game a whole lot of fun besides it qualifying for these coveted benchmarks or not...

Yeah, modern day "gamers". A despicable demographic/culture...

I never worried about frame rates and visuals.....is the game fun or not is my only concern. Maybe that's a result of Atari 2600 gaming and the amazing leaps and bounds since then

@Gerbwmu Exactly. Same experience here. I started on a Pong machine and a portable black & white TV in 1975, and later on we had an A2600.

Aaaah.
I Never knew you can play singel player with two controllers.
Time to play the story again like this

@ThanosReXXX you do realize that before the Wii, Nintendo were very big on tech as well right? Ever heard of the N64 Expansion Pak?

@Gerbwmu sometimes the visuals, or performance of the game adds to the fun. I'll take the exact same experience in 60fps over 30fps any day.

I never got to play Perfect Dark regrettably,I'd long moved on to the Dreamcast by the time it came out.Considering how much I loved Goldeneye,I've always felt like I missed out big time with this one.It wouldn't be the same playing it today for me without any nostalgia for it.

Goldeneye is an absolute classic and Perfect Dark was cool aswell, i would still go for the N64 versions cuz that was days where graphics n frames per second didn't matter it was all about the fun and gameplay.

Never played Perfect Dark, but Goldeneye is a classic. It definitively was the best of its genre back in the day, and no one complained about 30/60 fps crap or whether the game was 1080p or 720p. No, the important thing was gameplay.
@Thanos and @TossedLlama are right, the current craze about framerates is terrible.

Goldeneye to me the best FPS game ever.

4 players, License to kill, power weapons, good times.

@gatorboi352 That is besides the point because that is not what I meant. The Expansion Pak was an extra offered by Nintendo, it was not a demand from gamers, and you didn't need it for every game so it wasn't a minimal requirement, unlike 1080p/60fps nowadays.

And yes, a solid frame rate can definitely add to a game (I'm a racing sim fan, so there it's definitely a benefit) but all I'm saying is that it shouldn't be the main reason to like a game or not. A game can have a few technical glitches and niggles here and there, and still be a perfectly enjoyable experience overall. Heck, in some old games certain glitches were actually a positive thing and added to the charm of these games.

And like @Gerbwmu said: if you've been gaming from the beginning, you have much more appreciation for the things that really matter and you don't mock or avoid everything that has been published before the HD era and label it as ugly or unplayable.

Without all those games and technical advances we wouldn't even have HD gaming, or gaming as a whole, period.

I don't know from what generation you are, but to me it's highly annoying that the behavior of the current generation of gamers is what it is. No patience (anxiously clicking away cut scenes and so on, even if they add to the atmosphere or contain hints/clues), no appreciation or respect for the origin of their entertainment (What? GameCube? PS2? SNES? No way, man those are fugly games... ) and only the newest, shiniest and fastest is important and beautiful.

Which makes it all the more baffling to me how they are then able to stomach games like Minecraft and all the retro inspired Indie games, because these look an awful lot like the very games that they wouldn't even touch with a ten foot pole.

I have lost and sold a few of my older consoles, but since the N64 I have kept all of them, handhelds since the Game Boy Color included and to this day, I still enjoy the games on them, in part obviously because of sentiment, but also because I can play them in the right context and don't feel the need or stress to compare them to today's "superior" gaming experiences.

@TossedLlama Exactly. Right on the money. To the stake with 60fps huggers...

Never got to play Perfect Dark, but GoldenEye for me was a timeless classic and probably the best shooting game ever made in my opinion. It was just so fun to run around on multiplayer and shoot the hell out of each other and not worry about graphics or game content.

I never knew a 360 version had been in the works.

@King-Kirby all these years and I never knew you could play with a dual controller setup...(and I call myself a gamer haha)

I guess one could say that Rare invented dual analog setups

Ocarina of time and GoldenEye are the best on N64.

@KoopaTheGamer I still have an N64 up and running. I don't know what way Eurogamer have recorded these games but they are alot smoother and sharper in motion on my TV. I'm presuming they're using a shirty composite cable for capturing.

An issue with analogue to digital conversion.

All these early systems had slow framerates in 3D but it didn't matter as they were groundbreaking.

A thesis could be written on all the things Goldeneye introduced to the FPS scene and gaming in general. We're talking hit detection, detailed particle effects, explosions, damage modelling, 'realistic' AI, escort missions, gun animations, highly detailed death animations, sniper scopes, cover system, mission structures, tiers, wide open environments with 'realistic' textures...Not forgetting a whole game of hidden beta content - I could go on and on!

People are forgetting that the games and controls in those days were designed AROUND these framerates.

The N64 controller is alien like to most. But for me it is simple to use.

I think the attitude towards console graphics was very different during that generation compared to now; we talked more about strengths (the water in Wave Race, the motion-captured animation of Link, Rare games in general) as opposed to focusing on shortcomings (frame rates and resolutions) as we tend to these days.

@ToneDeath I agree. This was mid-1990s technology, of course the frame rates weren't as good. Focusing on that as a negative seems futile to me.

@ThanosReXXX thanks for the reply.

"I don't know from what generation you are, but to me it's highly annoying that the behavior of the current generation of gamers is what it is. No patience (anxiously clicking away cut scenes and so on, even if they add to the atmosphere or contain hints/clues), no appreciation or respect for the origin of their entertainment (What? GameCube? PS2? SNES? No way, man those are fugly games... ) and only the newest, shiniest and fastest is important and beautiful."

I've been gaming since NES @ 6 years old, However to this point above I must say that this is not a by product of the current gen specifically. I recall vividly days of the SNES/Genesis (i dont believe NES lent to many of these moments) where players were extremely impatient and didn't care about any of the intangibles of the game. It's just how some folks are wired. Not a generational thing IMO.

Anyway, I feel like the demand for 1080p 60fps is so great today because, quite honestly, we should have been there 4 years ago. Why must gameplay > graphics? Why not gameplay (equal to) graphics... and every other component of a title? There was once a time when gameplay trumped graphics and anything else for sure. But that was simply due to technical limitations and IMO ended as early as the SNES era. Just my thoughts.

Last year, I played both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark's single player campaigns on an N64 Emulator. I was so pleasantly surprised how much I still loved them, despite their flaws.

GoldenEye was waaay better than Perfect Dark.

@DarthNocturnal One of my favourite games as a child was R-Type on the Sega Master System. Sprite flickering was almost constant but I loved the game to death (not literally, as I still have the fully functional cartridge).

@gatorboi352 You're welcome. And equal to I can agree with, but in my experience, the overall consensus with modern and especially younger gamers, seems to be 1080p or bust. And even though I agree that it borders on the ridiculous that current gen consoles are still struggling with some of these numbers, it shouldn't be leading and if it was equal, then that wouldn't be the case.

I'm also still a bit curious what your view on my second point is. (about Minecraft and the masses of retro-styled indie games being deemed great while all real retro games are seen as ugly and unplayable)

And for those of you possibly interested in a more modern replacement for GoldenEye's multiplayer fun, why not give GoldenEye Source on PC a go? It has just received another major overhaul and looks great and most of it is very faithful to the original N64 game:

I go back and play PD every few years. I'm still blown away by how much of a technical marvel it was for its time.

I love GE as well, and it was also mindblowingly ahead of its time too. But c'mon guys, you know damn well PD is the superior game in so many ways.

I'm happy they took out a little time to talk about the level and mission design.

To me, that is what puts these two games on an entirely different level from most FPS.

And the mention of Halo was very fitting. That game started life as a PC/Mac project, but was bought out by Microsoft specifically to be their Golden Eye, and it shows in how the multiplayer was put together.

I had no idea the framerate in both of these were actually that horrible, however.

@ThanosReXXX Minecraft is an enigma to me in that, i feel it could of had any art style and done just as well. I do see the irony though in the art style it does have and the appeal it brings with the same younger crowd that denounces retro style games and looks. In this case, it is definitely a gameplay > graphics kind of deal.

@gatorboi352 Funny thing is that to me Minecraft isn't appealing at ALL, more because in my mind, it goes from retro/pixels to grotesque, which hugely detracts from the gameplay for me personally, even though there are dozens of mods and so on to make it look much better than the base game, but they are still VERY crude graphics.

I'd say the comparison is what DUPLO is to LEGO or something to that extent. And my nephew has been all over it since it came out, when he was 13. And then I tried to show him some GameCube games, and he went: "wow, what is THAT? What an ugly game, just look at it!"
It completely baffled me, and still does now, a couple of years later. And he still plays Minecraft, by the way. In part it will probably also be because everybody is playing it, so especially for kids who are still in school, chances are that they will at least try it and if their friends keep playing it, they will too.

@ThanosReXXX heh, yeah i don't too much care for Minecraft either. Not my cup o tea.

The youngins lap it up though.