Alien vs Predator vs Goldeneye

[ZylonBane]

"troll" accusations probably have more to do with the fact that a hefty amount of your posts are aimed at passive aggressively cutting down people who make unrealistic claims about an old toy they enjoy on a forum designed to celebrate said toy. Maybe I'm a troll too now. Maybe we're all trolls.

 

"Troll" isn't a catch-all for negative behavior; it specifically describes any post crafted deliberately and for no other purpose than to sow discord on a forum. In many cases calling someone a troll can even be considered a compliment, since the alternative is believing that yes, they really are that stupid, and not just pretending.

[+CyranoJ]

 

"Troll" isn't a catch-all for negative behavior; it specifically describes any post crafted deliberately and for no other purpose than to sow discord on a forum. In many cases calling someone a troll can even be considered a compliment, since the alternative is believing that yes, they really are that stupid, and not just pretending.

 

And, while we're defining words... that was 'irony'.

[NeoGeoNinja]

Goldeneye hasn't aged well and looks ugly as sin in still screen shots. AVP still looks kinda cool.

 

 

I am seeing this sentiment more and more and it makes me quite happy.

 

 

I mean, the image above, from Goldeneye, has always looked freakin' awful. From day 1.

 

LOL. GoldenEye NEVER looked awful from 'day 1'. GoldenEye looked f*cking phenomenal back in the day. At the time, the textures, effects and level designs - not to mention - faithful nature to the source material was astounding.

 

The facial mappings and texture mapped clothing was decent for the time too.

 

AvP, like GoldenEye has a cool 'look' and atmosphere to it, but hasn't aged any better tbh.

 

Time to go and watch some Marines 'patrol' for a while or Aliens constantly face towards you etc...

[Lost Dragon]

The snow level on GoldenEye was...'an issue' for myself...seemed to spend hours aimlessly wandering with no 'signposting' as it were of just where i was meant to be headed.Only so much you can do i guess with a repeated white texture streched over a frame, but still....

Edited June 24, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[ZylonBane]

And, while we're defining words... that was 'irony'.

 

Then we have gentlemen like big-nose here, who just has anger management issues.

[Schmudde]

LOL. GoldenEye NEVER looked awful from 'day 1'. GoldenEye looked f*cking phenomenal back in the day. At the time, the textures, effects and level designs - not to mention - faithful nature to the source material was astounding.

 

The facial mappings and texture mapped clothing was decent for the time too.

 

I understand that GoldenEye looked good to most people. Like early CGI (and even some contemporary CGI), I saw it and said "that's not going to age well." Those guards always looked bad. We used to make fun of them back in the day. That's not hindsight. That's just understanding technology and how it ages.

 

I think GoldenEye and Mario 64 were incredible accomplishments for the time. I respect the hell out of both. But I can also say that they never looked like elegant, beautiful games. Think about it for a second, why do so many later titles look better than early titles on a platform? Imagine the original Atari 2600 programmers trying to do Solaris or the first wave SNES programmers attempting Donkey Kong Country. The later games show a mastering of the creative and technical parameters enforced by the system.

 

Only a handful of games early games ever rise above this. GoldenEye was never one of them. Too many fuzzy textures and weird bodies. Good game, good looking, but not without significant missteps.

 

~ü

Edited June 24, 2015 by Schmudde

[Schmudde]

Perhaps the argument isn't clear:

 

Making a game is about choices. Those choices are based on creative goals measured against technological constraints. Let's take the brilliant team at id -

 

 

Do you see what makes this so good? A limited color palette and simple dark lines. Compare this to the less experienced team at Rebellion:

 

 

This looks bad because there is no restraint. Look at all that detail! Camouflage? Are you kidding? Not only is it complex, but who the hell needs camouflage in space?! Look at all that shading! There is no way you could capture that detail in such a low resolution sprite. So it looks like shit. That's the sign of not understanding your limitations. That's bad design. Bad design never ages well (unless it does, see punk rock posters).

 

How would id make a marine? Like this:

 

This looks pretty great. They hid the face, which is a brilliant choice. Faces are really hard to show at low resolution. The uniform is one color. It looks good small. When it's big, everything is pixelated, but it isn't just a mess of blocks like the AvP marine.

 

It was clear that GoldenEye was the beginning of a new graphical style. As such, some of the graphics aren't that refined. It was clear to me then and it's clear to me now.

 

/ü

[Bill Loguidice]

I never really got into Alien vs. Predator, but I loved Goldeneye. Besides the great level design and ability to interact with various things, my absolute favorite feature (and one that has sadly rarely been replicated for some reason) was the ability to target specific body parts and have the enemies react to being hit in that specific body part. It's obviously primitive today and something of a parlor trick, but being able to shoot an enemy in the crotch or shoot their hat off was a big deal at the time.

 

It's a shame that Goldeneye isn't allowed to be included in the upcoming Rare Replay collection for Xbox One.

[AtariORdead]

I always liked the fact that with Goldeneye there were extra objectives and things to do on higher difficulty levels. Gave it a lot of replayability.

[Atlantis]

AvP is like walking around in a nightmare - and it is very enjoyable if you're in the mood for walking around in a nightmare. No paths to follow, and endless attacks by the same braindead creatures over and over.

Goldeneye I thought looked cool, not great back then, being a console game when pc looked so much better, and I had lots of fun in the working 4 play death-match mode. Think I opened all maps and all characters. To me N64 was innovative, with the 4 controllers and such.

To me the structure of the game, if it is fun to play, wins over graphical aspects completely. It can look shit, as long as its fun to play and you can't stop playing it, even 20 years later. Goldeneye is one epic game. AvP is almost half-epic. Since it did a new cool thing with a new game genre back then: the fps.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Atlantis

[Lost Dragon]

Rebellion simply purchased, painted and digitized resin model kits of the Aliens and Predators, rather than did sprite designs though. The C. Marine i think was Lance Lewis wearing a borrowed film prop (authentic USCM Costume) who was digitised for the 'role'.

 

It's technically authentic film stuff, which Rebellion were aiming for with the game hence sampling sound FX etc from the film and use of props/models.

 

 

Armour itself designed by James Cameron and built by Terry English.

 

Both personal 'gods' in my eyes :-) and i cannot lie..i am a massive Aliens fan and would love to own replica of Hudson's body armour from Aliens...

Edited June 24, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[+madman]

I never really got into Alien vs. Predator, but I loved Goldeneye. Besides the great level design and ability to interact with various things, my absolute favorite feature (and one that has sadly rarely been replicated for some reason) was the ability to target specific body parts and have the enemies react to being hit in that specific body part. It's obviously primitive today and something of a parlor trick, but being able to shoot an enemy in the crotch or shoot their hat off was a big deal at the time.

I agree, I was going to mention this earlier but figured it would seem trivial. I remember using the sniper rifle (or whatever with the zoom) and targeting legs to see the reaction. Very cool stuff at the time and one of the few N64 games I got addicted to while in college.

[phoenixdownita]

....but being able to shoot an enemy in the crotch ....

 

Now that is just plain nasty

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

In Goldeneye, I always found it hilarious when you shoot the enemy in the buttocks. They will jump up and hold it with both hands and it sort of looks like they scratch it. First time I did that I lost it and laughed my ass off!!

[NeoGeoNinja]

Being able to target and disable characters by targeting body parts was very innovative. I'd never seen anything like it before and, quite frankly, I was disappointed when future FPS's ignored the feature. I feel it was defining point in FPS's, personally, so when I played future PS2/GCN/Xbox games that didn't account for limb damage/disablement, it felt like a massive step-backwards imo - just having enemies stand and shoot you until the required 4x bullets had been put into them, them not noticiang until all 4 bullets had been accounted for.

 

Once you spend 10 mins getting used to it again (use the Solitaire/1.2 control scheme please, as it mimics dual sticks), GoldenEye is STILL very fun to play today.

Edited June 25, 2015 by NeoGeoNinja

[Lost Dragon]

Great post there NeoGeoNinja.You sound very much like myself when it comes to getting used to an impressive feature a FPS suddenly adds, you kinda expect other developers to sit up, take note and listen to gamers feedback and see just what a difference it made to the game and thus takes the genre forwards and you kinda think, ahhh, it'll be a staple part of games like this from now on then...

 

 

And yet you sit down and start playing a later FPS who's graphics engine is even more impressive, more diverse sections etc yet where's the cool stuff from the older FPS gone? why have'nt they included it?.

 

As for this thread, well GoldenEye's A.I routines are built on those from AVP's are they not?.

 

So at least there is a common link between the 2.

[ZylonBane]

I always liked the fact that with Goldeneye there were extra objectives and things to do on higher difficulty levels. Gave it a lot of replayability.

 

In fact, this feature directly inspired Looking Glass to do the same thing in Thief.

[minux]

 

I don't think this is at all "fair." Multiplayer add-ons were on a number of consoles. Years before AvP or GoldenEye, I remember playing 4-player Super Off Road on NES. Warlords was 4 player and came out in what, 1980?

 

It frankly doesn't matter if something is an afterthought of the developers when it goes on to make history. GoldenEye multiplayer is downright legendary and there isn't even a contest between the two games.

 

Basically true...