Agent 64 : Spies Never Die

I can't do it. Students from the Art Institute schools can do better graphics than that after a year or two of training. Graphics aren't the end all be all, but I find myself totally distracted by the ugly visuals and not in a good way.
 
Dan_D said:
I can't do it. Students from the Art Institute schools can do better graphics than that after a year or two of training. Graphics aren't the end all be all, but I find myself totally distracted by the ugly visuals and not in a good way.
Click to expand...

They're intentionally going for a late 90s look and feel for it. I'd say they did a good job replicating the look of N64-era shooters, though I'm not entirely sure if I'd actually want to play a full game like that anymore. I was never the world's biggest fan of Goldeneye on the 64 in the first place.
 
Derangel said:
They're intentionally going for a late 90s look and feel for it. I'd say they did a good job replicating the look of N64-era shooters, though I'm not entirely sure if I'd actually want to play a full game like that anymore. I was never the world's biggest fan of Goldeneye on the 64 in the first place.
Click to expand...
I think you can replicate the gameplay and some of the nostalgia without resorting to that era's graphics. The whole idea of these retro style games done in the same visual style of stuff from the 1980's and 1990's just isn't for me and frankly, I can't understand the appeal. Those games looked like that because they had to. It was a limitation of that era's technology. I won't say it's not a valid way to go now, but there is no reason to do it in my opinion.
 
So I checked this demo out the other day. Interesting (and weird) how they tried to adapt Goldeneye 007-type character movement and controls over to the PC FPS control scheme. It's kinda strange, having auto-aim (especially in that G007/PD style) on PC when not using a controller, and having to hold a button to bring up crosshairs (default is right-click), during which you can't move, like holding the R button (on default controls) on the N64 controller. Even got that slow-ass weapon/item switching.

The graphics evoke N64 (mainly with polygon counts) but are noticeably way better than a game like G007 or Perfect Dark, in terms of textures, effects, and lighting at least. The art-style however is noticeably more bland, especially compared to a sci-fi game like Perfect Dark. G007 had weaker textures and yet the art still had more presence (at least from what I remember). Overall though they were aiming for that overall look that G007 had going for it, right down to the static textures for characters' faces. And yeah, like in G007, every object you shoot blows up. Chairs, file cabinets, trash cans, wooden crates, whatever random destroyable objects are lying around.

Like those two Rareware games, changing a level's difficulty also changes what/how many objectives you have to complete to actually finish the level. There's not much to the demo, only one level, I might try the harder difficulties later. A friend of mine expressed interest in this game because of the map editor that will supposedly be coming with the final version of the game. That's not in the demo either. My friend also said "the music is definitely legally-distinct Goldeneye too lol" which I can agree with. I get that the devs are trying to pay homage to the N64 Rareware shooters, but in this early state the feel isn't quite there. Overall it seems kinda interesting I guess, I'll check out more when they finally finish the thing, but I ain't gonna really go out of my way to remember it exists until the day I happen to get some hands-on with it.

Some screenshots:
20220617185044_1.jpg

That's all you get for graphics settings.

20220617185621_1.jpg

Yup, just like in those N64 Rareware shooters, you get some dead enemies clipping through walls and shit.

20220617190601_1.jpg

This guy looks really happy about being dead.

EDIT:
Dan_D said:
I think you can replicate the gameplay and some of the nostalgia without resorting to that era's graphics.
Click to expand...
The remake of Perfect Dark for X360 is a great example of that. I mean they probably don't go as far as you'd want them to go, but it was a massive step up from the original game.
 
Last edited:
Dan_D said:
I think you can replicate the gameplay and some of the nostalgia without resorting to that era's graphics. The whole idea of these retro style games done in the same visual style of stuff from the 1980's and 1990's just isn't for me and frankly, I can't understand the appeal. Those games looked like that because they had to. It was a limitation of that era's technology. I won't say it's not a valid way to go now, but there is no reason to do it in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I think pixel graphics and 2D retro work but 3D just ages badly.
 
I'm REALLY looking forward to this. I was a huge fan of Goldeneye 007 on the N64, and Perfect Dark.

Timesplitters never really hit the same way, this game looks like its just a straight up sequel to Goldeneye, which I'm super pumped about.

As for the graphics, there are plenty of REALLY good games using the retro 3D art style like Dusk, ION fury, Cruelty Squad etc so this game is by no means breaking any ground. I think the blocky polys are appropriate for the stiff gameplay.
 
Dan_D said:
I can't do it. Students from the Art Institute schools can do better graphics than that after a year or two of training. Graphics aren't the end all be all, but I find myself totally distracted by the ugly visuals and not in a good way.
Click to expand...

Meh. This game looks infinitely more interesting than most AAA FPS releases these days.
I can't do most 2D indie games, but this early-3D-revival in FPS games really works for me - extremely high framerates and **clear** and crisp visuals (no blur, chromatic aberration, overblown bloom/HDR, <insert other overdone modern graphical effects>).

Also this is a _stylistic_ choice, clearly not a limitation of talent or tech.
We all like different things though, thankfully there's room for games like this alongside whatever you like.
 
schoolslave said:
Meh. This game looks infinitely more interesting than most AAA FPS releases these days.
I can't do most 2D indie games, but this early-3D-revival in FPS games really works for me - extremely high framerates and **clear** and crisp visuals (no blur, chromatic aberration, overblown bloom/HDR, <insert other overdone modern graphical effects>).

Also this is a _stylistic_ choice, clearly not a limitation of talent or tech.
We all like different things though, thankfully there's room for games like this alongside whatever you like.
Click to expand...

Yeah these choice are style choices. If you look at the new turtles game that's a throw back to the arcade games, or the bloodstained games that are aping old Catlevanias they all clearly have a ton of effort thrown into everything. But they wanted to do a throw back so they did.
 
Dan_D said:
If a shooter done Minecraft style is your thing.
Click to expand...
Hahahahaha, but actually I can't stand Minecraft's graphics, or its art-style.

I started gaming with Atari 2600, and haven't stopped since. Despite all the amazing advancements in graphics since then, usually I've found that if I thought a game's graphics were impressive when the game was new, I am still impressed many years later. The Build Engine still impresses me to this day, and what Voidpoint has done with it for Ion Fury is nothing short of amazing. There are games from the 4th-gen console days that I found waaaaay after 4th-gen and still thought their graphics were awesome. One example is the game Axelay on SNES. I didn't discover that game until 2007, but when I did, the graphics blew me away. Black Mesa is on that old-ass Source Engine, and yet it is still a great-looking game with very immersive graphics and environments. The raw graphical horsepower of the Neo-Geo MVS still floors me. There are a ton of console, arcade, and PC games from the 90s and 2000s that I think still look great today. Between 2016 and 2020 and went through the entire Doom franchise except Doom 3 (and I have yet to play the two Doom 2 expansions included in Final Doom). That included playing through Doom 64 for the first time. All those games still look great to me, even before the graphical enhancements from mods like Brutal Doom.

Now with Goldeneye 007, that one is different. I didn't care too much for the graphics back in 1997. However I don't have an issue with the devs of Agent 64 trying to go for graphics like that. They just need to make a game that is fun to play. Gameplay is faaaaar more important to me than graphics. So long as the graphics don't interfere with the gameplay, or fuck with my eyes, then I don't usually care how a game looks. If you look at a game like Madworld on Wii, I couldn't play that game for shit. I could barely make anything out, and the graphics gave me a headache from eye strain/fatigue. So that's an example of a game where the graphics actually stopped me from being able to play a game. So long as a game doesn't do that, I'm usually fine with the graphics. On PC (or well even on consoles) I do really appreciate it when a dev pushes graphics hardware as far as they can, but that's not a requirement for me to play. And if a dev doesn't push graphics that hard, that's not a reason for me to pass on a game. A game can have the absolute best graphics the industry has ever seen, but if the game plays like shit then as a video game it is still a waste. And a game can have simple graphics but if it plays awesome then I'm still down widdit. I can't just outright dismiss a game because of how it looks. I needs hands-on time with the game, I need to experience the gameplay, before I decided if a game is worth my time or not. If I passed on Ion Fury just cuz of how the game looks, I would have missed out on one of the best FPS games I have ever played. Or looking at art-style, I really enjoyed Bioshock even though I hate art deco. I have a friend (who is an artist) who won't play Guacamelee 1 or 2 just because he doesn't like the art-style of those games. Too bad cuz he loves Metroidvania games, and those two games are excellent examples of the genre. He's missing out just cuz of that. Then again he didn't wanna watch the show Spartacus cuz to him it looked like a fake low-budget 300.

As for remakes, new graphics and engines don't always make the games better. The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy has twice the framerate and way better graphics than the original PS1 games, and yet original Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 still feel and play better. On the flip side, Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a fantastic replacement for the original games, both looks, runs, and plays better (although the original games still have a very impressive graphics engine). I don't play RE games but my friends who played the remakes of 2 and 3 couldn't stop talking about all the ways they are massively improved over the originals. Not just gameplay and controls, but the new graphics do add a lot to the mood and atmosphere. Honestly it depends on the game.

All that said, I also consider it a waste when games like the 3D Zelda games continue to languish on old-ass engines (BotW is still mostly based on the Wind Waker engine!) that hold back the game's ability to provide a detailed and immersive world. It's one of those situations where you really wonder how a game would've looked like on a modern engine, and you see the potential and get disappointed that the game's graphics and environments won't reach that potential. Like can I please fucking get a new Wave Race? I can only imagine how awesome the water (and water physics) would be on today's hardware with a modern engine, over 20 years after the last Wave Race game. I was hoping Uncharted 4 would finally ditch the Uncharted 1 engine, but nope, they didn't do that until TLoU Part 2. You could still see the age in the engine in some areas when playing Uncharted 4. Super Mario Odyssey has issues with pixel shimmering and LoD changing right before your eyes. All that shit was annoying. One of those times I wish the game had come out on PC or a more powerful system than the fucking Switch. Didn't stop me from playing it though. Still an awesome game. But dang if I didn't wish it was on a more capable engine/platform. I do applaud Nintendo for focusing on 60fps over graphics though.

Depending on the game, I think it's interesting when devs choose to use old engines like the Build Engine to make new games. We thought we saw everything Build Engine was capable of in the 90s, but nope, more can be wrung outta it. Same way I enjoy how some devs still make games for older systems like Dreamcast. A lot of the time in the game industry we move on to newer engines and hardware before realizing the full potential of existing engines/hardware. So it can be cool to see people going back to those old engines and hardware and doing more with them. I appreciate Build Engine now more than I did before after seeing what Voidpoint did with it. Wouldn't mind seeing more of that.

I do understand that after gameplay, graphics is the next big thing, because video games are things that we see, and the visuals are how we take in the game world, become a part of it, and interact with it. Almost everything in a video game is based off of visual feedback. If you are distracted by graphics are that aren't bleeding-edge Dan, and that interferes with your ability to play the game, well nothing can be done about that. Me, if I was fine with an engine's graphics back in the day then generally I am fine with those graphics today.
 
DrezKill said:
Hahahahaha, but actually I can't stand Minecraft's graphics, or its art-style.

I started gaming with Atari 2600, and haven't stopped since. Despite all the amazing advancements in graphics since then, usually I've found that if I thought a game's graphics were impressive when the game was new, I am still impressed many years later. The Build Engine still impresses me to this day, and what Voidpoint has done with it for Ion Fury is nothing short of amazing. There are games from the 4th-gen console days that I found waaaaay after 4th-gen and still thought their graphics were awesome. One example is the game Axelay on SNES. I didn't discover that game until 2007, but when I did, the graphics blew me away. Black Mesa is on that old-ass Source Engine, and yet it is still a great-looking game with very immersive graphics and environments. The raw graphical horsepower of the Neo-Geo MVS still floors me. There are a ton of console, arcade, and PC games from the 90s and 2000s that I think still look great today. Between 2016 and 2020 and went through the entire Doom franchise except Doom 3 (and I have yet to play the two Doom 2 expansions included in Final Doom). That included playing through Doom 64 for the first time. All those games still look great to me, even before the graphical enhancements from mods like Brutal Doom.

Now with Goldeneye 007, that one is different. I didn't care too much for the graphics back in 1997. However I don't have an issue with the devs of Agent 64 trying to go for graphics like that. They just need to make a game that is fun to play. Gameplay is faaaaar more important to me than graphics. So long as the graphics don't interfere with the gameplay, or fuck with my eyes, then I don't usually care how a game looks. If you look at a game like Madworld on Wii, I couldn't play that game for shit. I could barely make anything out, and the graphics gave me a headache from eye strain/fatigue. So that's an example of a game where the graphics actually stopped me from being able to play a game. So long as a game doesn't do that, I'm usually fine with the graphics. On PC (or well even on consoles) I do really appreciate it when a dev pushes graphics hardware as far as they can, but that's not a requirement for me to play. And if a dev doesn't push graphics that hard, that's not a reason for me to pass on a game. A game can have the absolute best graphics the industry has ever seen, but if the game plays like shit then as a video game it is still a waste. And a game can have simple graphics but if it plays awesome then I'm still down widdit. I can't just outright dismiss a game because of how it looks. I needs hands-on time with the game, I need to experience the gameplay, before I decided if a game is worth my time or not. If I passed on Ion Fury just cuz of how the game looks, I would have missed out on one of the best FPS games I have ever played. Or looking at art-style, I really enjoyed Bioshock even though I hate art deco. I have a friend (who is an artist) who won't play Guacamelee 1 or 2 just because he doesn't like the art-style of those games. Too bad cuz he loves Metroidvania games, and those two games are excellent examples of the genre. He's missing out just cuz of that. Then again he didn't wanna watch the show Spartacus cuz to him it looked like a fake low-budget 300.

As for remakes, new graphics and engines don't always make the games better. The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy has twice the framerate and way better graphics than the original PS1 games, and yet original Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 still feel and play better. On the flip side, Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a fantastic replacement for the original games, both looks, runs, and plays better (although the original games still have a very impressive graphics engine). I don't play RE games but my friends who played the remakes of 2 and 3 couldn't stop talking about all the ways they are massively improved over the originals. Not just gameplay and controls, but the new graphics do add a lot to the mood and atmosphere. Honestly it depends on the game.

All that said, I also consider it a waste when games like the 3D Zelda games continue to languish on old-ass engines (BotW is still mostly based on the Wind Waker engine!) that hold back the game's ability to provide a detailed and immersive world. It's one of those situations where you really wonder how a game would've looked like on a modern engine, and you see the potential and get disappointed that the game's graphics and environments won't reach that potential. Like can I please fucking get a new Wave Race? I can only imagine how awesome the water (and water physics) would be on today's hardware with a modern engine, over 20 years after the last Wave Race game. I was hoping Uncharted 4 would finally ditch the Uncharted 1 engine, but nope, they didn't do that until TLoU Part 2. You could still see the age in the engine in some areas when playing Uncharted 4. Super Mario Odyssey has issues with pixel shimmering and LoD changing right before your eyes. All that shit was annoying. One of those times I wish the game had come out on PC or a more powerful system than the fucking Switch. Didn't stop me from playing it though. Still an awesome game. But dang if I didn't wish it was on a more capable engine/platform. I do applaud Nintendo for focusing on 60fps over graphics though.

Depending on the game, I think it's interesting when devs choose to use old engines like the Build Engine to make new games. We thought we saw everything Build Engine was capable of in the 90s, but nope, more can be wrung outta it. Same way I enjoy how some devs still make games for older systems like Dreamcast. A lot of the time in the game industry we move on to newer engines and hardware before realizing the full potential of existing engines/hardware. So it can be cool to see people going back to those old engines and hardware and doing more with them. I appreciate Build Engine now more than I did before after seeing what Voidpoint did with it. Wouldn't mind seeing more of that.

I do understand that after gameplay, graphics is the next big thing, because video games are things that we see, and the visuals are how we take in the game world, become a part of it, and interact with it. Almost everything in a video game is based off of visual feedback. If you are distracted by graphics are that aren't bleeding-edge Dan, and that interferes with your ability to play the game, well nothing can be done about that. Me, if I was fine with an engine's graphics back in the day then generally I am fine with those graphics today.
Click to expand...
Axelay is really good and there are a lot of shooters and stuff or the SNES that hold up today. For the Wii check out Muramasa.
 
I'd be much more excited about a proper remake of Goldeneye but I'll be happy to give this demo a shot anyway.

Edit: Demo was honestly pretty fun and veeery similar to Goldeneye, would pick up full game as long as it was pretty cheap.
 
Last edited:
w35t said:
I'd be much more excited about a proper remake of Goldeneye but I'll be happy to give this demo a shot anyway.

Edit: Demo was honestly pretty fun and veeery similar to Goldeneye, would pick up full game as long as it was pretty cheap.
Click to expand...
There was a Xbox 360 unreleased version you could play on Xenia floating around the internet for awhile. It was pretty good. Might want to look into that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: w35t
like this
I just learned about this game tonight. Added to wishlist. Subbing to read the thread later. Just downloaded the Selaco demo, so checking that out now. 😎
 
Armenius said:
Looks like something Rare would have made had they kept the Bond license and made a sequel to Goldeneye 007 instead of Perfect Dark.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxoC04cku38
Click to expand...



its definitely got the look, "looks" like its got the feel. while goldeneye was mostly about the multiplayer for me, the single player campaign was a blast also. ill be picking this up if for nothing more than a nostalgic high.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top