GoldenEye 007

The Good
Goldeneye, although crammed with features, is essentially a gimmick-free game. There are many scenes in the film that game developers could have felt compelled to use. Enter an airplane in free fall. Count how often Boris pressed that ball pen. Use a spy satellite to locate the secret control station in Severnaya.

Basically, the kind of gimmicky gameplay that was later done with "007: The World is Not Enough".

Instead, Rare focused entirely on features that fit the first person perspective of the game perfectly: Rigorous action, suspense-packed stealth sequences and the occasional wristwatch gadget. Which is probably the reason this game works so incredibly well. The plot was rewritten to fit the FPS genre with Bond visiting places that he never saw in the film. And it's so much fun!

There's so much that I simply haven't seen in any other game before (nor after, in many cases). The legendary 4-player splitscreen multiplayer mode I spent countless hours playing with friends. The fact that you can shoot guards in the butt and see an appropriate animation. The beautiful, beautiful explosions. The procedurally generated remnants after you blew up entire rooms in the game world. The fact that cheats have to be unlocked via in-game challenges rather than button-codes (until the infamous "lost cheat codes" were released years later). The great soundtrack. Proximity mines! Sniper rifles! Drivable tanks! The stylish wristwatch pause menu!

I have to stop now...

The Bad
Goldeneye isn't perfect in the absolute sense of the word. There's plenty to complain about: The flickery bullet holes on walls can be distracting from the otherwise near-photorealistic graphics. Guards aren't always as smart as they could be. There is an annoying delay before the pause menu pops up.

Many people missed voice acting, a coop mode for singleplayer, more detailed game settings for the multiplayer or lights actually going out when you shoot them.

Nearly all of this has been solved with Rare's "spiritual successor", Perfect Dark. A secret agent game that changes the Bond-licensed setting by a more futuristic one but otherwise has all the things that made Goldeneye a great game. In fact, if you're looking for perfection rather than classic appeal, Perfect Dark might very well be the better game.

The Bottom Line
Goldeneye proved that both console FPSs and movie-licensed titles cannot only be good, but excellent games. It is a classic of the genre that doesn't rely on a central feature but rather gives the player near unlimited freedom of how to play. For me, this game is one of the, if not the best reason to own a Nintendo 64. Rare's masterpiece from the company's golden ages.

The Good
Since the beginning of the first person shooter genre, games like Wolfenstein and Doom dominated and basically everybody else just copied off of these two or reinvented them for just about every system available to where it got to a point that the genre had gotten into a rut and became stale. Enter Goldeneye.

Goldeneye reinvigorated the genre thanks to Nintendo, Rare and the Nintendo 64. The graphics are top-notch for a 64 game, the backgrounds, foregrounds, vehicles, enemies all beautifully done. The sounds of the weapons firing off and the music straight from the movie gave it the feel of a movie and following the scenes from the movie with some added environments (the missile silo is still my favorite to this day).

The controls work perfectly for the game considering the clumsiness of the 64 controller. Moving, switching weapons and firing them can be done in one fluid motion which gives it a plus in my book. Basically, this game is damn near perfect. Rare did a great job in bringing the feel of the movie straight to the game and added some extra flair with the choice of weapons and the ability to drive the tank (I love to run over the Russian soldiers on the factory stage).

The Bad
Well, it's hard to find any faults with this game that can really hurt it, the only things I can really think of is the weird mapping of the faces of the enemies. To me they look like someone punched someone in the back of the head and caused their faces to push out, it keeps reminding me of a Tim Burton claymation movie for some reason.

Really, this is the only thing I can really put my finger on, it's just the game is technically and graphically superior to the many of its predecessors and the eventually imitators afterwards.

The Bottom Line
This game did to the genre what its movie counterpart did to the James Bond franchise, it brought it back to the forefront with style and pizazz that many others besides games like Halo can compete with, indeed this game should actually belong up in the ranks of games like Halo if not above it on the list.

Indeed there have been many imitators afterwards such as Goldeneye: Rogue Agent (which I will get to next time), but this game to this day still stands the test of time as one of the best FPS even after its initial run.

If you have never experienced this game yet, I suggest you go out a get a Nintendo 64 system and find this game (they are actually pretty easy to get a hold of) since you probably will never get to see this game, even if it is released on a virtual console (if Nintendo and Microsoft can ever get the problem with it settled), it still doesn't feel right unless you have the classic Nintendo 64 controller in your hand.

The Good
Its fast-paced gameplay and stealth missions honor Bond's cinematic heritage in this game, and the 1990s 64-bit era charm oozes out of this game in spades. The music, the action, the recreations of the movie, the new stuff they put in like the Rocket silo, the Aztec level and turning the satellite climax of the Goldeneye movie into a stage for a very impressive boss battle.

The Bad
It's more technical, but I wish that you could see James Bond holding more of the guns physically instead of the PP7s and other pistols. It'd be great if you could see his hands holding and reacting to the firing of an AK-47.

The Bottom Line
Want James Bond to have the ready-to-go entertainment value of Super Mario 64 and take what made Doom so great into the realm of 3D? Goldeneye has the answer; and IS the answer.

The Good
In a world filled with bleak Doom rip-offs, one FPS shows through like a mile marker in FPS history. This game is Goldeneye 007, an Nintendo 64 console exclusive. In 1996, when video games were pretty much run, shoot, run, shoot game style, Goldeneye brought us a better experience in FPS.

The game is a video game make of the popular movie Goldeneye. You star James Bond obviously, and throughout 25 levels you get an elevated level of game play no one thought was possible before. I tried as hard as possible to make this review as short as possible and not to give it so much praise, but a few good words do not do this game justice. At all.

The first good thing about this game is the game play. Unlike traditional
FPS of those days, this one offered a one where you could do your missions how you wanted to. Doom's main purpose was to collect keys and get to the end of the level. Not this one. You had to take your time on this game. it wasn't blow your way through waves of enemies. You actually had to do missions based on the movie. These missions you could even fail, so your main focus was not only the guards but how to pull off these missions before you went off and shot everything that moved. The production values are amazing. Levels are open, allowing you to do your missions in any order possible. In fact, you can even finish the level without finishing your objectives and you can fail! There are briefings, excellently crafted in-game menus, stealth action. This title was simply revolutionary for its time.

The guns are better than most games. It has a selection of over 30 weapons and gadgets to complete your missions. These can range anything from a rocket launcher to mines to a fully automatic shotgun.

The level of difficulty selection added the most options to this game. On agent, secret agent, and 00 agent, new objectives were added for increasing the difficulty and enemies got much smarter, stronger, and faster. Beating the levels on a certain difficulty on a target time unlocks cool cheats, which especially make the game interesting. As well as this there’s 2 secret levels to unlock if you beat all of the levels on secret agent and 00 agent. Beating every level on 00 agent including the secret levels gives you 007 mode. This allows you to alter how quick, smart, tough, and accurate the games enemies are which adds even more game play. Unlocking every cheat and 007 mode game me a good 40+ hours of game play doing this without the Gameshark.

The AI is decent in the game. This is being extremely tough on it. Most of the AI in this Most enemies will shoot through windows to get to you. Others will shoot from a higher point of view such as the top of the stairs. To put it at best the AI is only decent, but pulls it through to make for a good experience anyway.

During the time it was made, it boasted the best graphics. Unlike the other FPS where the environment was 3D and the enemy was not, everything in this game is rendered 3D. The guns are made to precise detail. The outdoor levels are humungous! You can see far across the level without fogging that Turok brought. Not only that, but people fall over a different way depending on where you shot them. For example, if you shot a man in the crotch, he will hold it while he falls over and dies. Shot him in the arm and he will hold his arm. There are over 30 different guards in the game, and depending where you are, they will differ. Not only this, they all carry different weapons depending on who they work for (Russian infantry carry AKs, Spetznaz carry Klobbs). On top of this, all guards have different faces which are randomly cycled through 50 or more! How's that for detail!

Musical score is done fairly well in the game. Some of its a remixed version of the Bond theme, but other original scores are done extremely well such as the Surface music and the Bunker music. All of the music for this game is done very well, including the main menu music which seems to be just the ripped Bond theme these days.

The sound effects are pretty cool. There are different gun shot noises for every gun you use, and the soldiers grunts when you shoot them aren't the typical stuff you can rip off of a sound board. This shows how much work they put into making this game.

Lastly, multiplayer is entertaining with friends. It has a great level
of control, and you can unlock extra levels from one player to play in here which is extremely fun. You can set the gun set, there’s more than one style than just Deathmatch and each person can choose a handicap and a character. Though it seems like most games these days offer the same, its this game that started the trend.

The last reason to get this game is just because it revolutionized the FPS industry. You can't just read about it, you must play it to know how good it is. Once you play it you will know why. Remember this game out 1996. Most Bond games still aren't as good as this one. And this one was made 10 years ago.

The Bad
The AI in the game sometimes has holes in it. Sometimes they will run towards you and stop very close in order to get a good shot on a large open stage. This happens mostly on outdoor levels. However this is unnoticeable in most of the indoor levels so its not really a bother most of the time. The other problem is how horribly uncoordinated they seem to be. In especially tight levels filled with lots of guys, they can pile on top of each other like they are made of sand. 10 guys can be cramped into a tight space that it may just look like a huge blob of polygons with arms and guns. They can't shoot thought each other, but there is no friendly fire for them so they can plug a clip or two in their friends back and he won't notice a thing.

Another two minor problems come with graphics. Sometimes when the situation of 10 guys piled on the screen at once occurs as mentioned above, the frame rate can slow down. Also, there tends to be some clipping problems where guards can stick his arm through his friends chest and shoot at you and actually hit you. This can also happen with walls. However these defects seem to be more of weird coincidences than defects and you will probably not notice it most of the time since you are too busy plugging away at bad guys to care.

This is more of an annoyance than a defect, but Bond makes this weird breathing noise when he is shot. Seems like he should say "F, that really fing hurt!" rather than just act as though he is hyperventilating. Nice try at deception Bond, but the bad guys are still shooting.

Even with these minor defects, it still adds to the whole Goldeneye experience.

The Bottom Line
If you are a fan of the Bond video game series, then this is a must buy. This is the game that started it all. All other sequels tend to be compared with this one when it comes to originality and game play. Most people still consider this the best one of the series. So if you own a Nintendo 64 and haven't played it yet, I highly recommend that next time you’re at a game store or on eBay that you check it out. It's guaranteed to blow you away.

The Good
Well GoldenEye followed it's movie story very good. Rare did a really great job on this video game. You have a good variety of weapons and levels. There are 20 stages in all; 18 on easy and 2 more on the medium and harder difficulties. You will never really get tired of this game unless you don't enjoy FPS games. The levels are very entertaining. The graphics are pretty good for a Nintendo 64 game. Unlike Turok,which controls are totally crappy, GoldenEye has good and easy controls. All of the levels are pretty fun. This game does get addicting. The video game soundtrack is also very good. Rumor has it that Kraftwerk did the GoldenEye 64 soundtrack. Luckily, if you don't have a controller pak(memory card) you don't have to worry because GoldenEye saves your progress after every mission you beat!

The Bad
Sometimes the game is a little frustrating. On OOAgent the game turns into Doom(Hard and impossible). Sometimes the A.I. does act stupid and ruins the mission. The game is a little short. If you play Nintendo 64 a lot then you could easily beat GoldenEye(on easy)in about 1hr and 30 minutes. 1 of the bonus levels in GoldenEye are way too difficult on hard and medium. This level is Aztec(Based on Moonraker).

The Bottom Line
A very good reason to own a Nintendo 64! This game has high levels of fun and a lot of replay value. A good game that deserves an A+.

The Good
This game turned me on to James Bond. I used to like the movies and had seen a few of them, but this game completely immersed the player in the world of 007 - it was utterly convincing in making you actually feel like you were James Bond. After experiencing what it was like to be James Bond, I fell in love with the movies and went nuts on all things Bond.

But where to start in whats good?

Firstly, the whole experience has great production values, from the wrist watch menu's, Q gadgets, and dossiers you could tell this was a game crafted with loving care from the minute you loaded it. Obviously created by huge Bond fans for Bond fans.

The graphics were top notch for the time, with great texture work in most levels with detail that stretches endlessly off into the horizon. Huge levels that stretch on forever (with no fogging ala Turok!) and a fast engine, capable of a solid 30 frames a second except for a couple of sections.

The levels are amazing - 20 huge muthas, actually developed from blue prints from the movie sets. When I saw the movie after playing Goldeneye, I was astounded because the movie locations looked exactly the same as the game. Fans of the excellent movie will instantly recognise locations such as the Dam, the chemical facility, the cradle and the dish control. And the bonus levels are great too, rewarding advanced players.

The gameplay is superb - a revolutionary FPS title, introducing stealth, guards that react differently depending on where you shoot them and sniper rifles that allow you to take guards out who are standing sentry half a kilometre away. The first FPS that encouraged and rewarded you to find new ways of getting through levels instead of blowing up everything that moves. The replay factor is huge, with the bonus levels to earn, 4 different difficulty levels which give you various rewards for completing the game and the awesome cheats awarded to players who can rip through levels in insane time frames. The replayability of this game is immense - once I finished it and unlocked everything, I went and did it again TWICE more because it was so much fun - 5 or 6 months of fun.

And I haven't even mentioned the multiplayer yet - still one of the best console multi-player games around SIX years later - there have been a lot of imitators but none have managed to make it more fun running around shooting your friends with guns.

Oh, and the sound is awesome - clean, crisp gun samples which sound great turned up really loud. The music is awesome, taking the techno-inspired movie -soundtrack and recreating it in midi form - it sounds great.

And all this, and I've only just touched on what makes this game so great - you have to play it to truly understand why this is one of the best games ever made for any platform. Maybe the fact that the game made more money than the Goldeneye movie is good proof (from High Score - history of computer and video games) - the movie grossed $340 million US dollars.

The best and hardest part of this game is getting the Facility cheat on OO Agent skill level - amazingly hard, but all the more satisfying.

The Bad
There is not much wrong - occasional clipping problems where enemies arms go through doors are forgiven. The slowdown in the cradle and archive levels makes them less enjoyable, especially when you're going for your best times or earning cheats and you can't shoot people because the screen is jerking around.

And the tank driving through Russian streets is a pretty poor level - once you've finished it and got the cheat you'll never play it again because it is pretty poor compared to the other great levels. Whereas, the Control, Facility, Dam, Surface, Silo and bonus levels absolutely ROCK, and make you want to play them over and over.

The Bottom Line
Truly, one of the best games ever released - even today, its superb level design, weapons, attention to detail and spades and spades of fun make it without a doubt the best James Bond game ever and the most enjoyable FPS ever written. It never gets boring, right up until the very last level it is an awesome experience - the only bad thing is that it eventually ends.

The Good
Their are lots of cool weapons, and lots of challenging missions, but nothing beats the multi-player mode. So many characters to choose from, lots of different weapons sets, lots of levels and quite good music. Great controls.

The Bad
All the weapons and all you really got to use in the missions was the PP7 and the KF7 Soviet. In Multi-Player mode you had to use pre-made weapons sets, you couldn't, say, choose to use the laser, rocket launcher, KF7 Soviet and Golden Gun. The graphics were only okay, not outstanding, at least compared to Mario Kart.

The Bottom Line
Instead of getting this game get the new and improved Perfect Dark 64.

The Good
Story: An helicopter that is not effected by E.M.P blasts is stolen and MI6 agent of the devision 00 James Bond, code number: 007 has been sent in to find this helicoptor, the plot thickens as an outpost on the coast of Russia is destroyed and an foe emerges, such a foe that Bond will find hard to kill.

Menu: A crosshair style cursor on a dossier menu. Very nice.

Difficulty: Each setting brings more objectives and more harder to beat foes.

Graphics: Very good. The textures are real and add alot of character to the game. The game's levels have been lifted straight from United Artist's movie set blueprints and recreated piece by piece for the game. (more on that later). The guards are all in their lovely brown overcoats and wearing deer hunter hats, just like in mother Russia. The weapons are well detailed too, from the lines on the ammo clip to the tiny sight bump on the end of the barrel. The guards all have different facial expressions, these are all done at random and look very real, the faces on the main stars match up with the ones from the movie almost perfectly. The levels range from the famous bunjee jump at Arcangel dam at the start of the movie to the battle atop a suspended antenna array. Also when you get hit, you stay hit. Nice touch that, body armour can be found to act as a shield. Bullet holes and burn marks from weapons apppear on the walls and floors. And reflective glass shatters

Sound: Brillant: Each level has a different trademark theme to it. The third level even has a remix of the Bond theme halfway though the music track. Weapons are good as well, from the clink, clink of a grenade to the sound of a gun being dropped from a guard all adds to the bond atmosphere.

Gameplay: This game made a new name for first person shooters back in 1998. Firstly was the stealth option, sneak, and we mean sneak. Make too much noise with that weapon and guards will fill you with lead. The guards also react to where they are shot. In the arm: They will grab and wince, Foot, hop about a bit, hand, shake it, head...die. This can also be an advantage, low on ammo? shoot in foot, then take to the head. The A.I of these guards is incredible, they are not just drones, they duck, jump, weave, roll and simply side step from you. They also duck behind crates as well as do this annoying charge attack. Cameras play a vital role to steal, while you may not fail your mission, it will be harder with more guards in the house. Glass can be shot through, many panes in fact with any weapon. Speaking of weapons there are about 20+ different weapons, from the PP7 (PPK) to the Sniper rifle's butt. All have different strategy and reload times. Some can be paired in each hand for an Arine akimbo style play. Multiplayer is the jewel of this game's crown. With up to four players in 8 arenas, slugging it out with weapons from throwing knives to timed mines. There are also different types of gameplay from "You only live twice" (You can die only twice) to "the man with the golden gun" (the golden gun kills instantly). All are very enjoyable, the characters that can be chosen are huge in range, from Bond to Goldfinger's mute handyman: Oddjob.

The Bad
Some weapons were either too crap (The Klobb) and some were just too killer friendly (RC-P45). Some graphical glitches, such as the sprites (2D carboard cut out like graphics) did not react to explosions and often remained infront of the explosion. But that is all that there is to this great game.

The Bottom Line
Not just for fans. I became a Bond fan AFTER I played this game. You will love it.

The Good
This game mixes two of the best things in the world: James Bond and mission based shooters where going all guns blazing wont always mean success. The selection of weapons is huge, each has it's own possitive and negitive points (except maybe the RCP-90). The enemies don't just stand around doing nothing, they twitch, fidget and even threaten to shoot anoying flies, they aren't brain dead either. If you fire a gun near by soldiers will come looking for you after setting off an alarm which usualy spawns more soldiers, they will roll, leap and duck behind cover to avoid your fire while their friends provide covering fire. Every mission has a cheat code to unlock if you complete your objectives under a specified time and 3 difficulty levels with additional objectives add to the replayability. Multiplayer has dozens of options, characters and hundreds of combinations like health handicapts for better players and rocket launcher one hit kill flag tag increase the replayability.

The Bad
There is very little to dislike, out side of the damn Klobb, which is the worst video game weapon ever, perhaps the lack of co-op single player is a negative point but that feature wouldn't realy fit in with the theme. Sometimes the enemies can be very difficult if they are in groups and get the jump on you or if there is a lot of space between you. The only down side of the AI would be that they sometimes throw grenades inside and at close ranges and ignore hand grenades in general, the only other thing would be that the enemies are never randomly placed so you can memorise their positions.

The Bottom Line
This is the biggest reason to buy a N64, Goldeneye is the greatest game on any platform that I've ever played, there is nothing to even compare it to.

The Good
Rare have done what many have failed: combine a single player mode which actually takes skill to beat with a great mix of multiplayer modes that will keep you going for hours on end. Speaking of which, you'll never stop once you get into the multiplayer modes with a few mates. Not that it's a bad thing.

The Bad
The enemy can be really stupid at times, and there are places where the backgrounds break up a little.

The Bottom Line
It's the best 4 player game on any system to date, and is the first movie to game conversion that actually works.

The Good
It has a huge variety of guns from the RCP-90 to the PP7 to the rocket launcher. The multiplayer mode is one of the best I have ever played.

The Bad
I thought that the way the bad guys reacted after you shot them was really unrealistic.

The Bottom Line
A first-person shooter in which you play 007.

The Good
Though in some areas it's been surpassed by Perfect Dark. (It's real sequel, not that other garbage that took the Bond name) I still prefer Goldeneye. This game is all small touches, like the posters of Marx everywhere, or the exploding furniture. The controls are slow and steady, unlike what I've seen in most FPS's these days, and makes it perfect for playing under the influence... of whatever you like to be influenced by. The enemies make satisfying yelping and gurling noises when shot, and are positioned very well. I also think it's neat how you can kill Boris near the beginning, and then he pops up, completely unharmed, near the end. Then you can kill him again. Genius.

The Bad
For one thing, you can't blame the dated graphics. It's a pretty old game, and they do get the job done. The collision detection is a bit wonky, resulting in enemies sometimes poking their gun barrels through the torsos of the guys in front of them and firing, causing no harm to them but plenty to you. Babysitting Natalya gets old rather fast as well.

The Bottom Line
Worth buying an N64 for. In fact, until road rash and perfect dark came out, it really was the only reason TO buy an N64.

The Good
Excellent single player missions are fun and well balanced.The multiplayer is uncomplicated and extremely fun.The music is quite good.The control scheme is perfect.The game is just plain fun to play,even after playing it for all of these years.

The Bad
Graphics are starting to get quite weak.Some of the games AI is very stupid.Sometimes a level is harder than the next.

The Bottom Line
Perfect Dark may have better graphics,but Goldeneye reigns supreme because it has a better single player.If you have Perfect Dar and not this,buy this one right now.

The Good
Consoles have never really been about first person shooters. Gamepads don't make the greatest of shooter controls, and multiplayer shooters are best played on a network of PCs instead of a split-screen TV.

Goldeneye 007 had the interesting distinction of being the greatest first person shooter on any console, and also an average (at best) game in the genre.

Goldeneye 007 has two strengths: a well-designed single player campaign, and a multitude of clever multiplayer modes. However, fundamental failings in the game hamper both from being all they could be.

The mission-based single-player mode is well designed. Objectives are varied and interesting, and while the gameplay doesn't go far beyond shooting, good design keeps things compelling.

Multiplayer is also loaded with many different game modes. From different weapons to team play to You Only Live Twice (get killed twice, and you're eliminated), there's no shortage of things to do to keep multiplayer games fresh.

The Bad
The graphics are atrociously fuzzy. Many Nintendo 64 titles suffered from this. The visuals look pretty decent otherwise, but it's like viewing everything through a haze. Nothing looks sharp. The game also suffers from slowdown frequently, especially in multiplayer shootouts.

Multiplayer is accomplished via split-screen view. The first person shooter genre loses a lot in multiplayer mode when you can see exactly what each player is doing. The fuzzy graphics are many times worse when each person's view is limited to a fragment of the screen. Some of the multiplayer levels are too large - even with 4 players.

Play control is abysmal. Just being able to aim your gun well takes far more effort than it should, and the slow moving speed doesn't work well in gunfights. Again, this is something that gets far worse when trying to manipulate the game from a small quarter-screen view in multiplayer mode. A second joystick would've helped, as the C-buttons are just too unwieldy.

The Bottom Line
So, why is this game so popular if it's so bad? Well, it's not a bad game. It's a pretty good game that is mostly ruined by some bad flaws. Anyone that has played some first person shooters on the PC will not be impressed. Compared to a mouse-and-keyboard, the Nintendo 64 controller is horrid. 4-player split screen multiplayer simply doesn't compare to the kind of online Quake II play that was going on at the time as well.

But, some gamers don't know the joys of PC shooters, and Goldeneye 007 was as good as it got for console first person shooters. Still, when all is said and done, it is an average game - and one of the most overrated games ever released.

The Good
Graphics: Outstanding graphics, gleaming areas, outstanding clips from the movie, and some amazing jungles and stuff.

Sounds: Wow, you've got the most realistic sounding shots, and cool sounds when you ride in the helicopter.

Action: Incredible, you're riding helicopters (stolen too!), you're stealing cool weapons like the incredible machine gun, and the small spy gun that kills with one shot, and you're shooting terrorists.

The Bad
A perfect game! No complaints at all!

The Bottom Line
GREAT game, worth a 100 bucks. 5/5, go on Nintendo, dazzle us some more.

The Good
First of all, the graphics really astounded me, with the ships and tanks and sky textures and detail. it is all so real looking. Sound was also a very good aspect of the game. The musicand sfx were excellent, and combined with the rumble pak, it proved for a really great game. Multiplayer is very fun, as you can get a bunch of friends over and have a great time with this one.

The Bad
Some missions could get very hard, like the control mission. It took me a long time to get past that one.

The Bottom Line
Good game, despite difficulty. Nice graphics, great sfx and music, and well designed levels and music.

My Rating < 4.5 / 5 >