Golden-eyes

 So it looks like another Goldeneye is on the way sometime next year. Good news? Well, remember the last time we were given a Goldeneye branded product? It just wasn't the same. Capturing the magic has been difficult for any game trying to follow up on the N64 classic, but there might just be a sliver of hope this time around.

 In the article there is information about who is staffing the house in charge of building this game, and it happens to be a few ex-Free Radical developers. Timesplitters 2 was a personal favorite of mine, and it's faster-paced take on the FPS genre had everything to do with Goldeneye. It was a smooth shooter that didn't provide an homage to Goldeneye as much as borrow everything it could. As I said, the pace is ramped up, but the game is fundamentally the same. Objectives change with difficulty just like Rare's game, the health bar looks practically the same, and the gameplay is virtually identical with the exception of free-shooting with the second analog stick (PS2 version). It doesn't hurt that Free Radical was staffed by people who worked on Goldeneye itself.

 On top of that, all of the quirks that made Goldeneye fun were in this game for the most part. I don't ever remember getting into proximity mine battles, but the character selection is massive and it even provides you with the option to select, in essence, Oddjob. The award system for multiplayer is still intact, and if you choose Oddjob's successor, the monkey, there's even an award and in-game statistics that track your usage of the cheap character. Basically, think Super Goldeneye 2 Turbo, and you have Timesplitters 2.

 That's not to say that the game took away from the charm of the original. The battles felt more Quake-like at times, mainly because of the speed of the game, but also due to the fact that no weapon had a memorable feel to it. That's not to say that the weapon set was horrible, because it wasn't, but many people loved Goldeneye because it was more precise than games have become. If you did a spray and pray in Goldeneye, someone with a well aimed pistol could take you out with ease just due to sheer patience or skill. With Timesplitters and many fast-paced FPS's around that time, you were encouraged to blast away with a quickness.

 When it comes to developing the game, I truly hope that the crew put together for this game puts their experience to use, because Timesplitters worked very well as a spiritual sequel to our favorite console shooter. Not that I'm handing them praise for staff alone, because I'm not. I've seen enough promising games get released in terrible condition, and the Bond franchise has had a very hard time getting the pure-fun part down. Even getting Sean Connery involved didn't make the game we were all wanting, so a few programmers certainly doesn't send me into a craze.

 If you're going to take any suggestions, Activision, then you should pay attention to what is going on in the gaming world today. If you want to bring the magic back, then you need to know what the magic was.

Goldeneye 101


 Graphics:

 If I'm leading a team heading into a Goldeneye sequel, then my first thought is to make the game look good. At the time, the graphics weren't revolutionary considering that everything the game did graphically was on par and commonly inferior to its FPS contemporaries. Quake 2 was out in 1997 as well, so the blocky nature of Goldeneye could have been a detractor. It wasn't. While nothing in Goldeneye was graphically amazing, the game was grounded in several ways that made it one of the most "grippy" FPS's ever.

 Characters moved, and I hesitate to use this word, "realistically"...or at least they moved more realistically than most characters in shooting games did. Explosions were much more realistic than other games at the time, and there was a limited part of the environment you could interact with.

 Yet, a lot of us scream "polygons" and "frames per second" at this point, and rightfully so. This game was not fast paced at all, even if the intensity made it feel that way, and while the game had its smooth parts, there is a lot of room for improvement. How do you solve this problem?

 If you want to use photo-realism or something close to it, now would be a good time to try it. Goldeneye never needed 256 players in a server, or even a jump button for that matter. Make the game look damn good. The game shouldn't chug, but whatever GPU you're using should spend more time on the stability of a good looking game than to crank out 60fps of crap. If you need to lock the game into 30fps, do it, but keep the realism intact. I remember easily identifying my nemesis back in the day because of their look. I, personally, would like to return to those days rather than 16 players with no personality or recognizable features.

 Gameplay:

 Firefights were very intense due to the perfect sound effects and the, once again, "grippy" nature of the guns you picked up. There was truly a feel to each gun, and getting hit during a gunfight made it appear as if you were reeling even if you just got grazed. There was a constant reminder that there was an oomph to everything that happened. Once again comparing fast-paced games to Goldeneye, there's something to be said for weapons that mean something in a game. Even in some really good modern games, I find myself picking between pistols, rifles, SMG's, and heavy guns with no real personality to them apart from what class of gun they are. On top of that, you always knew what the enemy was shooting you with. If you were running into a narrow corridor with the Walther and you ran into the guy with the SMG, you knew well enough if the guy had an AK or a P90.

 The game also handled blindfire and precision in careful balance. It's almost impossible to find a game after Goldeneye that makes walking into a room and laying out all three people in it as easy and seamless as holding down a button. If there's one feeling I would like to get back, it's the feeling of being a badass spy. It's way too satisfying to be able to aim exactly where you want to in a split second and having it feel smooth and scripted. Yes, you had to really aim the gun in order to achieve real results, but aiming became instinctual and never detracted from the flow of the game. Yes, we've been given an analog stick to do that for us, but it always feels like you're running and gunning rather than taking the split second to do it right, and when you do aim in modern games, you're broken from the general flow of the battle. The simple reticule and slight screen-zoom worked wonders for quick precision. Resident Evil's 4 and 5 revived this simple and effective system of shooting, proving that the idea still works wonders. The difference, of course, is that you can also shoot from the hip in Goldeneye, so we're still being one-upped by a game released 12 years ago.

 Design:


 Sure, the game didn't allow you to jump and blocky doesn't even begin to describe level design, but was anyone complaining? For the single-player route, things were just fine. Levels were fairly linear, giving you just the right amount of real-estate in a level to get the job done. Remember, this was a James Bond game, not an open-world shooter. Your job was to make a beeline towards the objective and get it done, so the levels were linear. Yet, Rare still put in just enough corners, objects, windows, side offices, and extra corridors to give the player a tactical choice. Do you shoot out a window and pick off heads as they run down a corridor to get you, or do you hide behind the corner across the hall and get them to line-up for you? Do you run in and pick off three heads in a second, or do you set up a proxy mine before you draw the enemies out? It was simple and effective design that relied on you being Bond. You had the tools and they felt as natural as they possibly could, and it was up to you to decide how you wanted to move your move forward. People often focus too much on the multiplayer of this game that they often forget that the single-player option was just as rewarding and well-made. 

 Yet, on the multiplayer front, things were golden, and I don't just mean the Golden Gun. Everything was in such great balance that you can't pick one specific part of the experience to throw your praise onto. First, there was sheer balance. If you picked up that P90 in the temple, then you had a gun that would mow down anything in a corridor, but the gun wasn't in a corridor. It was in one of the biggest rooms of the game, leaving its new owner within pick-off range of anyone with a rifle or a good pistol aim. If you picked up a sniper rifle, you had to move your ass to use it or you'd be dead, because the game was littered with places to hide and sneak up on people. The best players in Goldeneye were the ones who moved, picked off someone, then moved to get another. No one camped, as this was one of the few games where camping spots were just plain hard to find and took massive skill to defend once found.

 Second, the game had auto-aim, a blessing for noobs and a curse for experienced players, but no big deal for the good players. It created balance, yet didn't remove the advantage from players who were genuinely skilled. Many areas in the game were tailored to compliment this. In the facility, there was a wide hallway with pillars to hide behind, and if you relied on auto-aim to force straight through it, you were going to get killed by the person using the pillars and precision-aiming together. The tight corners of the game, with proper use, became a deadly advantage to someone on the run from someone who was feeling cocky. Even stairways were tough to master and maintained balance. The stairways were wide open, and with enough distance and skill you could pick off a person using them to flee, but if you were in hot pursuit of a target and ended up right on his heels when he reached the staircase, you needed to rely on auto-aim and perfect tail-chasing to make the kill. Stopping to aim at a seemingly perfect target would not only cost you your gain, but leave you open to a return headshot volley.

 Finally, the multiplayer was designed to be personal. There were only 4 people allowed in, and the levels were designed to facilitate memorable battles in between you and a rival that was on the couch right next to you. If the game is going to be updated, then the levels may need to get a little bigger, but 16 players is not necessary. 8 players, max. It's hard to maintain balance when there's too many players, and it's certainly harder to practice your skill at the spy game when there are too many opponents involved. Let Modern Warfare 2 and MAG deal with the player glut. Keep Goldeneye 2010 simple and keep the player-count to a minimum. Let other games be frantic. Let this one remain focused and intense.

 The game was well rounded on virtually every level, and that's what made us love the game. It was never about speed, acrobatics, reflex, and eye candy. It was about grounded, gripping realism and perfect execution of your style. If Activision has any hope in reviving the experience, then these are the keys. Everything needs to be updated, and no one is going to dispute that, but the trouble with upgrading a game system is knowing what is natural. Certain elements of the game need to take the natural evolution of improved graphics and a modern control scheme for new controllers, but other elements were natural to the gameplay. Many developers miss the mark by a long shot because they have determined that console FPS's need to be faster, that dual-wielding is the next evolution, or that bigger levels means more fun. There's a reason why no one has made the true successor to Goldeneye, and it's because there was nothing in the original game that particularly needed changing. It's as simple as updating the game for the modern console. Why is it so hard to just leave it there without toying with it?

 So there you go, Activision. Get to work. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit