The Best Bond Game Ever Made (GTWCTW Write-Off)

It's rare that a game comes along that is both enjoyable as a single player experience, and insanely addictive as a multiplayer experience. It's even more rare that such a game controls damn-near flawlessly, is a movie-licensed endeavour (meaning most immediately relegate it to Lethal Weapon 3 SNES status), and is made by a company with such high standards for greatness as Rareware. Goldeneye is all of these things, not to mention probably the best selling and most influential N64 game ever made. It's also the best Bond game ever made, but that isn't saying much, really.

In the game you play the role of Bond as he hunts for Alec Trevelyan through cities, jungles, nuclear facilities, and other locales seen in the film. The story follows the film's very well, bringing in many of the characters from 1996 box office hit and many of the weapons also. There are some new levels and objectives thrown in for the sake of longetivity, since you don't want a two and a half hour game. The objectives are mostly standard-fare item hunting, nothing spectacular but at least they provide a good challenge.

Goldeneye's AI is possibly the only area that could have used alot of more work. Take for instance a scene in the facility when you're running down the stairs from the washroom. Guards are everywhere, but unless you shoot one of them they will never glance once at you while you stand on the stairs. Also, some guards were programmed to react to being shot, while others were not. The game can be very hard when the AI is acting normally, but usually it's a cakewalk as half of the guards out there don't even react to being shot in the stomach (I tried this in the first level on one of the watchtower guards).

Besides that, Goldeneye is golden (no pun intended). The missions are fun and intense, sometimes requiring stealth tactics while other times embodying the cliche "run and gun". The difficulty modes help customize the damage done by enemy attacks to different skill levels, yet manage to keep the game exciting for any player. Though to REALLY experience this game, i'd strongly recommend you set the difficulty to 00 Agent. This is also the path to unlocking everything in Goldeneye's brilliant multiplayer mode.

Speaking of Multiplayer, Goldeneye's 2-4 player deathmatch and team-play modes are arguably the best the N64 has ever seen. Not even Perfect Dark's convoluted, slipshod blood bath can match up to the fantastic array of levels, fun weaponry, and character selection seen here. The original Complex (I'm not talking about the bastardized version in PD) is amazing for multiplayer battles, and other levels like the Facility and Temple prove not only that multiplayer FPS gaming isn't JUST good on PC, but that it can actually be superior on consoles. Play it with at least three players and you'll be hooked for hours on end, I know I was.

Because this was a 1997, first generation N64 production, the textures don't look very impressive and the frame rate stutters somewhat, but thankfully these problems are not as unbearable as in Rare's unofficial follow-up, Perfect Dark. There's some polygonal clipping but again, not as bad as Perfect Dark. These problems, though minor, could have been avoided. Turok, a game that came out at around the same time, was less problematic and slightly more visually intense. But that isn't to say Rare made a graphical monstrosity, not at all. It still stands up to most N64 games released today, especially in the area of explosions, level design, and enemy-count onscreen.

Though it doesn't contain much ACTUAL 007 music (ie: music heard in the movies), I found the themes to be even better in the game than in the films. Alot of the music I find myself humming even to this day, nearly five years after I first played Goldeneye. Sound effects are no slouch either. The aforementioned explosions sound even better than they look, as do weapon rounds being unloaded into enemies and the plethora of other sounds in the game.

Perhaps what makes this game great the most is the control scheme. 1.3 "Kissy" is the best of them. Controlling Bond is fluid and almost flawless. You sometimes taking a slight response-time hit when several enemies pollute the screen, but that's very infrequent. Aiming may take some time to comprehend and perfect but when you get it right it becomes second nature. But alas, no game is free of nitpicks, and I'm here to provide the nitpickiest nitpick around. Why, in the name of common sense, do the Grenade Launcher crosshairs move faster than those of regular weapons? I would think that, due to the size and weight of the launcher it would move slightly more lethargically than a normal pistol. It's one of those things I've come across after extended play of this game that makes no sense. It by no means detracts from the overall quality, but it's just damn weird.

Goldeneye is easily the best game released in 1997, rivalled only by Symphony of the Night and Blood Omen. If you don't have this game, buy it now and lock the door until you've beaten it. But I'm rather keen on the thought that everyone reading this epinion has the game so I'll just say "go through it again!". It's worth it, Goldeneye is a work of art and truly a game that changed the world.

Overall: 9.4

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This review is part of a write-off initiated by one of my favorite authors in the Games section, ChromeKiller. Read the other submissions with bells on, I say.


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