GoldenEye 007
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GoldenEye 007
(2010 on
Wii)
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GoldenEye 007
(2010 on
Nintendo DS)
Description official descriptions
The name is Bond. James Bond. The famous hero of Ian Fleming's novels returns in this first-person shooter, which is based on the movie of the same name. Agent 007 and his friend Alec Trevalyan (a.k.a. Agent 006) were sent to the Soviet Union on a secret mission. But everything goes wrong, James Bond barely escapes, and his friend is presumed dead.
Ten years later, a mysterious organization named "Janus" appeared. Commanding a new satellite called "GoldenEye", the organization attempts to steal money electronically from banks, deleting all evidence of transfer. It's up to our Agent 007 to venture to the Soviet Union once again and to put an end to Janus' ambitions.
In this 3D action game, the player controls James Bond from a first-person perspective, using a variety of weapons (from knuckles to grenade launcher) to eliminate his foes. However, many parts require the player to be careful, to stay unnoticed, or to snipe guards from distance, since they will react to his presence and alarm their comrades. The game is divided into missions, and in most of them Bond will have to perform other tasks besides killing his enemies: disarm bombs, take pictures of important evidence, or avoid killing scientists. The game features a multiplayer mode with a variety of options and three difficulty levels. Higher difficulty means, besides having to deal with tougher enemies, additional objectives needed to be fulfilled in order to successfully complete the level.
Spellings
- ゴールデンアイ 007 - Japanese spelling
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Credits (Nintendo 64 version)
84 People (77 developers, 7 thanks) · View all
| Produced and Directed by | |
| Director of Photography |
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| Original Screenplay |
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| Game Screenplay based on GoldenEye 1995 film screenplay that written by |
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| Characters written by |
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| Scenic Art Director | |
| Backgrounds |
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| Production Designer | |
| Costume Designer | |
| 2nd‑Unit Director | |
| Original Music | |
| Sound Effects | |
| Production Manager | |
| System Support | |
| Hardware Support |
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| Additional Graphics | |
| Sound System and Tools | |
| Additional Programming |
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| Elevator Music by | |
| [ full credits ] | |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 94% (based on 47 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 226 ratings with 16 reviews)
The game that introduced the FPS genre to consoles
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.
Nintendo 64 · by Lumpi (189) · 2009
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.
Nintendo 64 · by Evil-Jim (145) · 2002
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.
Nintendo 64 · by Big John WV (26954) · 2008
Discussion
| Subject | By | Date |
|---|---|---|
| What gameplay features were first in Goldeneye? | BurningStickMan (17916) | Aug 12, 2011 |
| Which is better? Perfect Dark or GoldenEye? | TwoDividedByZero (114) | Apr 5, 2010 |
| Worth the playing time ? | GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) | May 29, 2008 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
GoldenEye 007 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Cheats
Was one of the first games to feature unlockable cheats. In other words players were required to work for cheats in this game.
Cut Content
- The gun that you see in some of the screen shots on the back cover of GoldenEye 007 (the one that looks like a Soviet, except it's mostly black and brown at the tip) was called a Spyder --- it was scrapped at the last moment and replaced by the Klobb.
- In the beta version of the game, Bond was required to cross the Dam level on a boat to reach the mysterious island. At the far reaches of the level sits a protruding dock, where a boat waited for Bond. On the island he had to defeat a drone gun and a guard to acquire the pontoon gun to rappel down the side of the dam. However in the release version the idea was scrapped due to complications. Now the dock sits idly and no boat awaits. The island now sits with no guard, only an inactive drone gun. However by using the gameshark you can play the beta version and play this part of the mission.
- Originally the runway level there was a motorbike which was intended to be in the game however was scrapped before the release probably due to the difficulty of controlling the bike in a first person shooter.
- The truck in the dam level apparently has no purpose. Though there is speculation that in the beta version you were intended to destroy it, it was either scrapped or never taken into account. Rare responded to this and simply said it was to guide the player through the first level. However this only leads to more questions and most doubt this was the original true meaning.
- The back cover for the American release for the game includes multiple false screen shots and false information. In the description it says that you can navigate 12 interactive 3-D environment. However there were way more levels actually in the game. The screenshots show the original Spyder gun, a gun which was included in the beta version of the game, however scrapped before the release for the Klobb. The screen shots also show Bond shooting a man and blood shooting out of his body, which was not included in the release. Finally, the screenshot of Bond in the silo shows him holding an AR33 assault rifle, a weapon you cannot acquire in that level without cheats.
- It was intended that there would be a cheat that allowed you to play as all Bonds (Moore, Connery, Lazenby, and Dalton) in multiplayer mode. However because the rights of their names belong to MGM and the respective actors, the idea could not be pulled through.
- The statue and cradle levels of the game were included in multiplayer in the beta version of the game but strangely scrapped before its release. Some speculate that cradle was too slow and too big to be included, and statue park in multiplayer when played on the gameshark has multiple glitches which were possibly not fixable. Both can be played in beta version using a gameshark.
- There is an inaccessible trapdoor in a guardhouse in the dam level, where you install the covert modem on the back of it. It was speculated that this is where Bond got explosives for the rumored mission where you had to blow up the truck. However, no one is certain. There are also rumors that it once led down to the data backup room, as it is almost directly over it.
- In the dam level, there are three guard towers on the main dam, and one is across the lake on the mysterious island. The ones on the dam are marked 2, 3, 4 in order, and the one on the island doesn't have one. So what happened to tower #1. It is speculation that it was immediately to your right once you shot the lock to the dam, and was probably removed and the programmers forgot to change the other numbers.
- At the very beginning of the Silo, you can look down and see this vent, and have an even closer look with a Sniper Rifle. It was originally believed that it was somehow connected with the level's lost elevator (that can be seen in an early promo video), but I now suspect that the area below was the original starting point for the level. They just placed a grate over it instead of deleting it. Notice how at the end of the walkway, the railing ends... Why would it do that?
Development
GoldenEye 007 was originally going to the Super Nintendo as a side-scrolling game but with the *new* Nintendo 64 Rare decided to scrap their original idea and make a totally 3D First Person shooter instead.
German Index
On March 31, 1998, GoldenEye 007 was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.
GoldenIsland
On the first level, the Dam mission, it is possible to see what has been dubbed the "GoldenIsland", a distant platform with a tower and a gun turret. Go to the very edge of the level's end, to an outcropping pier at the base of the dam. Use the fullest zoom of a sniper rifle to see it.
Inaccuracies
In the dam level, the climate appears mild, however in the runway level, which is a few hundred feet below it, it appears absolutely freezing. Normally the higher locations are colder.
Multiplayer
Despite the fact that Oddjob and Mayday were both selectable characters in multiplayer mode, neither of them were included in a singleplayer mission.
Player's Guide
A screenshot in the players guide for GoldeEye 007 depicts a Russian Guard at the ending cutscene of Surface 2 with two (maybe three) faces.
References
- David Doak, as of 2001 the Managing Director of Free Radical Design, was part of the Rare team when GoldenEye 007 was developed. He was rendered into the game as Dr. Doak in the 2nd mission.
- The Klobb is named after Nintendos Ken Lobb. His head is in the game as well, it has black hair and a mustache.
- One of the items in this game, the CCVV tape, has the GoldenEye movie poster on it.
- A reference to every Bond movie (except, of course, those made after GoldenEye's release) is made in some form throughout the game.
- Many of Rare's games have their logo throughout the levels. In GoldenEye 007, there is the Rare logo in the Depot, in front of the Train building.
- The clever people at Rare included a no Bond sign in the Facility. It's the famous James Bond silhouette, of course with the line across it. Those soldiers must really have something against Bond, huh?
- The faces of all of the guards in the game are the faces of people who developed the game.
- Joseph Stalin and Karl Marx both make an appearance in GoldenEye 007. Stalin's face appears in the Statue Park level. It is a bit hard to find it, but it is inscribed into the side of a block of stone, and it is a bit hard to make out his face. Marx is much easier to see. In the archives, near the windows where you have to jump out on the second floor, Marx's face appears on a poster near the door.
- The "D.K. Mode" cheat appears to be a reference to Donkey Kong, due to the similar build of the character used on the cheat. It should be noted that the developer Rare was involved with Nintendo's Donkey Kong franchise at that time.
Sales
One of the best selling video games for the Nintendo 64 with over a million copies sold, allowing it to become a Player's Choice title.
Scientists
The scientists are normally passive, putting their hands up and running away when the shooting starts. But on the harder difficulty levels, Secret Agent and 00 Agent, if you shoot the scientists they get out their guns (DD44 Dostovei) and attack you.
Secrets
In the second Bunker level, a few interesting things pop up on some of the computer screens. One is a man on a skateboard. The other, a man moving his mouth as if he's talking.
Truck
Some rumors went around that a soldier was actually driving the truck in the dam level. It makes sense for Rare not to let us see it, the doors are locked and the windows are blacked out. By using tiny bond mode you can wait for the truck to run you over by crouching. When you see under it you can clearly see that no one is driving the truck, unfortunately.
Unused Room
There is a strange last room in the Train where Xenia and Alec disappear to after you shoot Ourumov. If you have cheats to move fast enough or have a Gameshark, then it is accessible. In the room there is another locked door, and if you use a Gameshark to go through doors, there is only an empty space. The room was only added for completeness.
User Created Content
GoldenEye 007's popularity as a game has cemented it as a classic and has made it the subject of mods for other FPS games. Two notable mods are: GoldenEye: DOOM II - this is a complete total conversion (meaning it does not need the original DOOM II). Due to the restrictions of the engine, the mod lacks many aspects from the original game, most notably the lack of 3D graphics, multi-player and targeting. * GoldenEye: Source*: the entire game recreated using the Source engine, with many enhancements.
Awards
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Electronic Gaming Monthly
- November 1997 (Issue 100) - ranked #25 (Best 100 Games of All Time)
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Game of the Year
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - N64 Game of the Year
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Action Game of the Year
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Multiplayer Game of the Year Runner-Up
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - First-Person Shooter Game of the Year
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Best Sound Runner-Up
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Game of the Year Runner-Up (Readers' Choice)
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - N64 Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Action Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - First-Person Shooter Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Multiplayer Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Best Graphics Runner-Up (Readers' Choice)
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Best Music Top Write-In (Readers' Choice)
- March 1998 (Issue 104) - Best Sound (Readers' Choice)
- 1998 Buyer's Guide - Most Addictive Game
- 1998 Buyer's Guide - Best Movie to Game
- February 2006 (Issue #200) - #16 on the "Greatest Games of Their Time" list
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Game Informer Magazine
- FAugust 2001 (Issue 100) - #16 on the "Top 100 Games of All Time" Poll
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GameSpy
- 2001 – #38 Top Game of All Time
- Retro Gamer
- October 2004 (Issue #9) – #26 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)
Information also contributed by Ben Fahy, Big John WV, Chris Chidester, DOS Boot, Evil-Jim, J. Michael Bottorff, Matt Neueboorn, MegaMegaMan, NeoMoose, Paul Graves, Silverfish, Tiago Jacques and Xoleras
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Related Sites +
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Detstar.com
This website is fully dedicated to every aspect of the Bond game, with weapons stats, player stats, enemy stats, level walkthroughs, and gadget and weapon listings. There are examinations of how well each level translated from the movie as well, and an entire section dedicated to answering strange mysteries of the game including the mysterious damn level island and the missing citadel level. -
Goldeneye 64 Soundtrack
GoldenEye Mp3's on rare-extreme.com -
The Elite
Time attack competition community for GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. -
The GoldenEye Arms Reference
Detailed analysis of the game's weapons. -
The Making of GoldenEye 007
A transcript of a speech given by Martin Hollis, the game's director and producer, at the 2004 European Developers Forum. It describes the process of making the game and reasons why Hollis believes it was so successful. -
Wikipedia: GoldenEye 007
Information about GoldenEye 007 at Wikipedia
Identifiers +
Contribute
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Brolin Empey.
Nintendo Switch added by gonsalet. Xbox Series, Xbox One added by Sciere.
Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Unicorn Lynx, Alaka, gamewarrior, Matt Neuteboom, formercontrib, Various Things, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, Dawgbb, TwoDividedByZero, FatherJack.
Game added April 3, 2001. Last modified April 10, 2024.