GoldenEye 007 Review (Nintendo 64, 1997)

Nintendo 64 owners had it rough for the first few years after the console’s launch. The release schedule was even more sparse than that of the Sega Saturn, and gamers had only a few titles to keep them busy. Sure, Super Mario 64 was incredible, and Mario Kart 64 was fun, but aside from those it was a struggle. I know first hand because at the beginning of that generation I only had a Nintendo 64. This was a decision I instantly regretted, but I was a tween and therefore my income was extremely limited. My friends all had the elusive PlayStation where it seemed like quality games were a dime a dozen, and I was jealous. Eventually I rectified this problem, but there was only one title that held me over. This was Goldeneye 007, and for once all of my friends were jealous. This was my most played game throughout the entire generation, and was the only reason I scurried to do any chores I could in order to earn money and save for additional controllers. Most early 3D games are difficult to stomach these days due to the limited tech, but does Goldeneye stand up? Let’s dig deeper and take an in depth look at this Nintendo 64 classic.

This game is based off of the James Bond movie of the same name. The storyline differs in a variety of ways, but includes many of the same locales, characters, and plot revelations. It’s not worth going into here because the film is so widely known. Goldeneye 007 is a first person shooter, and one of the first few that were designed with consoles in mind instead of PC. At the same time most of these games fit comfortably under the ‘Doom clone’ category. Usually you were tasked with simply making it from one end of a level to the next with hordes of enemies in every room, and locked doors that require specific keys. There’s nothing wrong with this style of play, and I’m a big fan of Doom, but there were simply too many first person shooters that resorted to this style back then. Goldeneye took a different route. You were required to play more intelligently with mission objectives for every stage. These included completing tasks like killing a specific character, activating alarms, hacking into computer mainframes, escorting people, and more. It made gameplay significantly more varied and complicated, and that’s part of why Goldeneye 007 was so successful upon release simply because this mechanic was relatively new.

Aside from that mechanic the game is similar to most other first person shooters. You view the action from your character’s (in this case James Bond) viewpoint with only your gun showing as you navigate various three dimensional environments. Enemies generally consist of soldiers, and take only a few shots to kill. When defeated they drop their guns as well as keycards in some instances, and you can pick these up by walking over the fallen items. A stage is completed when all objective goals are met and you arrive at the end of the level. It sounds pretty simple, but Goldeneye 007 has a few mechanics that make gameplay more complicated. Enemies respond to sound, and while some guns are equipped with silencers most are not. This means that if you’re in an area full of soldiers that haven’t spotted your character defeating them with a silenced pistol is your best choice. Furthermore alarm switches litter the walls of some facilities you will infiltrate, and enemies made aware of your presence can activate these which sends in waves of soldiers.

Weaponry is varied, and I really like the spread Rare introduced here. You’ve got several single shot pistols that vary in clip size, firing rate, and power. The same goes for your automatic weapons, and there’s a large list of them at your disposal. The game also features several firearms that don’t match within the two basic categories. The rocket launcher is one of the most interesting weapons in this game because the ammunition explodes into lingering flames that damage every nearby character when used. The same goes for the grenade launcher and grenades. You also have two varieties of shotguns at your disposal as well as an incredibly useful sniper rifle. The throwing and hunting knives aren’t nearly as interesting, but they’re good for a laugh. The most interesting weaponry by far comes in the form of three different types of mines. Proximity mines blow up whenever someone gets too close or when shot, timed mines explode automatically in a number of seconds, and remote mines activate at the user’s discretion. These are extraordinarily fun to use. In addition the missions will occasionally grant you different gadgets that can be used as weapons or for completing objectives. The watch laser aboard the train in particular has always been one of my favorites. The weaponry has exceptional variety.

The real highlight of this game however has always been its multiplayer. It’s surprising to hear that this was an afterthought by the developers, because it was the major selling point of this title. That’s not to say that the single player isn’t fun, because it is, but it cannot even begin to compare to the deathmatch modes. This game can be played with two to four players, and many of the levels are exclusive to this while others have been scaled down from the solo experience. Like single player the level design is intelligent and varied. Human players take significantly more bullets to kill than the NPCs in solo mode, and shots knock them back a fair degree. Everybody has hit boxes that determine the amount of damage done, but they don’t reel back in the realistic ways the NPCs do. Every person can select their character of choice upon starting as well as the game mode and stage. Some characters have distinct advantages such as Oddjob who is short (leading to the “no Oddjob” meme), whereas Jaws is significantly taller making him an easier target. The most heated multiplayer matches I’ve ever experienced have come from this game.

Aside from the great level designs what really pushes multiplayer above and beyond are all of the different game modes you can choose from. You can divide up into teams, give handicaps for the more experienced players, select which group of weaponry you want to use, and more. The most interesting aspect of this however are the terms you can set. These are named after classic Bond films such as Man With the Golden Gun (the only weapon capable of one hit kills, and there’s only one of them), You Only Live Twice (two lives for every player), License to Kill (everyone dies with just one hit) and more. These vary a great deal and are all interesting and worth trying at least once. To make things more interesting there are also several cheats unlocked within the main game by completing levels on specific difficulties and in a certain amount of time. These include big head mode which is pretty self explanatory as well as paintball mode and much, much more. Additional characters and stages are also unlocked by completing the main game. You could play multiplayer for hours and each match would never be exactly the same. The replayability is insane.

Like most Nintendo 64 games Goldeneye 007 looks pretty rough in modern times. When it was released the game was technically impressive, but that was almost twenty years ago. Now the characters look jagged and are composed of very few polygons by today standards. The textures are extremely blurry as per the Nintendo 64 standards, and the draw distance is marred in some places with fog. Rareware mapped real peoples’ faces on to every character you encounter, and unfortunately these are blurry too. These are extremely off-putting because their expressions never change, and it’s really awkward. Unfortunately the framerate suffers some major issues as well. In single player it isn’t terrible, but the game seems to cap off at around fifteen frames per second when several enemies are on-screen at once. Multiplayer fares even worse and as it dips into the single digits on a regular basis. The game is rough around the edges and hasn’t aged very well.

The soundtrack is one of my favorites though. I’m not positive, but it sounds like the developers went above and beyond the simple midi compositions the N64 is known for and included actual audio recordings. Mostly it’s techno riffs with high pitched notes and a lot of drum work, but it all sounds pretty decent despite being a little muffled. What’s cool is the fact that while playing multiplayer the music is chosen at random, and most arenas have a few different tracks associated with them. The sound effects are also a little muffled with gunfire that doesn’t sound particularly realistic, but it’s forgivable. There’s no voice work in this game which is odd considering it was all the rage back then, but soldiers do grunt when they’re shot, and Rare apparently hired a few different actors for this. The music leaves a decent impression, but the sound effects are a little lacking in my opinion. I blame it on the outdated cartridge format.