Summary
The game that reinvigorated the FPS genre.
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.
