Who among us-and by "us" I mean elder millennials-could forget the golden days of Goldeneye deathmatches after school? It's one experience that has been notoriously hard to recreate, even as technology marches on-but retro gaming hardware outfit Analogue's latest, a ground-up remake of the N64 called the 3D, will likely prove to be the best possible attempt to do just that. Hey, don't pick Oddjob!

Analogue has proved its potential for past generations of 16-bit on FPGA-based emulations of the SNES, Sega Genesis, PC Engine and Gameboy Advance; however, the N64 heralds a new frontier with complexity and power, especially when the goal is not just to emulate but surpass.

Of course, as one of the first 3D-focused consoles, the N64 was a powerhouse for its time, but also, of course, quite limited. And while there have been a number of ways to play these games via emulators, the system has been plagued by compatibility issues and other quirks. Even Nintendo's first-party emulation of N64 games has fallen short in various ways.

Analogue, being what it is, spent years scrupulously re-engineering the N64 in FPGA form -- that is, this new 3D console is, in several key ways, indistinguishable from the old hardware. That most obvious one is 100% compatibility with the console's game library -- meaning every N64 cartridge works with this thing.

Maybe a more significant challenge of the N64 is actually one related to how it generates its image, much like most consoles of the same generation. The N64 produced an analog video signal meant for display on interlaced CRT displays, which in turn gores right into gameplay and art style in numerous games. Many retro games just look bad on modern high-resolution displays not because they are dated or the art is insufficient but because the display techs are fundamentally different.

In service of this aim Analogue constructed a native upscaler that, instead of denoising and digitalizing the analog video output of the original console (as many upscalers do, with occasional success), sends out a natively digital, 4K signal replete with emulation CRT artefacts and scanlines. This is something they spearheaded earlier and produced several iterations of to reproduce exact phosphors and display modes for the multi-system Analogue Pocket. I requested more details on this and will update the post if I hear back from the company.

The payoff is simple: games should look like you remembered them, meaning probably a heck of a lot better than they looked. Still, don't get too excited; the Analogue 3D doesn't fix the N64's terrible framerate in most games (20-30 FPS almost always, or worse) or the "actual" resolution of the game; it just renders it much better than it likely was ever rendered outside some enthusiast retro-gaming setup. (The MiSTer/PVM crowd goes ape on this stuff.)

To enhance the original N64 experience, the Analogue 3D supports up to four new wireless 8bitdo controllers, after the style of the original, but without their now-familiar yet, admit it, ridiculous three-pronged nature. Those controllers haven't aged well-unofficial remakes are better but still clunky, and you'll have to buy these separately.

The 3D does not support OpenFPGA, the multi-system platform found on the Pocket (and darling of the emulation crowd), but it does have an SD card slot, so you'll probably be able to play ROMs if such is your choice.

Although I haven't tried it yet, I am fairly confident that Analogue 3D will prove one of the best-if not absolute best-ways of playing N64 games the way they were intended to be played. Anybody looking for deeper improvements like better frame rates and high-quality texture maps is of course allowed to stick with the pretty advanced emulation scene.

And finally, for all you dudes out there: you can preorder the Analogue 3D in either black or white for $250 starting this morning, October 21. I'll see you in Facility License to Kill, pistols only, no Oddjob.