Cradle, wtf?

This post started out as a comment on dkaufman’s post: A Steaming Pile of Source Code. I decided that it added enough to the conversation to be its own post.

I gave Goldeneye: Source (Beta 1) another try. I agree that the ability to jump and fall off ledges takes away from the experience. I felt like I was learning a new game rather than revisiting an old favorite. However, there were moments that felt patently Goldeneye like when I circle-strafed with this guy in temple as we chewed away at each others ridiculous hp. The levels are appropriately nostalgic, but when there are changes, they annoy me. Cradle is a multiplayer map in this retelling, and it is substantially different from the one in 64. Add that to leaping off ledges and what do you get? Not Goldeneye. Temple is spot-on though, if a little bit bland, and I appreciate that they don’t let you fall through the iconic rectangular hole. Caves made me smile until I got to the parts they added, which suck. Complex looks way better now; the mood is maintained, but the harshness on the eyes is gone. But while the layout of the level seems to be intact, falling off ledges does change the tactics from what I remember.

The system for switching weapons is annoying and got me killed a lot. For some reason, they changed the Half-Life weapon swapping system so that instead of large, captioned pictures of the guns appearing at the top of your screen as you roll the scroll wheel, the names of your guns appear as a list with one item highlighted in the bottom-right corner. This is way harder to glance at in the middle of a fight. While I am able to see if there is a big shotgun icon or a big pistol icon at the top of my screen, I can’t keep an eye on my opponent and see whether Automatic Shotgun or PP7 is highlighted.

Apart from the design decisions I disagree with, the current state of the game still has unfinished weapon animations and sounds. These got in the way of gameplay by making me second guess whether or not I am firing or out of ammo. Also, there’s some choppiness in the aiming that I couldn’t fix entirely by playing with the settings. Maybe these will be fixed in a later version.

Summary: Good, nostalgic renditions of Temple and Complex (Archives didn’t look bad either, but I didn’t play it as much). Annoying changes to Caves, but good where it sticks to the script. Cradle, wtf? Jumping and falling off ledges makes the game feel a lot less like Goldeneye than it could have. The weapon swapping is bad. Unfinished effects and controls in this version.