Thursday, March 28, 2013

Deleted Content: Golden Eye

Golden Eye on the N64 is considered the father of modern shooters and one of the best games of all time.  I have not played it.  What I HAVE found out is a lot of items were cut before the release. 


For starters, and the most well known, is the "All Bond" mode.  Licensing kept this from being easily accessible in the final game.  (Basically, either not all the Bonds said "okay"  or Rare could not pay enough for them to say okay.)

But there are others.

Xenia Onnatopp may have been in the final game.  She's known to fly a helicopter, and helicopters either appear or were going to appear in several of the levels.  There is a model of a female helicopter pilot in game, and you meet her by a suspiciously large and empty room..,. a boss fight room perhaps?


Snipers were also supposed to be in the final game.  That's why there are empty sniper towers in several of the levels.... however the way sightlines and bullets work in the game, they could only shoot at Bond when he's at the bottom of the ladder.  Therefore, they would be almost entirely ineffective.


Digging into the code reveals items for a casino level.  There are gold bars, poker chips, and other items which show that one was planned (and there is one in the movie) But it was cut for unknown reasons.

And, the one many have suspected for years, the island!
Near the end of the Dam level, you can glimpse an island in the distance.  Yes, you were actually going to go to it originally.  There is a spare bonus armor on the island, and there is a dummied out but fully modeled boat too.  However, the island itself is unfinished. But the fact it is modeled hints that there was supposed to be something rather significant here.


If you keep on digging, you can find a lot more.  Hidden doors, secret items, unused characters...  interesting what is kept on that little cartridge, isn't it? 


1 comment:

  1. I haven't played this game either, but I've heard that it's a classic. That's really neat how fans can find so much evidence of what could have been in the coding of these games. That casino level sounds like it would have been fun!

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