If you were around in the late 1990s and happily poured many hours into GoldenEye 007, then you have probably come across the 'Four Bonds' hoax. This was a theory which stated that it was possible to unlock the face textures for previous Bond actors Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton in the game's multiplayer mode after completing a series of near-impossible tasks.
007 Goldeneye Texture Packl
This was, of course, not true (regardless of what Nintendo-working uncles might tell you); although the face textures of these past Bonds did exist in the game's ROM in some rudimentary form after initial plans to add the actors were scrapped thanks to some pesky legal worries. While the other Bond models were removed completely, the face textures were instead moved to the 'unused pile' rather than risk deleting anything else from the game's build so close to release.
Or at least, that's where they were. The version of the game that we now have on the NSO N64 Library has done away with these textures, so it seems, finally putting the chance of playing with the classic Bonds to bed. As confirmed on Twitter by @LuigiBlood, the only noticeable difference between this version's ROM and those to have come before it is the removal of the unused Bond textures:
It is slightly strange that the old actor textures would be removed in this instance, while other unused ones still hang around to this day. We suppose that it sidesteps any criticism of 'come on Nintendo, the textures were right there! Why not just put them in??' because they're not right there anymore.
Could simply be the face textures were named "bond1" "bond2" etc and the folders "folder1" "folder2" meaning you wouldn't realise the different folders were different Bonds unless you checked/worked on it originally.
Many of the most old-school of gamers still pride themselves on playing all the classics on the original hardware and look down on emulation. Many other Nintendo fans may be loading up their Wiis with plenty of excellent N64 games on the Virtual Console. However, if you are looking for something to breath a bit of fresh air into your favorite N64 games, you may want to look into some neat little hacks you can do with an N64 emulator and some select plugins and texture packs.
Without doing anything too terribly complicated, you can make most any N64 game look significantly better by using Project64 with a plugin, typically the Rice Video Plugin (find others on list of plugins here). These improvements are usually made by enhancing the 3D model textures and using anti-aliasing techniques to smoothen the rough edges of the polygons. Here are some great examples of enhanced screenshots (click to enlarge)
One of the coolest tricks in N64 emulation is re-texturing. With this technique, the original graphics of the game are taken out, redone using high resolution textures or a different graphic style (such as Cell Shading), and then reinserted for playback on the PC. These texture packs consist of zipped files that you download and use in combination with a copy of the original game ROM and specific emulators. (See this guide for a detailed example)
The only disadvantage to this technique is that there is a lot of time and effort that goes into these texture packs. Dedicated members of the N64 emulation community pour their creativity and skill into these creations and is is no small task to adequately take care of one game, let alone the entire N64 library. Because of this, not every N64 game is going to have high-resolution texture packs available. Although, you are free to join in on the initiative yourself.
Another brilliant post! Oh, and having already played bits of Mario 64 with the enhanced textures, I must admit it looks way better than the original. Hopefully upgrades of the kind will be made available for the Virtual Console.
Also next week, Bethesda will release a high-resolution texture pack for the PC version of Fallout 4. "Consider this free download a love letter to our amazing PC fans that have supported us," Bethesda said in a post on its blog, "not just with Fallout 4, but across multiple decades and games."
The final Nintendo 64 hardware could render polygons faster than the SGI Onyx workstation the development team had been using. This helped the developers significantly, as some backgrounds rendered at 2 frames per second on the Onyx without even drawing enemies, objects, or Bond's gun.[16] However, the textures had to be cut down by half.[17] Hilton explained one method of improving performance: "A lot of GoldenEye is in black and white. RGB colour textures cost a lot more in terms of processing power. You could do double the resolution if you used greyscale, so a lot was done like that. If I needed a bit of colour, I'd add it in the vertex."[17] When Super Mario 64 was released in 1996, the 3D collision detection system was influential for Hollis because GoldenEye 007 was originally using a 2D method.[17]
Early screenshots of Facility show it using a white texture with gray blotches above the tiles on the walls in the bathroom and the area with the security room surrounded by halls. It was replaced with a much nicer looking gray stone texture later in development, however the old texture can still be found on some of the wall supports. With the exception of one location, the old texture is always found on the darkened ceilings or back sides of the supports relative to the way you progress through the level, which explains how it was overlooked, or at least why no one thought it was important enough to fix them.
A gray door with a fake window and caution stripes at the top and bottom. The window is done in a style from earlier in development, when windows were not environment mapped and used a diagonal striped texture instead. Unlike examples of these windows found in the final backgrounds, the one on this prop cannot be shot through but it plays a glass sound effect when shot. This door was intended to slide or swing open, since its bottom isn't modeled.
This is an earlier version of the windowed door, with a fake window like the one mentioned above and incorrect texture indices. The textures are interesting since they change as you move, similar to environment mapped textures.
A round light fixture can be seen attached to the ceilings in some pre-release screenshots; they emitted a triangular beam of light. These lights weren't props; they were actually map geometry and were entirely flat, similar to lights still used in the Frigate and Depot maps. The texture for these lamps is still in the image bank.
The radio room has two bulletin boards behind the desks with radios. The one farthest from the bridge has a number of maps and satellite photos attached to it, but the other is completely bare...or is it? There is actually a full world map, composed of 8 unique 3232 8-bit textures, placed on this board. It doesn't show in-game since the board's triangles were accidentally given priority over those used by the map.
Only one civilian character, a man with a red shirt, is used during this mission. Three additional civilian characters are included in multiplayer, and three more exist that aren't normally accessible without a cheating device or hacking the game. It's likely that they only spawn one civilian model in this mission in order to keep the amount of texture memory used down, since there are already a lot of textures loaded.
In addition to the "weird" (orange) and Golf (white) cars used in this mission, there are BMW and Escort props which were probably intended for this level, and were probably unimplemented for texture memory reasons similar to the unused civilians. The BMW is actually used in a hut in Surface.
Several screenshots from just before the game was released show a simple glass radar display (or something of the sort) in the now-empty frame in the car where the confrontation with Trevelyan goes down, mimicking the elaborate one seen in the film. The texture for this glass is still in the image bank.
(Picture: Microsoft/Rare)This version is a faithful note-for-note recreation of the Nintendo 64 classic, but the remake also adds a lot of visual improvements in terms of new models, better textures and higher resolutions, and the best thing: James Bond finally looks like Pierce Brosnan!if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined')ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'ginx_tv-leader-1','ezslot_9',137,'0','0']);__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-ginx_tv-leader-1-0');Although the port is completely playable, Graslu00 encountered a few bugs here and there, like vanishing assets and issues with sound effects, but nothing too big or game-breaking.The game also features a graphic-toggle button, which instantly switches between remastered and old graphics.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined')ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'ginx_tv-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_10',145,'0','0']);__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-ginx_tv-large-mobile-banner-1-0');If all of this sounds exciting to you and you would like to try this remaster, the good news is that this version has leaked online and you can play it on your PC without any issues!Read more: New James Bond game announced from Hitman developer IOAnd not just that, but the game's legendary multiplayer is available as well, which means you can invite a friend and play with him on a split-screen. The game also features a "system link" mode, which allows you to connect directly with someone online and play the game online via services like XLink Kai.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined')ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'ginx_tv-leader-2','ezslot_13',146,'0','0']);__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-ginx_tv-leader-2-0'); 2ff7e9595c
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