Of all the cheats and secrets tucked away in GoldenEye 007, we never suspected Rare's N64 classic harboured a fully functioning ZX Spectrum 48k emulator.
Rare began a coding experiment to see if the N64 could support a Spectrum emulator, even embedding old-school Rare games Sabre Wulf, Jetpac and more in the code. Clearly the experiment worked, but it was never removed from the final retail code and remains to this day.
Don't go booting up the game and trying to play some Knight Lore though: while the emulator is fully functional and resides in every retail GoldenEye cart, Rare rendered it inaccessible and inoperable. For shame.
[source therwp.com]
Comments 24
Rare were so great back in the day. Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye, Conker's BFD... They put so much effort into all of their games. It's a shame what became of them... Forced to content themselves with developing a tragic Wii Sports rip-off
I was stunned by this news when I read about it. Well done RARE circa ,1997 you mischievously brilliant barstewards.
Couldn't you access it with a GameShark or something though?
Why Microsoft and Nintendo can't work out a deal on N64 Rare games for VC releases is beyond comprehension. Goldeneye, Conker, Perfect Dark, and Banjo would literally print money for both companies if they were playable on the Wii (U) and/or 3DS. But I guess thats the problem though, both companies don't want to share that money with each other.
@ajcismo It's more that Microsoft doesn't want to share with Nintendo.Rare is controlled by them.
This story wins the prize for fun fact of the day, I reckon.
I suppose this was not all thrown to waste though. You could still play JetPac in Donkey Kong 64, as a bonus game (likely that emulator code was reused there).
It's kind of stupid that Rare's games were put onto the Xbox. Sure Microsoft bought them, but they're N64 games, so Nintendo would have to agree to let Microsoft use the emulator right?
the old Ultimate Play The Game games like Jet Pac and in particular Atic Atac are still my all-time favourites
Before on disc DLC, there was on disc data that jerks won't let the little children use.
@SkywardLink98: Not if Microsoft didn't actually emulate. All they had to do was reprogram the game to run natively on their hardware, which is certainly not a new concept. It also explains why the games run in HD with Achievements. Emulation usually can't tack on that kind of stuff.
Well a patch has been made which makes the Spectrum Emulator work.
So I've basically had a Spectrum emulator in my copy of Golden Eye all this time?
Well! You learn something new everyday.
Back when gaming was a more of a cult hobby. Alas the same thing has happened with film and comics; everything has been homogenized for mass consumption.
@vonseux Why leave in pictures of all past bonds? Why leave in a weapon called null that doesn't do anything? Why leave in that outpost in the damn level? Why leave in incomplete multi-player level versions of the Cradle and Statue? The world will never know.
Seriously, though, how is it a HD remake of Perfect Dark was possible, but not GoldenEye. That always puzzled me.
@RantingThespian
Easy. Liscensing issues. Activision has the rights over the Bond IP.
why did everyone forgot about killer instinct
@Ranting_Thespian: I thought GoldenEye Reloaded on 360 and PS3 was an HD remake.
@Dark-insanity: I remember KI.
All I want from Rare is Battletoads on the VC. Killer Instinct 1 & 2 would be nice too...but give me Battletoads.
That's cool, & interesting!
Ah Goldeneye the game with millions of secrets that Rare just kept hidden, I remember back at the time when Rare released the cheat codes that you just tapped in and could help you beat the game, they managed to keep them a secret even after Perfect Dark was released, can't say I am too surprised something like this is in there.
I thought after Citidel was found there was nothing left...
@Kafei2006 . I thought so too but the method used to find this emulator turned out nothing when used on Donkey Kong 64. Crazy as it sounds, Jetpac might have been re-coded for the N64...which makes me wonder if DK Arcade was too. Either of those would be just as mindblowing as this is...
"Don't go booting up the game and trying to play some Knight Lore though: while the emulator is fully functional and resides in every retail GoldenEye cart, Rare rendered it inaccessible and inoperable. For shame"
And now everyone will try to unlock it. And who knows: Maybe someone succeeds!
Gonna go play some GoldenEye 64 now. Thanks.
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