Alt-Controls.com

Remember GoldenEye?

We do. Who could forget this gem? Back in the N64 days, GoldenEye 007 was THE game to play. In fact, for many people, it was the only game to play. Sure, you had other games in your N64 collection (Mario 64, Shadows of the Empire, Turok, Mario Kart, etc). But no matter what, N64 FPS players would always faithfully return to GoldenEye.

You would tool around with other games, try them out, play through them even, but you would always come back to GoldenEye to replay your favorite missions, beat the clock to earn cheats, or take on your buddies in a heated 4-player death match. And this is where multiplayer mayhem has its true origins. To all you guys out there that think Halo is where this all started, take note. So why are we talking about a dusty old N64 cartridge? Well, this has been a tough year for alt-control players out there. We have all (Southpaw and Legacy players) missed out on a handful of Triple-A titles due to the lack of support for our control preferences. And I’m not trying to cry the blues here. Some games will have alt-controls, and some won’t. That’s just the way it is these days.

But the next time you’re bummed out because a game you were excited about does not support your control style of choice, don’t fret. Remember that there will always be more games coming out that will. Plus, you can always dust of your N64 and pop in GoldenEye for a trip down memory lane. With a plethora of control schemes, everyone can take part in this game and play comfortably. It looks and feels somewhat dated now, sure. But in my honest opinion, I think it holds up. The graphics in some areas still look pretty nice. Guards look terrible up close, I’ll give you that. They’re not very smart either… the A.I. is poor. But it seemed poor back then as well, and none of us really cared because we were all too busy worrying about our itchy trigger finger. What’s most important about this game is that it’s FUN.

And us GoldenEye fans still haven’t had a more enjoyable Bond title to play since this game. EA took over the Bond license from Rare and released a whack load of average to below average titles. Everything or Nothing was pretty good though. The so called ‘new’ GoldenEye (Rogue Agent) was alright in spots, but it wasn’t GoldenEye 007. And this game took a beating from critics for that reason.

Now Treyarch (SAKY’s favorite developer…) is handling the next Bond title. Part of me thinks it will be great to have a next-gen Bond title. But for the most part I just wish Activision would have given the development duties to Infinity Ward. Imagine that: A Bond title by Infinity Ward…

But anyway, I highly recommend returning to GoldenEye for a few rounds the next time you’re frustrated because you found out that “insert game title here” does not have Southpaw or Legacy.

End of rant. Go play GoldenEye!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 8:25 am and is filed under Classic Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.