Goldeneye (1997) promotional renders were quite something

[ThereAreFourNaan]

Via Goldeneye25 Twitter



Even the biggest downgrades in recent memory have nothing on this sort of thing from the 90's. There's always something charming about this stuff from the era of showing off FMVs as your graphics, or using blatent offline renders with preposterously high resolutions and asset quality that aren't even on the same planet as the game.

 

[Phabh]

They were supposed to be renders.

 

[stinkyguy666]

These always looked so creepy to me

 

[plagiarize]

I didn't know the N64 could do bloom effects or such good texture filtering.

 

[@dedmunk]

This isn't a "downgrade" at least in the traditional sense.

 

[Phantom]

Boomshots

 

[Deleted member 59339]

They were supposed to be renders.

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Yeah, I don't think they were ever intended as anything misleading, anymore than drawings of Zelda enemies in an instruction manual were.

Didn't they show real screens of GoldenEye before the public ever saw these renders anyway?

Plus, Rare was always putting new renders out after the games had already been out, as wallpapers and holiday art and stuff.

 

[MaitreWakou]

That's no downgrade tho, like you said those are promo renders.
It's like if we talked of downgrades nowadays because we saw a CG cutscene before gameplay. Clearly, it's the same thing we do nowadays. No more renders on game magazines, but CG trailer on youtube.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

They were never supposed to represent in-game visuals.

 

[Deleted member 8593]

This is how people remember GoldenEye when they say that a modern game looks like a N64 title.

 

[Deleted member 46948]

When you're dead inside but still have to serve Her Majesty.

 

[Conkerkid11]

That tank photo is amazing.

 

[LewieP]

Heard this in my head immediately.

 

[King Alamat]

It looks like a fake game you'd see in the background of a cop show.

 

[Detail]

The owner of that account is doing a UE4 remake of goldeneye? It looks amazing! I have followed him, hopefully he manages to get it out.

 

[.exe]

They also used to just draw approximations of gameplay even earlier. Pitfall comes to mind.

 

[lint2015]

Yeah, I remember these in magazines. They were never intended to be representative of the game and were never passed off as such.

 

[butalala]

Look at the downgrade DKC2 got. Rare is such a bunch of phonies.

 

[wollywinka]

Uncanny Valley was still a speck on the horizon.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

This isn't a "downgrade" at least in the traditional sense.

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Not saying it is the same, just that in the 90's this was what everyone was doing all the time. It is, as I said, one of the charming aspects of the era.

Savvy people would realize it's not in game but there were no standards for anything so you'd have ads on TV or in magazines that really had no interest in showing off the game itself. Bullshots in the traditional sense existed alongside it and there's not really a clear delineation - the tank screenshot for instance is clearly showing off highly polygonal objects and characters that are likely derived from the real objects in dev builds of the game, but all the texture work is in pristine quality and it's print-quality resolution instead of 320x240. Compare that to the laser corridor screenshot which looks totally unlike the game, or "bond standing in front of a flame" which nobody would ever confuse for the game either.

 

[udivision]

Look at the downgrade DKC2 got. Rare is such a bunch of phonies.

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There's nothing I love more than the DK series renders. More than any other franchise.

 

[shaneo632]

edit:

 

[Annoying Old Party Man]

Someone post the original screenshots that were released for the game. The resolution and image quality was for a system 2 generations ahead of the N64.

 

[Dictator]

I wish I looked as relaxed as Pierce Brosnan looks in these shots. Shit is just getting completely wrecked and he looks like he is reading the newspaper.

 

[Deleted member 23046]

The one in the tank looks these photo booth attractions where your slip your head into a premade character (pirate on his boat etc).

 

[klier]

Uncanny Valley was still a speck on the horizon.

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LOL

 

[Rassilon]

Still disappointed that wide mouth Bond wasn't a gameplay feature.

 

[King_Moc]

These were never presented as being in game iirc. Since DKC1 Rare used hi res cgi images for promotion.

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

These were never presented as being in game iirc. Since DKC1 Rare used hi res cgi images for promotion.

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Seem to recall the gameplay images on the boxart looked a bit different than in-game tho.

 

[King_Moc]

Seem to recall the gameplay images on the boxart looked a bit different than in-game tho.

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Not especially.

https://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cover_id=6509

 

[Nocturnowl]

Opened the thread recalling CGI brosnan just posing in some fire, was pleased to see it alongside the other nostalgia hits.

Don't think any of them were implied to be representative of the visuals, these funky marketing renders were the way of the nineties

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

Not especially.

https://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cover_id=6509

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Ah you're right. It's the alternative AK47 model they used that I was remembering.

 

[Coinspinner]

Look at the downgrade DKC2 got. Rare is such a bunch of phonies.

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You can see the cuffs on the fur suits they're wearing.

 

[StallionDan]

These were never meant to represent the actual game. They were artwork, a CGI version of a drawing or painting. Every game did this back then, no downgrade, no intent to misrepresent.

 

[Deleted member 2254]

The funny thing is that those early low poly yet crisp as hell renders from the 90's with bloom and shit up the ass aged a lot worse than the actual in-game graphics which, aside from the horribly low resolutions (and in Goldeneye's case framerate) don't look that uncanny today, they just feel rudimental. These kind of "realistic" CGI renders from the era, on the other hand, look like some pre-Toy Story failed attempts at making realistic Pixar animations by somebody who clearly doesn't have the technical skills to pull it off. And I'm not throwing shade at the artists, because 3D software at the time gave them these tools and they did what they could, but it's a style that certainly did not age gracefully, looking pretty funky already a couple years later.

 

[Nocturnowl]

Stray thoughts
- Going by the silo stage layouts, his vaulting is very ill advised, Mr bond I expect you to die indeed.
- I can't tell if bond is striking a cool pose among the archives chaos or if sprinting away from the madness whilst holding his gun up via some intense arm swaying

 

[ResidentDante]

I wish I looked as relaxed as Pierce Brosnan looks in these shots. Shit is just getting completely wrecked and he looks like he is reading the newspaper.

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Lmao! Dying here!

 

[mrfusticle]

I wish I looked as relaxed as Pierce Brosnan looks in these shots. Shit is just getting completely wrecked and he looks like he is reading the newspaper.

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Reminds me of this dude

 

[Barrel Cannon]

Worst downgrade poll
Witcher 3
Watchdogs
Goldeneye(winner)

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

The funny thing is that those early low poly yet crisp as hell renders from the 90's with bloom and shit up the ass aged a lot worse than the actual in-game graphics which, aside from the horribly low resolutions (and in Goldeneye's case framerate) don't look that uncanny today, they just feel rudimental. These kind of "realistic" CGI renders from the era, on the other hand, look like some pre-Toy Story failed attempts at making realistic Pixar animations by somebody who clearly doesn't have the technical skills to pull it off. And I'm not throwing shade at the artists, because 3D software at the time gave them these tools and they did what they could, but it's a style that certainly did not age gracefully, looking pretty funky already a couple years later.

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FMV for mid-budget games in the 90's looks totally abysmal. These kinds of screenshots are in the category of like "it's kind of the game but it's also kind of not" so it's trying to look like massively spruced up gameplay so it comes off as worse even than that mid budget FMV stuff, lol.

 

[gazoinks]

You can see the cuffs on the fur suits they're wearing.

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Oh god

 

[nemorrhoids]

Old video game marketing is one of my absolute favorite things. It never fails to be interesting or hilarious. The shots of Brosnan's face tickle me.

 

[Dekuman]

Via Goldeneye25 Twitter



Even the biggest downgrades in recent memory have nothing on this sort of thing from the 90's. There's always something charming about this stuff from the era of showing off FMVs as your graphics, or using blatent offline renders with preposterously high resolutions and asset quality that aren't even on the same planet as the game.

Click to shrink...

The renders are clearly promotional owning to the large Rare logo, lack of a UI and non standard size (usually portrait or landscape). They were never intended to be bullshots like today's games. More as an appetizer to let people's imaginations run wild while browsing through a magazine

Rare had been doing it since 1994s DKC as eye candy for magazine inserts and splash pages.

 

[Deleted member 2254]

FMV for mid-budget games in the 90's looks totally abysmal. These kinds of screenshots are in the category of like "it's kind of the game but it's also kind of not" so it's trying to look like massively spruced up gameplay so it comes off as worse even than that mid budget FMV stuff, lol.

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Yeah, it just feels so damn fake. I always laugh my ass off when they use FMV or CGI renders to depict videogames in movies or TV shows, because they feel and look completely different from the actual thing. From the smooth transitioning camera, to everything feeling butter smooth, to some assets being a lot better than the rest sticking out like a sore thumb, without forgetting the Windows Movie Maker level lens flares and the lack of feedback on the player's screen as the action happens. But they actually used such sequences in games back then for their cinematics, and they always felt kinda off to me, and indeed they aged horribly.




I mean, look at the FMV parts of the first Tomb Raider's cinematics. Some surprisingly high quality assets in the middle of blurry messes (compare Lara's hands in the second FMV scene to those of the dude in the beginning), animations that feel ridiculously stiff, no feedback by other elements on screen, empty areas because rendering too much on screen was a pain in the ass with the hardware of the times, etc.. Early 3D games' gameplay graphics don't feel wrong (see Quake 1 or Tomb Raider 1 itself), they feel like something that aims at reality but approximates it with terrible poly counts and low resolutions. These FMV parts, on the other hand, go for some effects that try and outshine reality, failing quite miserably in the process.

 

[Tunesmith]

I had several of these renders as A1 sized wall posters in my room back around when the game came out (Thank you Bergsala AB promo department).

These were never presented as anything from the game itself, just artwork.

 

[jett]

The renders are clearly promotional owning to the large Rare logo, lack of a UI and non standard size (usually portrait or landscape). They were never intended to be bullshots like today's games. More as an appetizer to let people's imaginations run wild while browsing through a magazine

Rare had been doing it since 1994s DKC as eye candy for magazine inserts and splash pages.

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Indeed.

These Goldeneye renders are particularly shitty though.

 

[Darksaberx]

Why is he vaulting over everything he can think of? There was no vault or jumo mechanic in the entire game.

 

[spidye]

I wish I looked as relaxed as Pierce Brosnan looks in these shots. Shit is just getting completely wrecked and he looks like he is reading the newspaper.

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That's exactly how he drove that tank in the movie though

 

[unicornKnight]

Ah you're right. It's the alternative AK47 model they used that I was remembering.

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As a child I was very confused that I couldn't find this weapon anywhere in the game.

 

[iamaustrian]

Look at the downgrade DKC2 got. Rare is such a bunch of phonies.

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Well,other than res and colors it stayed the same

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Even the biggest downgrades in recent memory have nothing on this sort of thing from the 90's. There's always something charming about this stuff from the era of showing off FMVs as your graphics, or using blatent offline renders with preposterously high resolutions and asset quality that aren't even on the same planet as the game.

Click to shrink...

You say this as though it's just a 90s thing. It's only been relatively recently that any games show actual gameplay footage or, for that matter, even label non-gameplay footage as such. Or using footage from a PC version to show off a console version.