Last week a video game miracle was performed with the release of GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo Switch and Xbox. As unbelievable as it is to relive this classic first-person shooter on modern platforms, not everyone is necessarily overjoyed.
Former Rare employee and GoldenEye 007 composer Graeme Norgate has recently shared his thoughts on social media about the state of the latest emulated releases, claiming the “old team” would not have let anyone down – adding how “labor of loves are always better value” :
Graeme Norgate (@Norgans): “Sad to think Goldeneye for Switch and Xbox was outsourced to 2 different devs. You could have got the old team back together for one more gig guys. We wouldn’t have let you down. Labor of loves are always better value than cash for dies”
Video game designer David Doak, who also worked on GoldenEye 007 back in the day, has voiced his own thoughts about not being “invited” to the party, in response to a now-deleted Rare tweet. A few other OG team members have jokingly chimed in as well:
David Doak (@drdoak): “Obviously marvelous to see GE007 re-released and I hope people have a lot of fun with it! But yeh, bit shabby all round that we weren’t invited.”
Code Mystics was the team behind the Xbox version of GoldenEye 007 (having previously worked with Rare on games like the Killer Instinct reboot) while the Switch version was handled by Nintendo Europe R&D division. As highlighted by game developer and YouTuber Modern Vintage Gamer, there’s “really no parity between these versions” as a result.
Regarding the Xbox release, Code Mystics has publicly responded to questions about this version of the game – explaining how it didn’t always make the final call on certain things. It even spoke about the frame rate in the Xbox version, which you can learn more about on our sister website Pure Xbox.
After Norgate moved on from Rare, he worked on the spiritual successors TimeSplitters and TimeSplitters 2. He then got involved with the Crysis series as an Audio Director and has also contributed to the odd Rare release since then.
In our updated review of GoldenEye 007, we said the title was aged and flawed, but still a masterpiece. And despite some criticisms, there do seem to be quite a lot of players out there who are thoroughly enjoying the return of this iconic shooter.
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