If you’ve been into gaming for a few decades, you’ll have fond memories of Saturday mornings diving into the latest releases on Nintendo 64. While the likelih?ood of ?you having a Nintendo 64 still available to play is slim, the Switch offers a limited number of titles from the iconic console. 

It’s been 28 years since the Nintendo 64 first hit TV units across the world, and 22 years since the final game was released for the console in North America (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, for those interested). That’s a long time to go without playing some of the class??ics that were available during the console’s six-year tenure. 

Howeve??r, if you’ve got a Nintendo Switch Online+ Expansion Pack membership, there are a few of those classics available to play. While some of them are definitely more niche, here are 10 of the best titles available to play. Apologies in advance if this list reminds you that we're aging up a little too fast...

Super Mario 64

I can’t begin this list without mentioning Super Mario 64. It was one of two games that were released alongside the launch of the N64 in North America (alongside Pilotwings 64), so it’s one of the first games that springs to mind when I think back to queuing outside my local video game store to ??get the console on launch day in 1996. 

I don’t feel like I need to explain Super Mario 64 too much, but just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last 39 years, let me give you the TLDR (which goes for most of the games): Mario is invited to visit Princess Peach,?? only to find Bowser has infiltrated and kidnapped her. Cue a mad dash across the realm to locate and rescue the Princess, and take down Bowser. 

Pokémon Snap

If you want an updated version of this classic 1999 Pokémon title, then you can get New Pokémon Snap, which was released specifically for the Switch back in 2021. However, nothing quite touches the original in terms of nostalgia and classic design. There’s something rea??lly special about curling up and snapping shots of Pokémon as remembered from childhood??. 

What tips the original over the successor, personally, is the lack of pressure to complete tasks. Admittedly there isn’t much in the ne??w one either, but if you face a lot of pressure on a daily basis, being able to simply focus on taking photos rather than needing a reason to is actually really nice. 

Paper Mario

First reaching North America in 2001, Paper Mario is the first in a series of six games (or seven, if you count Paper Jam) to feature Mario and associated characters in their â€?.5Dâ€?forms. Again, the plot is familiar to all Mario fans - Bowser has Princess?? Peach, and Mario must battl?e through the Mushroom Kingdom to get her back and kick some overgrown turtle butt. 

What makes the Paper Mario series incredibly special, and especially the first, is not only the art style but the puzzles and cooperation with other characters as ??well. The RPG elements and turn-based combat moments are tense, but not overly so. 

GoldenEye 007

GoldenEye 007 is an ?absolutely guaranteed memory for anyone who grew up in the 90s, whether you actually played or simply knew other people who did and desperately wanted to but your parents thought it was too graphic. The idea of the latte??r is laughable now, considering the current gaming graphics we’ve become so used to, but the 90s were a different time. 

Regardless, the cover art of GoldenEye 007 is enough to trigger some childhood memories for most, featuring Pierce Brosnan as Bond and Izabella Scorupco as Natalya Simonova. It’s based on the story from 1995’s GoldenEye, and as Bond, it’s up to the player to take down a criminal syndicate and prevent them from using a satellite w??eapon. It also had ?multiplayer options, which would usually result in an argument or two. 

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Released in 1998, Ocarina of Time was the first of the Zelda game series to feature 3D graphics. It is, arguably, among the best and most iconic video games of all time, and at the time of re??lease, it received far more pre-orders than any other game before it. 

As with most other Zelda titles, you take the role of Link and have all of his usual weapons in your arsenal, including the iconic sword and shield. The story is hard to explain if you’ve never played, but in sho?rt, Link must awaken the five Sa?ges, defeat Ganondorf, and protect the kingdom of Hyrule. 

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards was released in 2000, and as with the previous Ocarina of Time, The Crystal Shards was the first Kirby title to have 3D graphics. For most people of a certain age, Kirby is one of those games that invokes a huge amount of nostalgia and has come to many platforms in the time since it was first released, including the Wii, Wii ?U, and now the Nintendo Switch. 

The story of The Crystal Shards involves Kirby having to reassemble a sacred crystal that has been shattered by Dark Matter. If you’ve ever played a Kirby game, you’ll know what to expect - explore 2.5D levels and devour your enemies to gain their powers. However, The Crystal Shards also introduced Power Combos, allowing you to mi??x and ma?tch powers to create new and much more powerful ones. 

Banjo-Kazooie

As far as platformers go, Banjo-Kazooie borders on being wildly underappreciated. The first in a line of five titles, Banjo-Kazooie was released back in 1998. Banjo, the honey bear in fetching yellow shorts and always in possession of his trusty backpack, was first introduced in 1997 as part of the cast of Diddy Kong Racing. Kazooie, the Breegull who can be found sheltering inside the aforementioned backpack, was introduced in this game and the pair became a beloved duo?. 

Together, Banjo and Kazooie must track down Banjo’s kidnapped sister, ??Tooty, who has been kidnapped by the evil witch Gruntilda. Gameplay is a mix of delightful ??(although often frustrating) platform levels, puzzles, and boss fights. There’s something incredibly satisfying about collecting music notes and Jiggies that open doors to new worlds. 

Yoshi’s Story

Yoshi’s Story was released in North America in 1998, and is a fruit-eating joy to play regardless of age. While most of the other titles on this list are adventuring games with someone to rescue, Yoshi’s Story provides something different: the endless frustration of trying to be better than you w??ere before. There is an element of adventure and storytelling, but it arguably takes a back seat to beating your own high score.

There are two modes in Yoshi’s Story: Story Mode and Trial Mode. To ??unlock new levels in Trial Mode, you must first complete the levels ?in Story Mode, and completing them requires the apparently simple task of eating 30 fruits. But of course, it’s not that simple. Each type of fruit is worth a different amount of points, with Melons giving the most, and there are also Lucky Fruits that offer a bonus. 

Perfect Dark

Perfect Dark is described as a “spiritual successor�to GoldenEye 007, runs on an upgraded version of the same game engine, and was developed and released three years later in 2000. Perfect Dark came not only with a solo campaign mode but also multiplayer options such as co-operative and deathmatch modes. It's making a comeback as well, but it remains to be seen whether a remake can touch the nosta?lgia of the original.

As Joanna Dark, you must complete objectives while avoiding or eliminating opponents to eventually stop an extraterrestrial conspiracy by a corporation known as dataDyne. As with GoldenEye, there are m??any weapons to choose from, but now these weapons all have addition?al useful features. The K7 Avenger, for instance, will detect threats such as nearby explosives. 

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Released two years after Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask hit shelves and TV screens in 2000 and features the same 3D graphics that premiered in the previous title. Majora’s Mask is�Confusing, to say the least. The gameplay involves a 3-day cycle that must be replayed, using knowledge learned from previous cycles to?? perform better during subsequent ones. 

One of the best features of Majora’s Mask is the transforma??tions provided by the core masks that Link can use - a Deku Scrub, a Goron, and a Zora. ??Each transformation provides Link with different, incredibly useful abilities, and you’ll need to think carefully about which form you take to complete puzzles and quests throughout the story. And did I mention that Link can control time and the moon is enough to give any kid nightmares for weeks?

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But not unplayable by any means

The 1997 FPS GoldenEye 007 is considered one of the best influential shooters of all time, especially when it comes to its local co-op mode (I guess technically it had to be local because online play hadn't been invented yet). I missed out on the golden age of the James Bond title because I wasn't even a year old when it came out, but hearing friends and colleagues recounting the magical months and years that followed its release, I'm somewhat envious of a time before online gamer rage. Now's my chance to live vicariously, though, because Rare announced that GoldenEye 007 is available to play on Nintendo S?witch and Xbox?? consoles 26 years after it launched on the Nintendo 64.

While fans are thrilled to be able to return to a childhood favorite, there are a few issues with the port that are hard to ignore. Most obviously, the game only runs at 30 frames per second, which isn't a deal-breaker, but can be an issue for those who are more particular about how their game runs. The lower frame rate is intentional on the developers' part because the port uses the game's original ROM code, and the N64 could only run at 30fps back then anyway. I personally don't mind lower framerates, but for those who do, there are ways to play GoldenEye 007 on the PC at today's industry standard, 60fps.

//twitter.com/CodeMystics/s???tatus/1618895288235855873

Other bugs or problems include audio issues, incorrect textures/decals, hard-to-read low-res text, and visible seams in the environment of some of the levels. Speaking specifically to the issue with the seams, one of the developers behind the game said through the company's Twitter account that these issues were always present in the base game, but these issues are "just easier to see in HD." The emulation may not make for "perfect" gameplay for long-time fans �or at least as perfect as nostalgia goggles can make a game feel that came out on retro consoles �but at the very least, the release of GoldenEye 007 on modern console?s is a great step forward for making classic games more accessible for new generations.

Speaking from experience as someone who isn't tech-savvy at all, emulators aren't for everyone. It's pretty cool that now anyone who has Game Pass can instantly get access to a classic that's been tough for the average player to get their hands on over the past couple of decades. Games preservation is important to me, especially considering we've lost a lot of the in?dustry's history already, but rereleases like this??? are certainly a vast improvement for the accessibility of classic games.

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'Oh my god, James Bond's going to die, HE'S GOING TO DIE!'

Prepare your Walther PPKs, Golden Guns, and Oddjob Chops, as Nintendo and Microsoft have announced that one of the most beloved and nostalgically held games of all time, GoldenEye 007 will be making its grand return via the Nintendo Switch Online and Xbox Game Pass services as soon as January 27. That's this? Friday!

The classic first-person shooter, developed by Rare and launched for the Nintendo 64 in 1997, is an adaptation of the 1995 film, which saw Pierce Brosnan don the shoulder holster as James Bond 007 for the very first time. While the game's single-player campaign holds incredible memories for players of a certain age, it is GoldenEye 007's multiplayer mode that is best remembered for delivering hours upon hou??rs of amazing multiplayer battles between friends.

//twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/161825??1558046806017?s=20&t=uqHGeT3sAi2--yZ5maTPpQ

The Nintendo Switch Online edition of GoldenEye 007 will indeed feature both the single-player and multiplayer modes in their entirety, bolstered by online play for the first time (officially) in the game's history. Unfortunately, the Xbox Game Pass edition will not feature online play, so you'll have to dial up the crew and get them 'roun?d for some old-school, remote-mine-flinging action.

The new release will be available t??o all Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack and Xbox Game Pass subscribers and will hopefully provide as much joy today as it did 25 years ago �with all of its wonky animations, square heads, and not-at-al?l-annoying-Natalya-constantly-running-into-your-line-of-fire.

For England, James?

GoldenEye 007 ?launches January 27 on Nintendo Switch and Xbox Game Pass.

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We've been expecting you, Mr. Bond

During today's Nintendo Direct presentation, the publisher revealed that one of the most popular Nintendo 64 titles of all time, Rare's GoldenEye 007, will be heading to the Nintendo Switch Online service at some point in the near future. Rare would also announce that the same release will be made available on Xbo??x platforms via th??e Xbox Game Pass service.

Many had wondered whether the 1998 classic would ever show its face on the Switch, or an??y modern gaming service, given its ??tangled mess of licensing deals. It seems, however, that Rare, Nintendo, and Xbox have managed to cross the i's and dotted the t's, and the multiplayer classic will soon be available to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers and Xbox platforms. Online multiplayer has been confirmed for the Switch release, but the Xbox Game Pass version may be local only.

GoldenEye 007 is "coming? soon" to Nintendo Switch Online and Xbox Game Pass.

You ??can check out the full range of upcoming Nintendo Switch Online titles in the video below

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8PrEUsma50

Other upcoming N64 games include Mario Party, Mario Party 2, and Pilotwings 64 in 2022. And next year, Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers are also getting 1080 Snowboarding, Excitebike 64, Mario Party 3, Pokémon Stadium, and Pokémon Stadium 2.

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Live on Saturday, May 7 at a Centre for Computing History event

This amazing GoldenEye 64 anti-screen-?cheating setup from the Centre for Computing History is a marvel of engineering, and it's playable soon.

Set to arrive publicly on Saturday, May 7 at a Centre for Computing History event in Cambridge, England, this GoldenEye 64 a??nti-screen-cheating setup re-routes authentic Nintendo 64 hardware to four screens. The idea is to eliminate screen-cheating (also known as "screen-looking," when someone can clearly see your split??-screen view and know where you are at all times) by giving everyone their own TV set.

It essentially perfectly frames each "split" portion into its own screen, and once the first player (which is centered) selects the match parameters, everything will be framed correctly for players 2-4. According to the centre, it takes "£8,000 worth of kit" to make this happen. I appreciate the dedication to make this? completely legit with the original hardware, but then again, it is the Centre for Computing History: preserving games is kind of what they do!

If you're local and want to partake, you can find event signups here. It'll involve guest speakers Martin Hollis, Dr. David Doak and Brett Jones, who were all developers for the original Nintendo 64 game. While GoldenEye 64 anti-screen-cheating will be the main event, there are other activities as well, like the chance to play the Japanese edition of GoldenEye 64, and a working "fully playable version" of the abandoned GoldenEye Remastered on the Xbox 360.

//twitter.com??/computermuseum/status/1521823363588624386

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Bond could be back in action on the Xbox

A leaked set of achievements seem to indicate that classic console FPS Goldeneye 007 could be coming to the Xbox ecosystem. As logged on TrueAchievements, a full set of rewards for a version of Goldeneye 007 has appeared online.

The nabbed list of achievements has 55 tasks to complete for 1,000 gamerscore. These include obvious ones, like completing maps like Dam and Facility on any difficulty. Bu??t there are others with more specific requirements, like some for unlocking Paintball Mode and the Golden Gun, or scoring 100 kills in multiplayer matches. My favorite is definitely the achievement for playing Slappers Only on Complex.

//twitter.com/Wario64/status/1477108966513467392

Back in 1997 when it first launched, Goldeneye 007 was the hallmark of dorm room splitscreen parties on the Nintendo 64. Its legacy has remained over the years too, even as more re-releases and updated versions have arrived. That includes a Wii version of Goldeneye 007 and Goldeneye 007: Reloaded.

Still, a lot of fans want the original back in its original form. The classic Goldeneye 007 was noticeably absent from the Rare Replay collection, though. And attempts have been made in the past by Rare and Microsoft, though they reportedly ran into complications.

The achievements leaking certainly seem like a surefire smoking Golden Gun for a modern Goldeneye port. And honestly, the time does seem right; my nostalgia for an older era of console shooters has been in overdrive with the launch of Halo Infinite. I was also prone to the occasional splitscreen Slappers Only match myself, and I'm interested to see what Goldeneye is?? like, decades of console FPS development later.

//twitter.com/007/status/1477237155013578758

We'll see in the coming weeks and months of the new year, I imagine, how this all pans out. But with the blue-checkmark James Bond Twitter account hinting at special things to come in celebration of Bond's 60th, Goldeneye 007 sure seems primed to re-emerge.

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Cblogs of 3/27 to 4/2/2021

-NinjaSpeed celebrates the 10th an?niversary of the excellent Nintendo 3DS.

-Shoggoth2588 introduces April's Band of Bloggers prompt regarding games that Subverted Your Expectations.

-Black Red Gaming continues ranking games in the Wolfenstein series with this blog about Wolfenstein 3D.

-Gamingnerd sheds a light on key digital-only PS3 games on account of the PS3 store closing ou??t this year.

-Startyde sheds a light on some PS3 and Vit??a storefront recomm?endations.

-Pacario shares his thoughts on the downsized arcade version of Bubble Bobble.

-BRAV0 F1VE discusses the seasonal assoc?iation in the ??video game industry.

-Aurachad reviews Star Wars: Squadron.

-Kerrik52 reviews Tales of Xilia 2 as part o??f his Travel??er in Playtime review blogging series.

-Humantofu shares his thoughts on the "adorable" Nintendo DS Goldeneye version.

-GoofierBrute talks about Pokemon Stadium 2 as part of this blo??gging series focusi?ng on games time forgot.

-Nior hi??ghlights a number of shoot 'em ups yo??u can buy and play for cheap.

-Elia Pales reviews Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony in this video review.

-Elia Pales tries to understand why Nintendo made Super Mario 3D All-Stars a limited release.

-Black Red Gaming shares a ??list of his most anticipated game release??s in April.

-My Enormous Downstairs Hairy Kitchen shares his thoughts on Mother 3 and the pleasures and t?he pain of games in general.

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Final Fantasy Tactics and several genres of music.

-Elly Meridian praises the release of the indie game Elly and the Ruby Atlas.

-Acefondu discusses the toxic nature of online communic?ation.

-ABowlOfCereal shares a summary of all his Super Smash Bros. posts (nearly 200 blogs!).

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Super Punch Out and dance-pop music.

-Gamingnerd gives all of you some words of encouragement in a ?day of foo?ling people.

-PhilsPhindings summarizes all of his musical posts of the past couple of years (??100 blogs!).

-Shoggoth2588 shares his gaming journal of March 2021.

-ChronoLynxx opens last week's TGIF open community thread.

Thank you for this week's great content! Special congratulations to PhilsPhindings and ABowlOfCereal for hitting amazing milestones in their chosen subjects! Thanks, as always, to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap. Head on over to the Cblogs and empty your head, (not literally), and you too could see you stories captured for posterit?y on Destructoid.

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For England, James?

In an undercover operation worthy of Bond himself, a full playthrough of the canceled Xbox 360 remaster of Rare's GoldenEye 007 has surreptitiously slipped onto YouTube, ?giving fans of the legendary N64 title perhaps their only opportunity to see the lost game i??n its entirety.

Originally planned for release on the XBLA service in 2008, Microsoft, Rare, and Nintendo somehow aligned the moon and the stars in order to get the remaster developed. However, the James Bond license serves many, many masters, resulting in endless issues that have plagued the franchise for decades. GoldenEye 007 for Xbox was no different and ultimately required too much plate-spinnin??g in order to get the remaster into the hands of the playe?rs.

The two-hour video was uploaded by GoldenEye 007 devotee Graslu00 - a highly prolific modder within the GoldenEye 007 community. We see the single-player campaign in its entirety, from the Dam-based opening all the way through to the Cradle finale, before we take a quick trip through the well-trodden multiplayer maps. The video is captured d?irectly from an emulator at 4K resolution running at 60 frames-per-second.

For obvious reasons, Graslau00 is declining to reveal their source of the footage, but has stated that this build of GoldenEye 007 for Xbox was initially accessible via Xbox dev kit software PartnerNet. Graslau00 also says that the video is unrelated to any recent GoldenEye 007 lea?ks and that any possible future "release" of this fabled XBLA build is not on ??them.

Complete footage of GoldenEye 077 for? XBLA emerges [GoldenEye Dossier / VGC]

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James Bond Won't Return In...

In something of an inevitability, James Bond licence holders Danjaq and MGM Studios have put the brakes on a fan remake of Nintendo 64 classic GoldenEye 007, several years into the project's development.

GoldenEye 25, which was conceived by artist and coder Ben Colclough, was intended to be a full recreation of the iconic 1997 shooter's single-player campaign, re-imagined entirely within Unreal Engine 4. Over the past two years, the developer has posted numerous screenshots and videos to social media, showcasing famous maps such as Facility and Silo, and beloved weapons such as the Klobb sub-machine gun ?and those pesky remote mines.

The initial plan was to have the remake ready to distribute, free-of-charge, in time for GoldenEye 007's 25th anniversary in 2022. But after MGM "kindly asked" the developer to cease-and-desist, it seems that Pierce Brosnan's James Bond comeback has been shelved in??definitely.

"This was always in the back of our heads as a possibility, but we've tried our best to keep going," the team wrote on Twitter. "We cannot do a Bond game but we can s??till do a great game with all the beloved aspects of our fa??vourite '90s action shooter."

The GoldenEye 25 project will now become "original title" Project Ianus, which is likely a suspiciously familiar game but now stripped of lawyer-angering brands and actor likenesses. So, while we will all mourn the loss of Unreal Engine Xenia Onatopp, it ??seems a strong possibility that we'll still get t?o take out unsuspecting guards with goofy karate chops.

You can follow the progress on Project Ianus over on the team's official Twitter account.

GoldenEye 64 remake shut down by licence holders [GamesIndustry.biz / Eurogamer]

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Developer David Doak takes us on a stroll through memory lane

"Slappers only, facility, heads-up 1v1, let's go," was the ultimate GoldenEye 007/64 challenge in 1997.

My "slappers" was always "proximity mines only," but you get the idea. GoldenEye was an institution for a lot of people back in the '90s, and years before Halo, helped usher in the idea of FPS games on consoles. It was also almost on-rails, which would have resulted in a completely? different cultural impact.

As GoldenEye developer David Doak reminds us, GoldenEye 007 was originally conceived as an on-rails shooter as a loving homage to the Virtua Cop series. This information was uncovered back in 2012 during a GoldenEye postmortem at GDC by Martin Hollis, but th??at revelation always immediately scoots to the back of my mind.

As Doak recalls this week, that early demo footage that's been cycling back around was how the game was originally programmed: "player movement was automatic and followed a scripted spline path. The original design was that the game would be more like Virtua Cop / Time Crisis."

By way of a Twitter conversation Doak manages to dig deeper after a fan shows him very early 1995 SpaceWorld footage, explaining, "I th??ink that this Archives footage predates the Silo. I wasn't involved at this stage but it looks like the camera path might even?? just be someone (Martin Hollis?) manually 'flying' the camera."

A lot of GoldenEye's developers have moved on to other stu?dios or out of the industry entirely, but every few years or so someone will reminisce and we'll get?? a little more insight into our past. I for one enjoy these small little light bulbs that pop up every so often in the room of this iconic game.

David Doak [Twitter]

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Very odd, never a job

Screencheat has fared very well on non-Nintendo systems since it was first released in 2014, but now that it's on the Switch, it feels truly at home. Four-player competitive gaming really came into its own on consoles with the N64, thanks to the likes of Mario Kart, Smash Bros. and GoldenEye. Screencheat caries forward the legacy of the latter in a very specific way.

All of the players are invisible, so the only way to locate someone to shoot them is to sneak a peek at their screen, using t??hat visual information as context before you aim and fire. Until you've played it, it might sound impossible, but matches can actually breeze along at a fairly quick pace, thanks t?o some ridiculously powerful (but balanced) weapons, tight environments filled with landmarks, and multiple game modes that put a fresh spin on the action. 

The visuals and music were revamped for this Unplugged remaster, with optional gyro controls and a fair bit of new content added ion to boot. If you're itching for some lighthearted multi-player action to tide you over before (and after) Smash Ultimate hits next week, this may be the way to go. 

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Buy me GoldenEye or go to hell

The Simpsons has been on our screens for coming up to 30 years, becoming a cornerstone in comedy timing and how to make quality animated entertainment content. And it's true that there are divides in the fandom: When did the show stop being funny? Season 8? Season 13? Are the Treehouse of Horror epis??odes the best episodes, or the worst episodes? Was the first season a load of old shite, or was it just a little rough around the edges? What should we do about culturally insensitive storylines written way back in the 1990s? Is Hans Moleman the sexiest man alive?&n?bsp;

However, the fanbase is still going strong, with dedicated meme pages popping up all over the shop and syndication continuing into perpetuity. The Simpsons has even had a fair few video games devoted to it, some being rightly regarded as classics, while others are appropriately reviled as the worst of licensed content. (Not The Simpsons Wrestling, though – I have a strange fondness for that game despite its technical flaws, just like Homer's inexplicable love of Sheriff Lobo.)

But, ignoring bona fide Simpsons games, which video games pair well with individual episodes, like a refreshing Duff with a ?Krusty Burger, or a crab juice with a stick of Khlav Kalash?? I gave it a good try with my list below – which is apparently the first step towards failure.

Putting this list together was actually a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. Early Simpsons episodes are more like standard morality tales, which doesn't always map well to video games. Sure, some of the biggest games of the last few years have ethical choices embedded in them, but it's also often combined with violence or other characteristics that don't fit well with a PG-rated show. For example, would I pair "Homer the Vigilante" with Manhunt, just because both involve the lead character getting back at criminals through equally questionable acts? No, it feels like a bit of a stretch. All the more reason for you to pipe up in the comments down below with your own favourite pairings of games and Simpsons episodes!

1. Bart the General (S1 E5), Bully/Canis Canem Edit

I thought I'd open with an early Simpsons episode – yes, I am one of those people who really enjoys the first season of The Simpsons. The animation is worse and the jok??es may not land quite as well, but you can see the raw materials o??f something brilliant.

In "Bart the General", Bart leads an army of his fellow students in a water-balloon-based battle against the school bullies. Grandpa Simpson and Herman Hermann, the one-armed gun shop owner, even get in on the deal, both seizing on their army vet knowledge to plan out strategies with Bart. It's an early instance of the time-honoured Simpsons tradition of parodying film, with Full Metal Jacket getting a nod. In my opinion, it's one of the more intelligent and deeply amusing Simpsons episodes, subtly lampooning the adult? practice of war rather than going for i?nstant belly laughs.

Bully came straight to mind when I was thinking about this episode. While Bully is not really a game about war, it is about a troubled teenager fighting against certain factions at his school. There are many parallels between Jimmy and Bart that go beyond this particular episode, but Bart actually fighting back made me realise how much they are cut from the same cloth. If you want the feeling of returning to school again, with no real struggles except the silly fights you pick for pretty spurious reasons, I'd advise watching Bart the General and playing Bully.

2. Bart on the Road (S7 E20), Final Fantasy XV

Full disclosure: Final Fantasy XV gripped me from the start, while other Final Fantasy games have not been able to get their hooks into me that easily. This is because it starts off with that bloody car scene and then the Florence and the Machine music starts playing and you know something bad is going to happen and things ?aren't going to? be this way forever and before you know it, you're howling in anguish into a carton of ice-cream.  

"Bart on the Road" reminds me a lot of those early days in Hammerhead, when things were going a little bit off the rails, but not quite as terribly as they do?? an hour or so into the game. In this episode, Bart forges a driver's licence and goes on a road trip with his crew to attend the World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. They discover that the fair has been abandoned and find themselves stuck in the middle of now?here without a ride.

While the purpose of the road trip in this Simpsons episode is more frivolous – going to an expo versus getting married – and Final Fantasy XV is very rarely about innocent hi-jinks, it kind of tickles me to thin??k of the two alongside each other. Maybe the crown prince's squad had a few of these youthful, purposeless jaunts across Eos before shit got real.

3. Homerpalooza (S7 E24), Tony Hawk's Underground 2

Homerpalooza is another highly memorable and meme-able episode, whether it's Cypress Hill jamming with the London Symphony Orchestra, Peter Frampton's lost inflatable pig or Homer's confused exchange with Billy Corgan. The entire episode is ?based on the alt-rock scene of the late 1990s, which?? predates the skater scene of the early-mid 2000s, but is not so far removed from it.

What particularly made me think of Tony Hawk's Underground 2 when watching this episode was the plot point of Homer catching cannonballs with his stomach. Homer is renowned for putting his health at risk for stupid ideas and sche?mes ??(see also "King-Size Homer" and "The Homer They Fall"), but it's particularly egregious and to Jackass levels in "Homerpalooza".

It reminded me a lot of the kicking that Phil Margera got in Viva La Bam and in some of the cutscenes in Tony Hawk's Underground 2. Did Phil not tell his son to quit being a dick because it made them money? Because he was spineless? Or because, like Homer, he wanted to be cool and popular? I'm not sure, but while the set pieces in THUG2 have aged very poorly, "Homerpalooza" is more of a nostalgia kick for me. Well, as nostalgic as you can be for a scene that was thriving when you were barely ou??t of nappies. But hey, I listened to a lot of Smashing Pumpkins as a brooding tween, so th??at surely counts.

4. You Only Move Twice (S8 E2), GoldenEye 007

This is an obvious one. The main plot of "You Only Move Twice" is about Homer's new boss seeming like a nice chap on the face of it, but he is actually a Bond villain, with Homer of course remaining completely oblivious until late in the day. Hank Scorpio is a fan favourite, and for good reason: it's very witty tha?t Homer would escape one megalomaniac boss (Mr Burns) and wind up with another so nice and?? understanding that he loops back around to being evil too (Scorpio). 

A silly yet great episode deserves a silly yet great game, and the iconic Rare title GoldenEye 007 answers that call. Not only is it a well-liked Bond game, but people sing the praises of its multiplayer and it's listed along Perfect Dark as one of the best FPS games of its era. With less than a year between "You Only Move Twice's" broadcast date and the release of GoldenEye 007 ?for the N64, you'd be hard pushed to find a more perfect p??airing. 

5. The Joy of Sect (S9 E13), Far Cry 5

This episode perfectly showcases the difference between the "dumb" characters in The Simpsons and those who are capable of critical thinking. When a cult (??based on real-life cults, such as Scientology and Heaven's Gate) rolls into town, the populace of Springfield get roped in en masse. While Marge and Lisa very quickly start pushing against the boundaries of what the Movementarians allow them to do, Homer is quite happy to go along with the simple teachings of the group. Marge's escape scene even made me think of what I had read on people trying to traverse the no man's land in front of the Berlin Wall, making an illicit journey from East to West. It's an episode that feels well researched and keeps a good balance between comedy and tragedy.

A recent and notable game about cults is Far Cry 5. Joseph Seed is a more menacing and disturbing character than the Leader, and the Leader is more of a scam artist than a deluded and dangerous man. But the episode and the game paired with each other show both the ridiculous and the serious sides to fanaticism, which is a quite important contrast to take in. Even the funnier approach of this Simpsons episode does a lot to explain how everyday people can be lured into cults, ev?en though most of us insist we would never be so gullible.

6. Trash of the Titans (S9 E22), Democracy 3/SimCity 4

Beyond the fact that the "Garbage Man" song is one of the catchier tunes in the Simpsons repertoire, and U2 (alongside R.E.M.) is my favourite cameo in the series, I love this episode. It's the perfect example of Homer biting off more than he can chew, and of Homer being stubborn on principle. My other favourite instance of Homer being as stubborn as a mule is when he sues Captain McAllister after he gets kicked out of the Frying Dutchman for absolutely gutting the place during an all-yo??u-can-eat buffet.

Homer leaps face-first into his new position as garbage commissioner in "Trash of the Titans", abusing his office and the environment with equal gusto. In the end, the entire town has to be moved, as the original Springfield becomes a literal landfill site. This level of incompetence is hard to achieve by accident, but if you want to appreciate how hard it can be to make good-faith decisions in power, play Democracy 3. My multiple playthroughs of that game have always been incredibly short, because it can be very difficult to stick to your principles while runn?ing a fiscally sound country.

Likewise, the SimCity games (I've listed SimCity 4 as the most recent "good" SimCity game) back you into a corner a lot when it comes to running a town i?n a sustainable fashion. Think you can do better than Homer? Try your luck with these games, but prepare yourself for how easy it is to slip into unintentional or negligent incompetence. 

Are you a Simpsons fan? Which episodes would you pair with a video game, and why? Have you played Bonestorm or Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge? Let me know in the comments down below!

The post Pairing Simpsons episodes with video games appeared first on Destructoid.

It's a playable mod

Someone made a Mario mod for GoldenEye 64, and it's surprisingly comprehensive.

In addition to adding an amalgam for? all the characters (Toad is Oddjob, in case you were wondering), the entire campaign is present with Koopa Troopas subbing in for soldiers, and three Mario-centric multiplayer maps are in (Peach's Castle, Bob-omb Battlefield, and Big Boo's Haunt). Impressively, it all works on actual hardware, and will even feature the right amount of slowdown.

If?? you want the mod, you can grab it in the below vide?o's description.

The post G?oldenEye with Mario characters is just as sil??ly as it sounds appeared first on Destructoid.

'For England, James..?'

It may be the end of the road for Mr. Bond, as the Japanese servers for the Nintendo Wii remake of GoldenEye 007 will be closing in 2018.

The Wii re-release of Rare's 1997 classic has been used for almost eight years now to keep budding agents online, recalling the heady days? of intense Golden Gun and Slappers Only battles. Just four Oddjobs, running around like madmen, chopping the hell out of each other.

At 10:00 JST on March 30 2018, the Japanese servers will be no more. There is no word yet whether the West will follow suit, but we'll keep you updated. Then it'll be back to gathering friends around the trusty N64, which purists would argue is the only true way to play GoldenEye's multiplayer at all.

The post Japanese GoldenEye 007 Wii ?servers will close in Spring 2018 appeared first on Destructoid.

Dam, son

This weekend, speedrunner Karl Jobst blew his (and many other runner's) minds when he toppled a World Record on Rare's legendary N64 title GoldenEye 007. A record that was originally set some f?ifteen?? years ago.

The record in question pertains to the game's first level, Dam, on Agent difficulty. On September 22, 2002, GoldenEye player Bryan Bosshardt finished one of gaming's most recognisable stages in 53 seconds, a record that players have attempted to beat countless times since. On December 2, 2017, Australian player Karl Jobst did what many have thought impossible for years, by beating the time by a single second. The video below shows the successful run, complete with Jobst i??nternal freakout?? when the record-setting time is revealed.

Jobst is? helped by a couple of bullets in the back, which give him a minor boost, as well as getting a "fast gate" at the Dam entrance. You may notice that he keeps the camera glued to the floor or the sky, this is a tactic used by runners to reduce rendering tim??e, that can slow the game down.

It's one of those moments that many outside of video gaming, or even within it, may not think a big deal, but for those that care about speedrunning, or just love seeing people achieve personal goals, it's a wonderful clip.

Congratulations Karl, now... who's got 0:51?

The post Speedrunner beats 15-year-old World R?ecord on GoldenEye 007 appeared first on Destructoid.

No Oddjobs

On August 25, just a few days from now, the Nintendo 64 classic GoldenEye 007 will celebrate its 20th anniversary. That's 20 years of jumping off that dam, 20 years of golden guns and 20 years of chaotic multiplayer in the Archives and other levels sometimes but mostly just the Archives. Originally set to debut on the SNES as an on-rails shooter, GoldenEye 007 w??as rebuilt from the ground up for the N64 and missed the release of the movie by nearly two years. 

The wait was worth it and for anyone who owned a Nintendo 64, it was a necessary addition to their gaming collection. Its lengthy cam?paign is still a blast to play through with multiple objectives to complete and then-amazing recreation of the locatio?ns from the hit film.

But what makes it still the best Nintendo 64 game today is the local competitive multiplayer. I can't name another first person shooter that got as much play between me and my friends than GoldenEye. Even Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 64 were cast to the wayside in favor of this perfect party game. Just me, Tristan, Shawn and Lee, three guys who I don't have contact with anymore, hopped up on orange soda and a Hawaiian Papa ??Murphy's Take-and-Bake (all the premium taste, without the premium price) gunning each other down for hours on end. 

20 years ago GoldenEye 007 revolutionized the genre on consoles. 50 years from now, those of us in our 70s, 80s, and 90s will still be talking about the wonderful times we had with it providing the dementia hasn't ravaged our brains. No other game can compete. Keep that in mind when you read what is written below because for this Destructoid Discusses question of the week, I wanted to know what the staff thought was the best game for the N64. Well, second best, because you know... GoldenEye.

Chris

This was one of CJ's toughest questions to answer yet. There's just so many great platformers like Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie, but outside of those my mind immediately gravitated toward one game -- Diddy Kong Racing.

Kart racers owe a lot to Diddy Kong. Before Mario Kart 7, 8, and Sonic Racing brought the whole "multi-vehicle" concept to the forefront, Diddy Kong did it. In fact, I continue to bring up to this day that kart racing just hasn't been the same since Diddy Kong and Crash Team Racing. There's nothing quite like a proper story mode to go along with all of our multiplayer shenanigans, as I still go back and finish them from time to time. Boss fights against specific enemies slot so well into a racing game, I just wish ??more people would do it.

Until then, I'll keep my Nintendo 64 and original Pla?yStation intact.

Bass

There’s something I need to get off my chest. I haven’t been entirely honest in the past. When I said Paper Mario was my favorite Nintendo 64 game, it was a lie. I couldn’t admit my true love. I was too afra?id.

But now I come clean. Iggy’s Reckin Balls is what peak 3D performance looks like. It launched in 1998 and back in the day, there was nothing quite like it. It was basically Sonic in the third dimension, but… done right. Fast movement. Tight controls. That chain thing from Knuckles’ Chaotix. And a lot of rings.

There’s just something incredibly satisfying about grabbing a lot of platforms in a row and rapidly climbing your way to the? goal. And the best part? You can style on your friends in local multiplayer. I used to play it all the time as Charlie. Not only because it’s an amazing name, but also because he has the smuggest grin of? all video games.

But I’m kidding, Paper Mario is still ??my favorite. Shade claimed it before me… I’ll get my revenge one day.

ShadeOfLight

Damn right I already picked Paper Mario.

And why wouldn't I? Paper Mario remains?? one of the most accessible and fun JRPGs of all time, only matched by its own sequel.

While this wasn't the first time that Mario found himself in a JRPG, it was the first time it really left a strong impression on me. For as good as Super Mario RPG was, it was ultimately a fairly standard JRPG. Paper Mario took the genre into a direction wholly its own, and it is better for it. It has no grand overworld, only Mario and one party member (Partner) at a time, low HP and damage values, combat fully focu??sed on Action Commands, badges that allow you to customize Mario's special attacks and a lot of exploration o?utside of battles. What results is a very streamlined experience that fits Mario and the Mushroom Kingdom incredibly well.

However, the biggest standouts in Paper Mario are the characters. For the first time in the Mario franchise, we get to visit villages of friendly Goombas, Koopas, Boos and other regular Mushroom Kingdom baddies. It's incredibly fun to get this bigger picture of what the Mushroom Kingdom is like and who its inhabitants are. Some of them will even join Mario on his quest! You'll partner up with a Goomba with a baseball cap, a cultured lady Boo, a bumbling postman Parakoopa, a pink Bob-omb with a heart-shaped fuse, and a bunch of other colorful characters. When people complain that games like Sticker Star and Color Splash only have generic Toads i?n them, this game is why. &nb??sp;

With the great characters also comes writing that will charm your pants off. There always seems to be something weird or silly going on in Paper Mario, so there's never a dull moment playing this game. In the very first chapter you already end up beating up a fake Bowser piloted by four Koopas channeling the Ninja Turtles, and it only gets crazier from there. From Shy Guys in toy tanks to a penguin murder mystery, and from one very determined baby Koopa to shapeshifters who ??are less than proficient at mimicking their targets, this game has too many funny and memorable moments to name. 

Paper Mario is one of my most replayed games of all time, for good reason. It's brisk, it's funny, it's charming, it's engaging, and it's just plain fun to play. Among the N64 library, Paper Mario is the Coolest of Cool. 

Chris Seto

Since the Great Chris has already taken Diddy Kong Racing, I decided to go for one of the lesser remembered favorites from my N64 collection. And that game is Mystical Ninja starring Goemon! Gameplay-wise, this was mostly just a Mario 64 clone with weird, irreverent and sometimes obtusely Japanese jokes but it was still fun as heck but the sole reason why I remember this so fondly (an?d probably everyone else who enjoyed this game too) is down to one thing... IMPACT!!

Just TRY ??and not sing along to the theme song, I dare you!

Mystical Ninja was never a particularly popular series outside of its native Japan but what we did get was pretty damn memo?rable? and I sunk hours into this game and Impact fights! All together now. "Ore wa GORGEOUS Aah! Impacto!!"

Occams Electric Toothbrush

In college, my friends and I divided our time between Super Smash Bros. and Halo. We spent hours, entire weekends centered around the act of playing the two games in marathon sessions. We would get shitty beer, cheap Chinese take-out and pause only for bathroom and smoke breaks. These times are fondly remembered and I’m sure many?? of you reading this can relate with your own friends and games.

While I think it's looked at as a “humble beginnings” kind of game today, Super Smash Bros. is still my favorite game in the series. It’s lacking a lot of the bells and whistles and newer iterations have refined the formula to a science but nothing can beat that first game for me. I rotated between Mario, Kirby and Donkey Kong and we had tons in in-jokes. There was the donkey punch which would be announced loudly with each successful hit. A Jihadist yell echoed loudly in the apartment every time the fully charged cannon connected. A fake Italian accent would spit out a torrent of ??invective every time Mario won the match. Even now as I type this, I’m smiling looking back at those salad days.

Super Smash Bros. kicked off a franchise that has beco??me a key title for every Nintendo console since. And I get it. I don’t play it anymore but when I see kids 20 years younger than me talking about it, I can’t help but smile. It is an amazing game and series and easily my favorite N64 game ever.

Wesley Russow

Growing up, man, I had it rough. After the NES, my parents bought me a Sega Genesis. Every single kid I knew had a SNES. Sonic was hella lame back in those days since I was essentially the only kid who couldn't platform his ass off with Super Mario World, or JRPG his nuts off with Chrono Trigger. After that most kids had a Nintendo 64 - I got a PlayStation. Yet again, I missed the boat? on the "it" system in my group of friends. The course was corrected with the PS2, and after that, I could buy whatever the hell I wanted, but man there were a few years there where I was at the mercy of my parents' budget and whatever pimply Sears salesperson who convinced my parents to go against the grain.

Because of that, I know the N64 mainly from a second-hand perspective, only getting to play the console when I'd go to my friends' houses. I remember all the fun times passing the controller in Mario 64 and Star Fox 64, and the long nights and friendships broken over battle mode in Mario Kart 64. Really, any game on this list could make it into my top spot, all for different reasons (except Diddy Kong Racing, that game was wack as hell, Chris).

But man, there's nothing quite like the absurdity of Pokemon Snap. I mean, it's a tough fucking sell, right?

"Hey little Wessy, do you want to play the newest Mario game where you can race giant turtles and slide down i?ce luges with penguins and throw a dinosaur off of a platform magically suspended above lava and fly around with your fucking magical winged hat? Or would you rather play as an eight-year-old lesbian as he slowly carts through ??locales, taking pictures of stupid Japanese monsters like Wet Turtle and Dick Gopher and Big Blue Mexican?"

"Fuck you, Terry! Th??at second game sounds like shit! I can't believe my mom sleeps with you!"

That's the obvious response any child would give to his step-dad given the choice between the two. But man, there's just something so magical and well-conceived and plain dumb that makes Pokemon Snap work. I'll admit, I never even got into Pokemon. I didn't have any cards, I didn't have any of the handheld games, and I didn't watch the cartoon. Just wasn't for me. But from the first time I booted the game up and got sent out on that cart that went too slow to have any fun, but too fast to make the game easy, I was hooked. Was it the fact that the game incentivized replays with newer and newer items to use in previous ??levels? Maybe. Was it the hidden Pokemon and pictures that one could photograph using their cunning and keen eye? Possibly. Or was it the fact that you could pelt Snorlax repeatedly in?? the crotch with apples about two minutes into the game, all without waking the snoring beast from its slumber? That had a lot to do with it, for sure.

Many games today have a photo mode. And while that's all well and good, I feel like we're long past the days where a game could exclusively focus on taking pictures of characters we're so used ?to making fight on our behalf. There's a special kind of stupid behind this concept, an?d it's that special kind of stupid that's stuck with me all after all these years.

Marcel Hoang

To be clear, there were a lot of choices I wanted to go with. But I didn't want to step on the dibs called by other editors for games like Mischief Makers or Banjo-Tooie. But the N64 is chock full of great games, including a great series of Star Wars games. A lot of people got their start on LucasArts with titles like Star Wars: X-Wing or TIE Fighter. But for me, it was Rogue Squadron.

Rogue Squadron was my introduction to the idea that there was more story to the Star Wars lore than what you see on the films. Daring missions of aerial impossibility taking place in Rogue Squadron like liberating p??risoners from a prison train, dog fighting TIE fighters over a city as an Imperial defector escapes to the Rebel Alliance and even taking down ships called World Devastators. And that's not even including legacy missions like living out the Death Star trench run for yourself.

I still remember how unfair the escort missions were, especially the one involving the AT-PTs, which seem to be made of wet crackers. But by far one of my favorite things was piloting a Y-Wing and setting up the bombing reticule to go on exciting bombing runs. I don't know why the Y-Wing is supposed to be considered the slow moving, heavily shielded ship, but to this day I always keep an eye out for Y-Wings in the movies because I loved doing bombing runs so much in Rogue Squadron.

Darren Nakamura

How have we gotten this far on this list with no mention of the game that launched the Nintendo 64? The dang three-legged controller was built for this game. There have been better 3D platformers since Super Mario 64, but this was the one that made ??all of those possible??.

I remember when the Nintendo 64 first launched, my local Blockbuster Video had a demo station set up with Super Mario 64 in it. As a way to provide cheap entertainment, my mother would drive me there and let me play for what seemed like hours while she sat? in the car doing adult things. (Taxes? I don't know.)

And after nothing but eight-directional digital movement for my entire life up until that point, I was blown away at the newfangled analog stick and what it meant for control. Not only could I move in any direction I wanted, but at a variable speed depending on the intensity of the stick manipulation. And to showcase it, Mario 64 gave reasons to creep, ?like sneaking past sleeping piranha plants. It sounds trivial because it's so ingrained now, but it was revolutionary at the time.

Anthony Marzano

What kind of Star Fox fan would I be if I didn't go on for a while about why the best game in the series is the best game of the 64? Star Fox 64 was o??ne of those perfect storms that result from the combination of two low-pressure systems merging into a monster storm that wreaks havoc on everyone in its path. The two elements that came together perfectly was the quickly aging on-rails space shooter and the beginning of what could be called the graphics age where graphical power came to replace writing as the forefront of what development focused on.

Prior to this most games were bland looking and the tech that was available made good action on consoles something that was hard to come by outside of fighting games, on-rails shooters, and platformers if that was your thing. With the fifth generation consoles though, more 3D rendering was able to be done and games such as Goldeneye, Mario 64 and Superman 64 were going t??o l??eave all the old games in the dust. It was a major turning point in gaming if I do say so myself and because of the fact that Star Fox 64 released right at that advent made it something special.

Sure Star Fox on SNES was fun, but the graphics were pretty bland and there wasn't much in the way of immersion. With Star Fox 64 though it looked beautiful for the time, and for the first time that I was hearing characters actually voiced. Yes, that came to be a problem when Slippy cried out "I'm monkey food if I don't leave" for the third time that playthrough but it allowed the characters to have a lot more personality. It also showed me for the first time that villains can be fun to watch if they are done right. Wolf O'Donnell quickly became something of a friendly rivalry in my eyes (something that would make me giddy with joy during the later Star Fox Assault). Add on top of that it was filled with space battles that made the young Star Wars fan in me so happy to play that it opened my young eyes. Also helped that at the time my mother and I weren't the most well off family so it was the only game I had but I dearly loved it. (Another bonus as well was that the soundtrack was?????????????????????????? near perfect in my eyes but that has nothing to do with my poin??t I'm trying to make.)

So why does this all combine into the perfect storm? Because I don't think Star Fox would have or has worked as well at any other point in time than when 64 came out. With the SNES game, it was a little ahead of its time?? and therefore couldn't fully be realized with the scope of the game and the tech available. Now when you put it in the sixth generation where the tech available made another giant leap the on-rails and short aspects of the game would have been seen as not advanced enough and therefore looked down upon for not using the available tech to its full advantage. So it really just came out at the perfect time and benefited from that greatly.

Jonathan Holmes

The N64 is one of my least favorite consoles of all time, in large part due to games like GoldenEye. All the things I loved about video games up until the release of GoldenEye were missing from the game, replaced by everything I didn't like about cor?ny, formulai??c Hollywood storytelling. It really was the worst of all possible worlds for me. 

That was over 20 years ago now, and I've since softened to both the N64 and formulaic popcorn movies, but it's still hard for me to go back and play most N64 games today and think "Yeah, this is as good as it ever got for this series/franchise/etc.". I love Majora's Mask, but the 3DS remake is better. I love Star Fox 64, but again, I prefer the 3DS remake. Sin and Punishment is? great, but I like the second even more, and?? so on.

The one exception to that is Dr. Mario 64. It is, by far, the best Dr. Mario game. It has four player multiplayer, tons of playable characters (including Vampire Wario, a dumb frog, and a giant disgusting Virus boss named Rudy), and even a story. The cut scenes star what looks like Dr. Mario, Wario, and a host of other characters painted on... rocks? I don't know if they meant that as a commentary on how bad most polygon-based games looked back then, but regardless if it were intentional or not, it worked. These are just a few of the reasons why I love Dr. Mario 64 so much. 

They ported it to the Gamecube as part of an amazing pu?zzle game compilation. It even had GBA link compatibility, allowing you to download NES versions of the games from the disc straight to the portable. Nothing would make me happier to see something like that on the ?Switch in 2018. 

Rich Meister

If I'm being perfectly honest my favorite N64 game was Paper Mario, but alas I was beaten to the punch. If I had to pick a second It would no doubt be Conker's Bad Fur Day.

It's less about Conker's gameplay. That 3D platformer style was pretty generic on the N64, But I was pretty young when I experienced this game. Conker was crude, I suppose?????????????????????????? that??'s the best way to say it. Playing that game made a young Rich feel like he was getting away with something.

Despite it mostly being sex jokes Conker made me feel mature and that's worth something.

Peter Glagowski

This particular question took me a long time to come up with an answer. For the amount of time I spent playing the N64 as a child, I?? don't really have a desire to return to the console. Its controller is odd, most of the games are fairly simplist??ic and things tend to run at an atrocious framerate. It's hard to really pick up most N64 games and not wish they would receive more modern control schemes or simply smoother performance.

Out of the entire library, the easiest games to return to are both of the Zelda releases for the system. While they clearly could be improved i??n a few of the areas I mentioned above (which happened with the 3DS re-releases), the amount of forward-thinking Nintendo took with developing a camera system for 3D action games is something that still gets utilized to this day. That simple r?eason makes navigating these games feel light-years ahead of its contemporaries.

So while Majora's Mask might be my favorite Zelda title, it's hard to call any other game on the platform the "best" when Ocarina of Time is one of the most important video games ever created. Not only did it solve traversal issues with 3D spaces, it also introduced the idea of day/night cycles, it gave gamers their first taste of "open-world" level design and it even expanded the scope of what a Zelda game could be.

Yeah, sure, some of the dungeons are a bit simple, the plotline doesn't try anything special and the game can be vague as all hell, but the fact that a series like Dark Souls basically uses the same targeting system and approach to combat is just insane. Ocarina of Time represents a period of Nintendo's history where their flagship franchises did?n't fall into formulaic holes and could be wildly different? between each entry. It also set the world of gaming on fire and changed the future of development for many companies.

So, overall, I really cannot pick anything else. Zelda is a series that is near and dear to me and Ocarina of Time showed 10-year-old me that gaming could be more than just scrolling left to right or fu?nctioning on a single plane of existence. It?? may not be my favorite (or the "best" on the system), but it still remains an absolute masterpiece.

Salvador G-Rodiles

Whenever I look back to my childhood with the Nintendo 64, I always think about Mischief Makers. For a game that revolved around grabbing and throwing your opponents, Treasure allowed its players to pull off some ridiculous moves. Some of these examples include damaging a giant super robot with its own rocket punch, along with increasing a missile's size through shaking it with one's bare hands. When I got to shake some?thing, I always enjoyed hearing the main heroine, Ma??rina Liteyears, say "shake shake" with an adorable voice.

Because of its cute designs and grab mechanics, Mischief Makers continues to be one of my favorite 64 games. Despite its early levels not having any enemies, I saw the whole thing as a neat way to introduce players to the setting and s??tory while they head towards the stage's exit. 

Other than that, it was the only title I rented constantly from Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video. Unfortunately, I never got past the game's track and field level since I kept messing up on one of the minigames. Thanks to a close friend from college, I managed to finish Mischief Makers when I borrowed it from him. In the end, this moment taught me the importance of keeping one's older systems, and it helped me real??ize my love for this game. Most importantly, this memory resulted in Marina becoming my favorite robot girl.

Pixie The Fairy

Pfft. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is easily the best N64 game because it is the Groundhog Day of video games, which is the best movie ever. Both star a guy that lives the same period of time over and over until they become a rather multi-talented god. You also take on the lives of dead people and help them find peace through resolving their final wishes, so it's kinda like you're Sam Beckett. So it's like Groundhog Day and a morbid Quantum Leap on top of that.

Sure, Link didn't learn to play the piano or?? do ice sculptures, but he rescued Epona, became three other races and helped that poor guy that fell in the toilet with his w??iping problem.

Several years before people were running about virtual Japanese towns in Persona 3 and 4, Majora's Mask was out there having Link track/stalk NPCs though their whole 24/7 routines and solving their problems. It was insanely detailed, right down to when NPCs woke up a??nd went to bed 

It's also the bleakest and story/lore-driven Zelda game I've played. When you're not walking around wearing the faces of dead people, t?he citizens of Termina are losing their minds over the moon gradu??ally descending toward their town. They have breakdowns, lose hope, get drunk and even drug their kids so they don't have to face the terror of their world's end.

Plus this is a?? game where Link proves he can be a hero without wielding a magic sword or mischevious go??ld triangles. It's not a quest to kill the bad guy but to rescue him, redeem him and reunite him with his friends. It's a story of unconditional love and friendship. 

And then Link returns to the Lost Woods of Hyrule, never finds Navi, dies and becomes the Stalfos Knight that mentors you in Twilight Princess. Because that's ho??w nice his go??ds are.

Josh Tolentino

I never actually owned a Nintendo 64. I did, however, borrow one from a school friend (dumb kids are much more generous with expensive hardware than jaded adults are, it seems), and I loved Mario 64 the one game my friend had. Of course, someone's already written about it above, so there's no ?need for me to tell you about it again. Instead, I'll speak of the game I got after I had to return my friend's N64, a game that, were it not for the quirks of fate and technology in the '90s, might have been an N64 game itself.

I am, of course, referring to Final Fantasy VII. As covered in Matt Leone's excellent in-depth history of the game, there was a time when Square had operated under the assumption that the next Final Fantasy game would be on the next Nintendo system. They had even produced the playable demo you see above for 1996's Siggraph conference, using CG models of Final Fantasy VI characters. Already one can see the roots of FFVII's own approach to polygon characters. Ironically, the renderings of Terra, ?Locke, and Shadow in this demo are quite a bit more articulated and advanced than the blocky (non-battle) characters that appeared in the actua?l, final PS1 game.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be, thanks to a combination of Sony's outreach, the increasing popularity of CDs as a storage medium, and Square's growing desire for lavish 3D graphics and CG cutscenes. The rest is history, and I can't help but wonder if I would've ended up getting an N64 for myself had Square chosen another path. After all, Final Fantasy VI and Super Mario RPG are my top two SNES games. If there was any company that could've convinced me to buy a sy??stem fo??r their next game, it would've been Square.

Nick Valdez

Mario Tennis is mad good how dare you.

Cory Arnold

Well, some of the best answers are already taken (I mean, the N64 is better than both NES and SNES so there's a lot to choose from), so here's me making a case for Banjo-Kazooie. BK remains one of the best examples of masterful?? sound design.

Not only is the soundtrack upbeat and energetic in the way it needs to be to deliver that atmosphere of fun, but ?the item collection sounds are satisfying and make you want to pick them up. The characters' and enemies' grunts, chirps, and cries are all hilarious and perfectly fitting.

Banjo Kazooie is the "collect-a-thon" at its best, so much so people are still trying to capture its magic. Every collectible counts towards progression in some way, and you don't have to get ?all the notes or puzzle pieces to beat the game. Each level feels different from the last including the fun trivia game at the end that you'd have to be a grumpy ole cynic not to enjoy.

*****

Yo dawgs, those are all good answers and junk except for Pokemon Snap, but the hard truth is I'm right. GoldenEye 007 is the best. But you don't have to take my word for it.?? Instead, take Rick Lash's word, on loan to us from ou?r sister site Flixist.

Rick Lash

I have to agree with CJ here, or rather, CJ agrees with me. As someone who's played "Bond," aka GoldenEye for the full 20-year duration, including to this very day [no joke, I have a Bond go-bag], there was never another possible answer. Sure, the obvious runner-up would be Mario Kart 64, but despite its comparable longevity and popularity, it wasn't the game changer that GoldenEye was.

Surely you've heard of Halo, right? Not without Bond you fucking haven't. I rest my case. Only, to do so here would not be to do GoldenEye any justice. Let's forgo any talk of single player or missions -- the only reason you needed to worry about these at all was to unlock additional, secret multiplayer characters. Blowjob anyone? Or Oddjob, the famous mi??dget henchman who had the distinct advantage of being under the aim of all other characters, and at the perfect height for... To play with Oddjob was to play without honor.

Multiplayer. One-hit kills. Pick your weapon. Pick your place. My cadre of 4 and I will take your best, any time. Many have boasted 'they're pretty good' at Bond, only to quit playing after a? game, maybe two, as the slaughter was ?too intense. Note: even my 'newest' N64 controllers are starting to go, and go quick. Let's hope this purported re-release happens soon and we can continue to enjoy the horrible graphics and the crazy laughter induced by slaughtering your friends for another 20 years.

The post 20 years later, GoldenEye 007 is still the greatest Nintendo ??64 game appeared first on Destructoid.

It would be a cool mod

There was a time where nearly every PC FPS had some form of a GoldenEye type mod, or some effort was made to create it. Before Halo swept the nation and gave us MLG, GoldenEye 64 was the gateway drug into the FPS genre for folks who didn't play on PC, augm?ented by an amazing four-player mode.

YouTuber Noilleber decided to create a mashup on Overwatch's Dorado, which, now that I think about it, looks like a level that could have came from a retro shooter. There's also? a few more subtle nods, like the weaponry of some of the characters resembling the more iconic gear in the Rare classic, and Torbjörn doubling as Oddjob.

Oh, and the sound effects are there too. There's nothing more maddening than dying, hearing that little James Bond ;jingle, and seeing the blood rush over your scr??e?en.

The post This Overwatch and GoldenEye 64 mashup is just what I nee??ded appeared first on Destructoid.

Prop up that player population

We're a day out from GoldenEye: Source 5.0 and, good lord, this project has been going on for more than a decade! Crazier yet: we even covered it back when it was new! That's baffling to think about.

This is a free Source Engine mod that recreates and expands upon the classic 007 multiplayer that dismantled so many friendships in the late '90s and early '00s. With version 5.0, GoldenEye: Source adapts the memorable ?Dam level for use in competitive play, though not without changes?:

"The layout of the map had to be altered to allow? for more interesting and engaging gameplay, while also staying true to the original," wrote its lead designer, who goes by Torn. "One example of how this was achieved was by creating an entirely n??ew sewer system that creates a path between the front and back sides of the map. It was important to give people a choice on where to go, and not force them to go in any one specific direction."

Besides Dam and existing map overhauls, there are reimagined weapon designs, more achievements to work toward, and further-refined gameplay and visuals. You can read about all of the specific changes made for version 5.0 in this series of blog posts by the development team.

Launch is set for 1:00pm Pacific tomorrow, August 12, and you can download the files you'll need (again, this stuff is free!) from a few different places, which are linked here on the mod's website.

The post GoldenEye: Source is still around and it’s about to be updated appeared first on Destructoid.

For England, James?

Experience Points is a series in which I highlight some of the most memorable things about a particular game. These can include?? anything from a specific scene or moment, a character, a weapon or item, a level or location, a part of the soundtrack, a gameplay mechanic, a line of dialogue, or anything else about the game that is particularly noteworthy and/or awesome.

This serie??s will no doubt contain spoilers for the games being discussed, so keep that in mind if you plan on playing the game for the first time.

This entry is all about GoldenEye fo?r the Nintend??o 64. Feel free to share some of your own favorite things about the game in the comments!

No guns, mines only, final destination

The main reason GoldenEye is remembered so fondly is no doubt because of the multiplayer. Four-player split-screen multiplayer was a big deal at the time, especially for a first-person shooter on consoles. It was actually my very first experience with a first-person shooter. I played GoldenEye so much with my brother, friends, and cousins that we sta??rted to develop our own rules and go-to gameplay modes which dominated our multiplayer sessions.

My absolute favorite thing to do in multiplayer GoldenEye is to play "proximity mines only." Choosing proximity mines also comes with a few guns as well, but my friends and I played where we would only kill each other with the mines. Guns were only to be used to shoot mines, never other pla?yers. Of all the weapon types to choose from, and even of all the different types of mines to choose from, proximity mines were the most fun, in my opinion, due to how unexpectedly they can explode. Just toss a mine up on a wall, wait for someone to wander too close to it, and BAM!

"Proximity mines only" matches were especially tense because of how tiny the mines are, making them rather difficult to spot. If a player sees one before wal?king?? too close, they can carefully aim and shoot it down, or even toss another mine at it to make it explode. This could also cause a chain reaction of nearby mines exploding as well, engulfing the entire area in flames as players run for their lives.

I always tried to find clever places to hide mines, such as on the ceiling, on the floor, on an ammo crate, or on a glass wall (which I then shot, of course, leaving the mine? floating in thin air). The element of surprise when someone walked into a room and suddenly exploded without seeing a mine anywhere in sight never got old. Sometimes a player would even respawn directly on top of a mine, dying in a dramatic explosion immediately after coming back to life. My friends and I would sit there and play with proximity mines for hours, blowing up and howling with laughter every single time.

Nooks and crannies

Speaking of multiplayer, the Complex stage was totally my jam. The Base?ment may have been the best layout for proximity mine matches, bu??t I always felt the most comfortable running around the Complex.

The reason for this was because of the Complex's secret hiding places. There are a few areas in the Complex where it's possible to sort of phase through the walls, leading to small rooms where I could hide and wait for people to walk by. Somehow, ver??y few of my friends knew about these hiding spots, so I could wait in safety while they wandered around the building desperately searching for me, then pop out and shoot them while their backs were turned. They would never see me coming, and would get so mad because I surprised them every time. I felt like a ninja.

The Complex also had some of the best sniping spots. Whoever managed to make it to the upper-level room in the middle first usually ended up racking up a ton of kills, since there were windows opening out to several of the main rooms all in one convenient location. There's also a spot in the room with the spiral ramp where it's possible to hide in the shadows and shoot people fr??om below. I tried to take advantage of all of these different hiding spots to kill my friends from safe locations and confuse the heck out of them by staying out of sight. Of course, after a while my friends stopped picking that level because they knew I would win!

Kong. James Kong.

GoldenEye's cheat options were a ton of fun to play around with, and conveniently available to choose from a menu on the main screen. Paintball Mode was almost required to be turned on wh?ile playing with my friends. All it did was replace bullet holes with splotches of paint, but for some reason, it was the only way we played. I always liked to draw smiley faces out of the paint by carefully shooting designs onto the walls. We also played around with Turbo Mode occasionally, which greatly increases everyone's movement speed. This made "proximity m?ines only" even more chaotic!

The weirdest cheat in GoldenEye, though, was called DK Mode. This cheat transforms all of the character models into grotesque shapes which are apparently supposed to resemble Donkey Kong, with huge heads, tiny bodies, and really long arms. The characters look so inhuman and ridiculous that ??it's almost impossible not to laugh. I mean, look at Natalya up there. What even is she?

Combine DK Mode with Turbo Mode and my friends and I would be out of breath from laughter in no time at all! Crazy gorilla people zooming around at high speeds, their gigantic heads poppi??ng up out of nowhere with their freakishly long arms pointing a gun at me... it's just too much. I'm so glad Nintendo published this game, if only because it gave us these hilarious, hide??ously deformed characters as a cheat option.

I am invincible!

Everyone has their favorite Bond character to choose for multiplayer matches, whether it's the classic choices of James or Natalya, the villainous Xenia or Jaws, or even the more generic Helicopter Pilo?t or Moonraker Elite if you're feeling sassy. Just don't go picking Oddjob, or else you're probably going to lose some friends!

My favorite character has always been Boris. He may just be a boring old computer technician, but I loved his bold fashion choice of wearing a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt and shorts for combat. There's no way to be stealthy while wearing a Hawaiian shirt, which means Boris is apparently confident enough in his abilities to attract the attention of everyone around him and still come out a winner (he is invincible, after all). Or maybe he's trying to confuse everyone into thinking he's a civilian. Or he's simply clueless when it comes to c??ombat situations. Whatever the reason, I love his style and wouldn't want to play as anybody else!

Far from the uncanny valley

One of my personal favorite things about GoldenEye is all the bizarr??e faces on each of the character models. They're meant to look like the actors from the movies, and the enemy faces are meant to look like some of the staff at Rare. What they actually look like, however, is more like a cut-out of a?? real human's face stretched over a cartoonish 3D model, which I suppose is a technically accurate description of how they were made.

The faces look so weird on the character models though, to the point that it's honestly hilarious. The enemy soldiers' faces are especially fantastic, because many of them have these exaggerated expressions that never change. So as they're rolling expertly across the ground, shoot??ing with a gun in each hand, and falling over in dramatic death animations, ?they always have that same silly expression no matter the situation.

I think my favorite face is the bearded guy with the crooked grin a?nd what looks like a scar across one eye. I feel like I see him all over the place, and no matter what he happens to be doing at the time, his expression always makes me l??augh. I wonder who that guy is?

Spies on a train

The multiplayer isn't the only fun thing in GoldenEye, of course. T??he single-player campaign is solid as well, taking Bond on missions th?roughout Russia and Cuba to visit all of the main locations from the film.

There are a bunch of neat missions, including Frigate, where he must rescue several hostages on a ship nea?r Monte Carlo; Statue Park, where he has to navig??ate a maze of creepy statues in the dark; and the Streets of St. Petersburg, where he drives a tank through the city while trying not to kill too many civilians.

One of my favorite levels is the Train mission. This level was pretty difficult for a few reasons. It takes place almost entirely aboard a train, with Bond moving fr?om the tail end up towards the engine, which means combat happens within confined spaces. Not only are the train cars small, but they're packed full of boxes and swarming with enemy soldiers, so Bond has to be very careful or else he might end up trapped between a group of bad guys all shooting him at once. The most intense bits are towards the end when he has to move through the passenger cars, since soldiers could b?e hiding behind any of the multitude of closed doors. Somehow, a few enemies always manage to end up behind me!

The most difficult part of the level comes at the end, though. When Bond enters the final train car, he finds Natalya being held hosta?ge by Ourumov, with Trevelyan and Xenia standing guard behind?? them. He must act quickly and shoot Ourumov before he can kill Natalya. The other two make their escape (I always tried to shoot them anyway, even though they always manage to get away), leaving Bond and Natalya trapped inside of the train with a short amount of time before it explodes.

The rest of the mission involves trying to find a way out of the train by using Bond's handy watch laser to me??lt open a panel in the floor, while w?aiting for Natalya to hack into a computer in order to locate the Janus secret base. As usual, Natalya is slow as molasses and takes her sweet time cracking Boris' password, leaving just a few seconds to escape the train before she blows up. This is life or death, Natalya, hurry it up!

Past Experience Points

Level 1: .01 - .20

.21: Katamari Damacy
.22: Tomb Raider
.23: Mother 3
.24: Deadly Premonition
.25: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
.26: Dark Souls

The post Experience Points .27: GoldenEye 007 appeared first on Destructoid.

Slappers only

GoldenEye 64 will easily go down forever as one of the best first-person shooters of all time. The movie the game was based on was quite good too! Now what happens when Pierce Brosnan, star of GoldenEye, gets into a multiplayer battle with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon? 

As expected, James Bond sucks at his own game. Go figure.? Have to say though, it was super cool seeing a Nintendo 64 game on a major network TV show almost t??wo decades later.

Holy sh*t I'm getting old. 

Also obligatory: 

The post Watch James Bond suck at GoldenEye 64 appeared first on Destructoid.

Who needs a Klobb when it's just so broken?

If you ever spent a night or two demolishing friends in GoldenEye 007's illustrious multiplayer, you're probably intimately familiar with the Klobb, arguably one of the weakest weapons in the game. You surely know of the gun, but did you know who it was named after or what real-life gun it was based upon? Edge has the s??coop on th??e weapon everyone loves to hate. 

The Klobb is based on the Skorpion VZ/61, a gun that, according to GoldenEye 007's producer and director Martin Hollis, is "cheaply made in Czechoslovakia." It was chosen by level designer Duncan Botwood, and it's lovingly described as not a "B-list" or "D-list" gun, but a "K-list" gun. You know when you skip a few letters and go straight to K, you've got a real piece of junk on your hands, know what I'm sayin'? Hollis went on to say that the team viewed each gun in GoldenEye as "characters in and of themselves," with? the Klobb acting as the unfortunate runt of the litter.

The name itself is a curiosity as well, as "Klobb" sounds a lot more like an anti-theft device than a submachine gun. Due to Nintendo's requirements that the gun names be fictionalized so as not to associate the game with real-life weapons, the GoldenEye team had to get creative. It's actually named after Ken Lobb, the GoldenEye team's producer on the Nintendo side of things.

Even after all these years, Hollis is still sorry he named the gun thusly: “I do slightly regret naming such a poor wea??pon after him, since I am tremendously fond of the man. He is astonishingly enthusiastic about games, even after years of working in the ??industry. It’s a little unfair that we named such a useless weapon after him. And for that I am sorry.”

If you're a fan of this comically underpowered gun, stop and give thanks to Ken for b?eing named as he was, and for?? Nintendo to have requested name changes. It's actually quite interesting to learn about the history behind the weapon and the reality behind what is, for some of us, a memorable piece of childhood. Gun still sucks, though. Big time.

?The story of GoldenEye 007′s most notori?ous gun, The Klobb – and its design secret [Edge]

The post What’s the Klobb got to do, got to do with GoldenEye 007’s design secrets? appeared first on Destructoid.

MOONCHILD!

Atreyu! Falcor! Atreyu? Falcor?

Game music remixer Dj CUTMAN has organized a bunch of tunes that he's produced for the video group Underbelly into a nifty pay-what-you want pack. Underbelly Beats & Remixes contain a few straight-up NES arrangements and beat compilations of Super Mario Bros. 2, Metroid, and Mega Man 2, plus a few other surprises.

One of those surprises is a chiptune version of the main theme of The NeverEnding Story -- not the joke track from The Lonely Island linked above, of course. Then there is his medley of GoldenEye 007 tracks, which reminded of just how badass the music in?? that game wa?s.

Go on and sample, chilluns!

Underbelly Beats & Remixes [Dj CUTMAN]

The post NeverEn??ding Story and GoldenEye chip mixes p?lus more appeared first on Destructoid.

Screw beer pong, hand me that controller

Ga??mers are a diverse breed. From PC aficionados and console fanatics, to retro devotees and casual admirers, there is no one-size-fits-all model of videogame hobbyist. Though we possess many differences, like game preferences, level of devotion, and platform of choice, we can all un??ite under a common flag of shared interest. There is one event, however, that my family celebrates. A monthly tradition that I believe just about every gaming fan can appreciate. I call it Old School Day.

Old School, Retro, or Classic Day as the name suggests, is a celebration of your personal gaming past. This holiday of sorts should not be compared to the feeling on Christmas morning or the anticipation of New Years Eve, Old School Day is simply in a league of its own. Whether you have been hooked on virtual adventures sin?ce childhood, or if you're a current-gen convert, the first experiences that characterize an activity like gaming are special and worthy of remembrance.

Exactly how the gaming festivity is commemorated is ?completely up to you. There is one stipulation, however, simply that a hectic work we?ek, argument with the misses, and any other stressor of life takes a back seat for a few hours in pursuit of videogame nostalgia.

Gaming celebration with a personal twist

The trip down retro lane is a cherished monthly spectacle among my siblings and I. Every few weeks we put our adult lives on hold to relive the games from our youth. If there is any day that we truly unite as a family, it's while bonding over the classics. As painfully sappy as that sounds, videogames have always acted?? as a supern?atural Band-Aid, mending all pissed off sentiments and sibling-based grudges.

While we each were transformed into instant videogame buffs through the allure of the NES, many of our greatest memories reside with the N64. During our version of Old School Day, we welcome the titles that have contributed to the process of shaping us into the people we are today. Super Mario 64, Goldeneye, Star Fox, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Smash Bros., Pokemon Stadium, Rampage, Banjo-Kazooie and Yoshi's Story just to name a few, form the framework of the evening. Those titles served as the backbone of my childhood so it's rather fitting. Each time we ??get together, we sprinkle in a few different games, maximizing the fun ??output while minimizing the risk of getting bored through repetition, if that's even possible.

?Over the course of two to six hours of pizza-induced noshing, old school gaming, and admittedly potent languor, we've typically covered the spectrum of emo?tions from anger-filled multiplayer sessions, to heartwarming regard in response to a favorite cut scene. In diplomatic fashion, we take turns choosing the next entrant to revitalize our nostalgia, but in reality, any choice is a good one when you're playing favorite games amongst family and friends.

Old School Day rocks! Still not convinced?

With the next generation of consoles on the horizon, you may be hesitant to turn back the hands of time, to accept the glory of Old School Day. There's no way that earlier generations can compete from a graphical standpoint and not all of the oldies were auditory masterpieces, yet despite these technological inferiorities, the games?? that defined past generations exude a certain charm that often propels them into superior status. Reliving them for yourself i?s almost certain to conjure up sentiments such as, "Why don't they make games like this anymore?" rather than, "Yikes, I'll stick with the Xbox." Purchasing the titles through XBLA or PSN is technically a viable option, but summoning the warm feelings of familiarity is that much better in its authentic form.

Re-experiencing the definitive moments of a simpler time, a period when eating vegetables and finis??hing homework were the main opponents of happiness, is satisfying on multiple levels. For one, rekindling ancient memories is enormously rewarding. Exploring old saved files and realizing that wow, I can't believe I actually collected all of those stars, puzzle pieces, coins, or heart pieces is always a heart-warming, ego-boosting find.

I recall loading up my saved game from Harvest Moon 64. . . I had ten in-game years worth of gameplay on one file. That's more virtual years than I had spent on Earth at that time; how much would that achievement/trophy be worth? Equally as shocking is the realization that some aspects of older gaming were much more difficult than memory would serve. Conker's Pocket Tales on Gameboy Color was one such instance of perplexity. While I nearly finished the game as a kid and don't recall any Ninja Gaiden-like frustrations, with all my might I can barely get past the first level to this day. I must have? had the child-like reflexes of a ninja or at least that's what?? I keep telling myself.

Conker-based inadequacies aside, dusting off your Atari 2600, Dreamcast, or other old console is guaranteed to fulfill your sense of humor as well. Things that were badass in the 1980s or 1990s are often hilarious now. Turok 64 death screams are absolutely priceless, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater has musical accoutrements that will transport you into the late '90s punk scene, and Gex 64 makes in-game references to the X-Files, Poltergeist, and Full House. Who needs a time machine when a gateway to your childhood is right withi??n reach? The essence of forgotten trends and declining fads aids in sweetening any excursion into the past of gaming through hands-on reminiscence and a healthy dose of gut-busting laughter.

Beyond the arenas of personal achievement, hilarit??y, and frustration, hopping on the symbolic DeLorean in the name of Old School Day allows us to respect the pioneers within the industry, those instances of brilliance that set in motion what we now? take for granted as technological commodities. Videogames as a medium have come so very far.

What started as a hodgepodge of pixels and sim??plicity has evolved into visual, narrative-driven masterpieces easily on par with cinema. Gaming may have been an obscure hobby decades ago, but whether you adhere to the pastime personally or not, it is impossible to ignore its significance on an economic, cultural, and political scale. The current discussions about videogames and gun control are a testament to that.

The industry boasts a powerful presence within the global landscape but also within my own life. I adopted Old School Day as reminder of why I became a gamer in the first place: the fun times with friends and family, the lessons learned from macho protagonists, the ability to step into the shoes of countless characters, and the satisfaction felt from saving the world, galaxy, or universe. If you find yourself in a place of gaming stagnancy, my hope is that after reading this, you'll incorporate a bit of Old School Day into your life and join me in celebrating retro gaming on a regul?ar basis.

What are your favorite older games? Do you ever take a break from new releases to play titles from? the past?

[Note: If you own Pokémon Stadium 2, follow my instructions ?without restraint for guaranteed laughs. Visit the mini games section and select Streaming Stampede. Make sure to play with the company of an easy or normal com and watch the stupidity ensue. Enjoy!]

_{Image Sources: [1][2][3][4][5]}

The post My ultimate gaming tradition of Old School Day appeared first on Destructoid.

Slappers only!

YouTube filmmaker Michael Green and friends got together to pay some respect to GoldenEye 64  wi??th this live actio?n take. Sure, it may have not aged well but I can't help but smile whenever I think back to Rare's first-person shooter.

Also, this never gets old.

The post Gol?de??nEye 64 comes to life in this live action take appeared first on Destructoid.

[Dtoid Community Blogger Xander Markham takes an in-depth look back at one of the pinnacles of modern gaming. Want to see your own words appear on the front page? Go write something! --Mr Andy Dixon]

If you want to feel old, consider that today marks GoldenEye 007's fifteenth birthday. The seminal shooter ??of its time, few games have entrenched themselves so firmly in the memories of a generation. Just imagine what teenagers of the late '90s might have achieved had it not been for Slappers Only in Complex, or Proximity Mines in Aztec. How many friendships might?? still have been going strong were it not for the unfairly diminutive Oddjob providing too great a temptation on the character select screen.

Though many of its players' fondest memories come from hours spent pretending not to look at their rival's quarter of the deathmatch screen, that pioneering multiplayer is only a small part of a legacy rarely acknowledged as fully as it deserves to be. GoldenEye 007 is a landmark achievement in game design, both very much the product of i??ts time and a work whose influence is undeniably the source of the FPS-dominated gaming culture we play in today.

As the oft-told story goes, many of GoldenEye's most influential elements barely made it into the game at all. First conceived as a Super Nintendo side-scrolling platformer, the game was moved on the N64 hardware to take advantage of its 3D graphical capabilities, with the intention of producing an on-rails shooter in the mould of SEGA's Virtua Cop. Later, the possibility of having certain levels play in the manner of an FPS was mooted, before Rare?? finally decided to take the risk of fully embracing a genre which had rarely, if ever, functioned adequately on consoles before. The multiplayer deathmatch was only added six months before the game was finally due for release, secretly programmed into the game by Steve Ellis, thus making him more directly responsible for one of g??aming's major advances than perhaps any other man in the medium's short history.

Pieces of the game's on-rails roots still permeate many aspects of the design, particularly in linear levels such as the Dam, Silo and Train. The AI in these levels functions in a manner similar to that of Virtual Cop, with enemies hopping in and out of cover, requiring expertly timed precision shooting to take down. As in SEGA's game, the action occurs in pockets: the player clears one area, then has a short walk down a corridor or to the next room, where a more intense firefight awaits. It is here where the game's most lasting innovation, the headshot, was formed. For the sake of balance, it should be pointed out that Team Fortress patched headshots into its game a few months ahead of GoldenEye's release, specifically for its sniper rifle. Which game's developers came up with the idea first is unlikely to ever be known for sure, but Martin Hollis, leader of the GoldenEye development team, has cited the different reactions of Virtua Cop's enemies to being shot in the arm or body as the inspiration for his ga??me's location-?based damage and animation.

Both Team Fortress and MDK can lay viable claim to having been ahead of the curve when it came to two of GoldenEye's most acclaimed ideas -- head shots and the sniper rifle -- but Rare's game was the one to bring them together. Headshots were not the only source of location-based damage: enemies would react and take different levels of damage when they were shot in the arm, leg, chest, head, or (most indicatively of Rare's trademark sense of humour) groin. MDK didn't have location damage at all; Team Fortress only had it for its sniper rifle, and then exclusively for opponents' heads. The extra detail made GoldenEye's enemies feel a little more real, and a lot more fun to shoot. The adjustable scope (an innovation all Rare's own) suddenly became not just a tool for long range single-shot executions, but?? for experimentation in sending enemies to their deaths in the most sadistic way possible; the greatest achievement being a hit to each limb before performing the coup de grâce with a bullet to the groin. The developers were well aware of the cruelty they were allowing players to inflict; shooting the 'innocent' scientists in the arm on higher difficulty levels would result in them pulling out guns, forcing players to either run away or execute them, and in so doing risk failing their mission objective.

If headshots and sniping represent two innovations widely credited to Rare's game (whether correctly or not), the objectives system has almost entirely been forgotten, to the genre's significant detriment. Inspired by Super Mario 64's format of having multiple stars in each world, GoldenEye requires multiple tasks -- AKA, objectives -- be completed within each mission before being allowed to progress to the next on??e. This was a full upheaval of the FPS' most fundamental rule, where the sole aim was to reach the end of each level in one piece.

The focus of the playing experience was shifted from a completionist's mentality to that of an explorer: completing your objectives required hunting certain objects and using them in a certain way, with only the hints on the intermission briefing pages to assist you. (Other than the visuals, the game has most noticeably aged in its total lack of signposting for even the most obscure task). Every objective was set prior to starting a mission, and it was up to the player to muddle through, often in the manner of their choosing. If the linear levels demonstrate the game's Virtua Cop origins, the non-linear missions, such as Frigate, Surface and Bunker (and their sequels), show the Mario 64 ethos of building worlds rather than levels, and setting players free in them to do as they liked. I've been playing through my Steam backlog recently, and it's hard not to feel a pang of recognition at the debt owed by today's open world games like Just Cause 2 or the Deus Ex sequel, Human Revolution.

As with Mario, the game controls very simply -- the player could realistically get through the game using only two buttons plus the analogue stick -- but with considerable depth hidden beneath the surface. If the objective system threw out the recognised rules governing how to progress in an FPS, the stealth system did the same for the rules on how to play an FPS. In Doom, Quake, Turok or any other entry in the genre prior to August 25th, 1997, the genre was played with one finger held firmly on the 'fire' button whenever an enemy was on-screen. GoldenEye offered the mind-blowing notions that not only were there?? were times when it might be advantageous to not shoot a visible enemy, but the most powerful gun might not always be the best choice. The game is unquestionably ?focused on action, but its free-roaming missions and stealth mechanics gave it a deep tactical edge completely alien to the genre at the time -- and for the most part, even now.

The stealth system works on several levels. The first is that silenced weapons don't attract enemy attention, whereas lou??d ones do. By the time players reached Bunker II, a masterpiece of game des??ign crippled by a bug wherein enemies couldn't fire through door windows but the player could (leading to a comprehensive advantage), success depended on the realisation that a gun's 'noise' actually stacked: fire a silenced weapon too quickly, and it would attract attention. Hold down an assault rifle's trigger and every guard would come running, but fire in single shots and it was possible to remain unnoticed.

In an inspired twist, the game's ?stealthiest level equipped players with one of the loudest guns from the outset, holding back silenced weapons until the most complex objective had been completed. With limited ammo available, players (at least those who hadn't worked out the window bug) were forced to preserve shots, by which the game subtly instructed them in one of its most advanced mechanics. Not only that, but enemy gunfire would attract attention too; players were encouraged to to take their time, but be decisive when it came to the kill. Then there were alarms, which could be triggered as easily by certain enemies being left alive too long as the player stumbling in full view of a security camera. Just as the Dam is a near-flawless example of a tutorial disguised as a real mission, Bunker II shows how a player can be taught through circumstance and considered design choices, rather than patronising on-screen instruction.

The cheats system -- hardly innovative for the late '90s, but much missed today -- brought out further depths to this system. The time-based demands of unlocking a level's cheat meant a return to the completionist ethos of GoldenEye's FPS predecessors, with focus placed entirely on completing objectives at maximum speed. With this change came the revelation that creating noise could now be enormously beneficial: attracting attention would sometimes bring enemies rushing through locked doors, creating a shortcut or giving early access to a crucial item. Make a din too early, and enemies would flood the passageways ahead, demanding valuable seconds be wasted in taking them down. Get the timing right, though, and a door could be opened and rushed through before they would have a chance to congregate. Achieving the Facility's Invincibility cheat or Archives' Invisibility demanded this technique be put to carefully planned use, as charting a tra??ditional course from start t?o finish would mean being at least a minute over the target time.

If you're wondering why this article has barely mentioned the legendary multiplayer outside the opening paragraphs, it's because that part of the game's legacy is already clear for all to see in the foundations of every game of Halo or Call Of Duty. It is also one area of the game which has been extensively recognised and improved upon over the years; playing a match today remains fun, but predominantly for nostalgic value. The playing modes and weapon choices felt enormous at the time, but barebones compared to the myriad variations presented by modern shooters. Within its own generational cycle, GoldenEye's multiplayer was surpassed by Perfect Dark's combat simulator, arguably the pin?nacle of split-screen FPS gaming.

Outside the deathmatch arena, however, many of GoldenEye's greatest accomplishments remain not only unsurpassed, but largely undiscussed: the 2010 Wii remake showed how ill-equipped modern game designers are at giving players mechanics of such depth to play with, and the freedom to experiment with them. Nine of the original GoldenEye's ten team members (yes, ten) had never been involved with game development before, and that naïvety resulted in a playground where the only limit on how far the play could go depended entirely on the player. Perfect Dark may have expanded the multiplayer??, but mod??ern expectations of linearity and surface-level mechanics were already sneaking into the disappointing single-player mode, where the stealth system was severely redacted and only a handful of missions gave the player any genuine sense of freedom.

In the 50th anniversary year of the cinematic Bond, it's also worth noting what a rare (pun intended) appreciation of the character's world it shows, not least in perfectly capturing the voices of M, Q and Moneypenny in the mission briefings. ("Grabbed by the Spetsnaz, James? Sounds painful!" remains one of my favourite jokes from any game.) Another couple of paragraphs could be devoted to how faithfully locations from the movie are recreated and actors' faces mapped -- as far as the hardware could manage -- onto character models, a level of detail no previous movie-to-game adaptation had ever considered or attempted. The iconic score by Graeme Norgate, Grant Kirkhope and Robin Beanland deserves a mention too, for transforming Eric Serra's compositions for the movie into a classic set of gaming tunes. What about the huge variety of set-pieces, from rescuing hostages on the Frigate, to escaping the Silo in time, protecting Natalya in Control, or eliminating Alec on the Cradle, a precursor to Modern Warfare's event-driven gameplay but formed around a far more flexible set?? of rules? Let's not forget those wonderful weapons: proximity mines,?? rocket launchers, watch lasers, twin RCP-90s...

There will be plenty who dismiss this article as taking an idealised view of the past, but while playing GoldenEye these days presents no shortage of archaic anachronisms, it would be foolish to ignore its many accomplishments lost as gaming made its tunnel-visioned push towards increasingly complex graphical showcases without evolving play mechanics at the same rate. It is difficult to imagine any game as brave and innovative as this being created in today's risk-averse development environment. After fifteen years and three console generations, there are still areas where nobody has done gaming better than GoldenEye.

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Martin Hollis, director and producer of GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64, gave a postmortem on the development of the critically acclaimed shooter here at GDC Europe today. One of the more fascinating, and somewhat hilarious, aspects from the talk was how Martin went about giving 007 a quick las?t minute fix to save themselves some time.

Martin interviewed his past team for the talk, and was reminded of this particular incident by his former programmer Mark Edmonds, who considers it his "craziest coolest time" during the development. Basically, Martin hacked the game to fix a bug while 007 was in the m??iddle of final certifi?cation at Nintendo.

Rare had sent the game off to get certified, and all was looking good until an issue was brought up during the two weeks of straight intensive testing at Nintendo. They had found an ??issue where textures would get screwed up for the characters on the Frigate level depending on the order of how players had gone through the levels due to an issue with the memory system.??

"It had a dynamic memory system," Martin told us. "It worked okay most of the time but memory was very tough. In order to make a minimum change, that day I wrote a tool to extract the code and the data from the ROM. I wrote that, adjusted the memory numbers, re-GZipped (a method for file compression? and decompression) it, worked it back into the ROM ?image without recompiling anything, and sent it to Nintendo." 

This revelation gave all of us at the panel a good laugh. "I don't know if that was the best way to do that or?? not," Martin added, which brought about even more laughs from the audience. But for him, "it was a minimum change, [and] it worked." I'll have more from Martin's talk and an interview in the coming days.

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Usually, weekends at Dtoid are extremely slow, but we were so chock-full of stories over the past couple of days that I held off on posting this video. I only just now remembered it was in my inbox. I don't see how I could forget -- about 50 or ??so people tipped it in.

GoldenEye 007 on the N64 doesn't quite hold up nowadays. Or does it? With a hi-res texture mod, it could pass off as... an N64 game. Okay, so it would still look dated, but who wouldn't want to play a live-action GoldenEye? Or you could always just hold a controller while watching the movie and pretend.

Real Life Goldeneye 64 [YouTube]

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As the HD reimagining of the 1997 classic Rareware shooter's fall release draws nearer, Activision and Eurocom will be showing off the game's various features in developer walkthroughs. First up on the docket is a look at t??he stealth on offer in this recreation of the memorable mission at the Facility.

I was a bit of a skeptic when Activision first brought GoldenEye 007 to the Wii, but this video has me genuinely excited for Reloaded. Perhaps, it's seeing the Facility again that gives me an incredible rush of nostalgia. Aside from Majora's Mask, I probably spent more time playing that level than a??nything else on my N64. This video bring back a rush of excitement and fond memories for anyone else?

The post GoldenEye 007 Reloaded???? gets stealthy in walkthrough video appeared first on Destructoid.

While many of us still look back fondly on our original GoldenEye days on the Nintendo 64, Activision are attempting to breathe new life into the series with a follow-up now coming to Xbox 360 and PlayStatio?n 3.

During the interview, we talk about the inclusion of voice actors like Daniel Craig and the use of motion capture from 007's very own stunt double to help bring a deeper spy experience. We discuss the new MI6 Ops missions, the inclusion of multi??player and that online matchmaking will still allow me to have golden-gu??n-only matches. 

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After last year’s well-received Wii remake of the classic Nintendo 64 shooter GoldenEye 007, fans have been hoping to see an HD version. Developer Eurocom is now fulfilling that wish as it is bringing GoldenEye 007: Reloaded to the PS3 and 360.

At gamescom we got a chance to see the lon???g-awaited HD reimagining in action.

GoldenEye 007: Reloaded (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Developer: Eurocom
Publisher: Activision
To be released: TBA

We were shown the second level in the game, The Facility. Bond is partnered up with 006 and the two are tasked with a dangerous mission: they must infiltrate a? facility controlled by a corrupt R?ussian general and destroy the arms he intends to sell to terrorists. After some friendly banter, the two split up.

Faced with a locked door, Bond manages to find an alternative route forward by crawling through a nearby? vent. Moving through the shaft showed off some nice lighting effects, as beams of light filtered through grates, illuminating the dust. However, Bond isn’t interested in the pretty lighting effects, so he ventures forth in search of an exit.

Boy, what an exit it is! Spotting a hole in the floor of the vent, Bond looks d??own and finds himself above an occupied bathroom stall. Clearly having no respect for privacy, Bond hangs out of the ceiling vent upside-down and dispatches his toilet-bound foe with two quick punches to the face.

Eurocom want people to feel like they are really a spy, giving them plenty of opportunities to?? observe unaware enemies from the shadows. Going into a group of enemies guns-blazing is still perfectly acceptable, but should you feel like being more stealthy, there is often an alternative route nearby that will allow you to try and ?sneak your way through.

Sneaking up behind an enemy allows Bond to perform a stealth kill. Should you be spotted, you’ll only have a few moments to take out an enemy before he calls for backup. This should hopefully create some pretty tense situations and seems like something to help separate GoldenEye 007: Reloaded from the other big shooters coming out soon.

Not every level will be stealthy, as we were shown a later level set on an airfield, where the enemies are on full alert. Taking fire from enemy soldiers and a very powerful helicopter, Bond is definitely in trouble. The fighting is intense as Bond moves from cover to cover, trying to get? closer to a nearby missile launcher in order to down the hovering menace.

GoldenEye 007: Reloaded looks different enough from the original Nintendo 64 game, not just in terms of visuals but also when it comes to ??the gameplay and flow of combat, making it a game worth revisiting for?? fans of the classic console shooter.

Mixing up the pace of the levels should keep things pretty interesting. It seems like a really solid shooter and the stealth elements look to be well-implemented. I’m not sure if that is really going to be enough to set Reloaded apa??rt?? from all the other shooters that will be coming out soon, but this looks to be quite a bit of fun.

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