GoldenEye 007

October 04, 2002

Reviewed by: Rock_On

Some may have considered the N64 as a non-competitor in the console war with the Sony Playstation, but to me it was a dynasty. Truly, I cared NOTHING about the lack of third-party games...who cares, get a Playstation for those, but Nintendo themselves released some of the best damn games ever. Also, I was like, 10 when I got it...so it’s not that easy to pay 50 bucks a shot at that age for multiple games that come out at the same time. LOZ: Ocarina of Time, Perfect Dark, Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Paper Mario, LOZ: Majora’s Mask, 1080* Snowboarding, Mario Party series, Mario Golf, and Mario Tennis to name a few. But none of them, even Perfect Dark which came pretty damn close, was raved about as much as Goldeneye was. Even today, Goldeneye is a super fun game, and was a major system seller.

Plot|Story:
As many may know, Goldeneye was developed by the developer known today as RARE, and the game’s based on it’s movie counter-part by the same name. You’ve got the bad guy, the good guy(James Bond), the chick, lots of action...the basics for a James Bond story. Bond movies have never really emphasized on story much, but the locations in this specific Bond movie were good enough for the guys at RARE(which most that worked on this game moved to form Free Radical), because they took the locations from the movie and turned them into brilliant missions in the game. Anyway, basic Bond story...save the world from an evil maniac and get laid by the chick at the end(fine society we have, eh?).

Gameplay:
Goldeneye is possibly THE greatest game ever made when it comes to the FPS world. Sure people may think Halo is a bad-a$$ game, but look at the year it was released and all the capabilities we have now that couldn’t be reached back then. So anyway, Goldeneye is a pretty standard first-person shooter(FPS), as there are about 15 or so missions taken directly from the different locations in the movie(the missions even go in order as to when they were seen in the movie), and two hidden levels, each from a different Bond movie. Actually, neither are actual locations in a movie, but supporting characters from a couple other movies are in them, including the human Jaws and May Day(which by the way, I didn’t know it was a woman until I saw the movie with her in it, I had always thought she was a he).

Anywho, there are three different difficulty levels; agent, secret agent, and 00 Agent. Each mission has a certain amount of objectives to complete, which most of the time includes blowing something up, meeting with someone, or just to kill everyone in sight to reach the end. As agent, you’ll start out with easier and less objectives, while Secret Agent tests your skill and adds more objectives, meaning 00 Agent is the “quote on quote” HARD mode, and will take you through boot camp and test you on your skills.

Now for the weapons; unlike the newer Bond games, Goldeneye had more weapons than any of those stupid gadgets you see in the newer games. In fact, Goldeneye doesn’t have any of those gadgets, just lots of weapons to use. There are a ton of weapons, some so weak that you could “klobb” someone in the head and it wouldn’t hurt them, right down to the standard Walter PPK. Like most games in the genre, you’ve got the weak weapons, the strong weapons, and a variety of different makes of weapons. Such as pistols(hand-guns), sub-machine guns, automatics, rifles, explosives... I think you understand what I mean. I remember multi-player with the rockets and the one-hit kill golden gun matches that we’d stay up all night playing. Besides the rocket launcher, the coolest weapon was the futuristic looking RC-P 90 which held an 80 bullet clip, having a rate of fire at an incredible speed. This was the gun everyone loved. However once I go the All Weapons cheat, the regular shotgun was the greatest. Since the only shotgun you find in the game is an automatic, the regular shotgun can only be used with the cheat.

So anyway, what do you get for your troubles in this game? Why, when you beat a mission on a certain difficulty within a set time limit, you’ll unlock a cheat that can be accessible in the cheat menu. There are lots of different cheats, each mission has a cheat to be unlocked, and it varies in difficulty to receive different cheats. Some are easier than others, while those “others” take an extreme amount of skill or just plain dumb luck. Like to get the invincibility cheat, it took me exactly...now I’m not exaggerating, my cousin and I actually counted this... 1, 341 tries before I FINALLY beat the Facility(or for those who are like me, Faculty) in under 2:05. Anyone else remember that? Whew it was a doozey.

The single-player can only go so far, and although RARE did a wonderful job on it, it will still get quite boring eventually. So they put in a multi-player, and it becomes one of the hottest games around. You probably wouldn’t go to one video store without there being some type of discussion about Goldeneye like “Dude I stayed up all night trying to get that cheat” or “Man, my dad and I mutilated each other last night in multi” or “Hey come over tonight so we can play Goldeneye.” You know, all that cool stuff. When you can get four people together, this game can be a blast. You can go individual, you can team up 2vs2 or 3vs1 or do whatever you want. There are about 9 or 10 multi-player arenas that you can choose from, some are rather small, but others are kind of big. Each one has at least ONE good place for you to hide if you’re one of those people, but for those “get-out-and-go” types, there are also plenty of levels with a lot of space. My ultimate favorite level is the complex, which is multiple stories high, and has lots of nooks and crannies and places that an innocent proximity mine could lie in wait until some unsuspecting fool prances in then KALOOIE!!!...they’re seein’ blood run down their screen. There are four different characters to collect, including Bond himself, the “Jaws of life”, and a queer lookin’ fella by the name of Oddjob. I always picked oddjob because like me, he’s really short, and everyone always shoots over my head. More characters are unlocked as you complete the game.

Graphics:
This was a good game, but the graphics are horrible. Let me tell ya, when it was first released the graphics weren’t first priority for people, and by the time some people noticed the graphics, all they saw was blocky characters and some not so smooth backgrounds. But for those who took note of the graphics when the game was first released, they were actually kind of nice. But first of all, the characters. There weren’t many curves except for Oddjob’s bald head, and they looked like they were made out of the building “blocks” of life(LEGOS). Also, faces looked like they were painted on to the characters, and their emotions stay the same all the time.

The frame rate, although not as horrible as Perfect Dark, was pretty atrocious indeed. The max was about 30 fps, but when there was any sorts of action or explosions going on, the FPS would drop a considerable amount, sometimes completely freezing. The frame rate ran so slow at times that you’d think you had some sort of slow-motion effect going on(ala Matrix). Here’s a tip though, just don’t fill the screen with rockets or grenades and you should still be able to move at a steady pace.

As for the weapons, there’s a nice variety of them, some looking pretty authentic while others were made up. The pistols and most the sub-machine guns are authentic while the RC-P 90 was made up, but based of another similar gun I think. The way each one shoots looks ok and the bullets look like bullets, unlike the new Agent Under Fire where the bullets look like light bulbs.

Control:
Now, if I hadn’t been spoiled by the double analog controllers of today’s consoles, I’d have to say that the Nintendo 64’s controller set-up was the best for first-person shooters. Even when Goldeneye was first released, the control was terribly awkward, and the sensitivity level was probably below zero. Of course, the multiple frame rate problems didn’t help much either, which ran at either 30 fps or below(the game even froze a few times). So anyway, there was one analog stick for moving backwards, forwards, and to turn side to side...while the 4 C-Buttons were used for strafing left to right and to look up and down. Then the “Z” button(on back of the controller) was used for shooting. This formula was great, however nowadays I’ve been spoiled by double analog FPS.

Sound:
This department was really nice, all from the James Bond theme song, to the weapon effects. First of all the music for this game was remarkable, in fact I’d call the soundtrack on here classic, cause every time I listen to it... it reminds me of old times. That my friend, means it’s classic.

The music is good, but while playing the game it’s drowned out and sent to the back seat while the sound effects take over. Sound effects include a few explosions and big booms like that, but they mostly consist of weapon SE. Such as the rapid fire RC-P 90, the quietness of a silenced PPK, to the scientific laser sounds that come from the laser you eventually find, to the screaming of a rocket that you just fired as it heads towards it’s target.

Rocky’s Corner:
Goldeneye is considered classic by many people, and is still preferred by some who don’t like the way FPS are now. It’s one of my favorites, but I still have to say that Star Fox 64 takes that place by a good margin.