‘GoldenEye’ Xbox 360 Was the GoldenEye We Deserved, But Not the One We Needed Right Then

  GoldenEye, huh? Golden-mothereffin’-eye. For anyone who got their N64 on back in the day, this one needs no introduction. Still, the whole ‘typing words at your faces’ thing is what I’m here for, so I’ll give you a quick rundown for the uninitiated.  

GoldenEye hit the console in 1997, and is still seen as one of the best and most popular FPS titles of all time. It looks pretty goddamn ropey these days, natch, and has aged liked hell, but who hasn’t put on a little beer gut/watched their hairline recede in the last twenty years?

Nostalgia factor may play a part, but this was great stuff right here. The story doesn’t end so happily, though. Developer Rare dropped a lot of other greatness for the N64; Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie and such, before Microsoft dropped the cashtastic and bought the team for themselves. Ever since, they haven’t really dropped anything worthy of their Nintendo hayday. But they could have, Ego-friends. They could have.  

Down Eurogamer way, footage of the urban legend that was the Xbox 360 remaster of the game has come to light at last. I always like a happy ending, when it turns out they weren’t BSing you after all.

‘As it turns out,’ our Euro-buddies report, ‘the proposed remaster would have let players switch between the original N64 graphics and the souped up HD model at the touch of a button.

Apparently it would have upgraded the framerate to 60fps and the skyboxes would have likewise been fleshed out.

The cancelled GoldenEye 007 remaster also had a few new multiplayer features including three new levels (Dam, Frigate and Depot) along with the option to set everyone's height equally so awkward builds like Oddjob and Jaws wouldn't have an advantage.’

Sure, there was a full remake that hit in 2010, but I’d have preferred this to have seen the light of day instead: