I've never played the original, but I don't think a remake this extensive will ever be closer to the original. It's been many years since the original, and I believe I remember hearing about an XBox Live remake some time ago that was closer to the original but with high res models and textures. This is more of a Goldeneye for the current generation of consoles. I believe it's even more expansive and has more modes.
Yes, about two years ago, Microsoft was going to publish an HD upgrade of
GoldenEye on Xbox Live, which Rare had been working on for more than a year, until legal issues kiboshed the whole thing. It was pretty complicated, as Microsoft, through Rare, owned the actual design and intellectual property of the original game, while Nintendo owned the publishing rights to the original game (Rare was second-party in the N64 days) and Activision held the Bond license. Microsoft and Activision came to a financial agreement, but Nintendo refused to budge, even after Microsoft said, "Hey, we'll even have Rare re-code this for the Wii and you can put it up on the Virtual Console a few months after we put it on Xbox Live." When Eurocom's
GoldenEye 007 was revealed this year, Nintendo's intransigence suddenly made sense.