Goldeneye 007

Developer: Rare Publisher: Nintendo

Released: August 25, 1997 Rated: T 10/10

It’s possible that at some point in the past decade or so, you may have heard that Goldeneye 007 — one of the original, foundational bricks in the legacy of the prolific console FPS genre — has aged poorly. As someone who grew up not on Rare’s shooters, but on Halo, Medal of Honor, and even the original N64 Turok, which predates Goldeneye by a few months, I can and always have said since I first played it myself sometime in 2013 or 2014, that this game is every bit the masterpiece it has been made out to be. Perhaps the greatest licensed game of all time, one of the all time great splitscreen multiplayer and splitscreen shooter games, and lest we forget, as so many often do, one of the most innovative and memorable campaigns in an FPS before or since, Goldeneye 007 is every bit the forefather of the modern shooter as it is a brilliant time for one or four players nowadays.

The cinematically-inspired, mission-based campaign starts with the iconic dam facility, and reaches further locations such as the missile silo, statue park, and Cuban jungle before culminating in the intense showdown with Agent 006 stop the antenna cradle. An astonishing and, at the time, groundbreaking variety of missions differentiates each chapter as well as difficulty level. For example, “Agent” difficulty only lists one objective — “bungee jump from the platform,” i.e., reach the end of the level — while “Secret Agent” difficulty also requires disabling four alarms along the way, and “00 Agent” adds installing a modem and intercepting some data before you’re finished, for a total of four objectives as well as harder enemies. These concepts immediately separate Goldeneye from its PC-based, run-and-gun contemporaries such as Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D, and brilliantly justified the license of the Bond film and character. Approaching each level with an array of gadgets as integral to your success as your arsenal further highlights this approach, with classic moments including trudging through the snow in Siberia to disable satellites before infiltrating an underground bunker, meeting with important contacts in a statue-lined park in St. Petersburg under cover of night, and escaping the prison cell with Natalya (and yes, escorting her to safety).

I’ve heard at least a few anecdotes about the light-bulb moment of “shooting the lock” and the level of interactivity for something like this that was new to folks at the time.

Though it’s certainly not a looker of a game by today’s standards, it does at least opt for 3D models, more in the vein of Quake and Turok than Hexen and Doom. Its stiff mannequin-esque models of enemies and NPCs alike may seem alien in hindsight, but with the gameplay running as fast and smooth as it does outside of scenes laden with explosions, where the frame rate quite literally drops to near zero. But it feels sacrilegious to deride it for such technological limits nonetheless. Ask any player who made a habit of spamming mines on four-player matches back in the day, and the memories of the game borderline stopping in its tracks aren’t viewed as a shortcoming, but part of the experience of playing on the hardware.

It’s that multiplayer experience, a concept that barely made it in the final product were it not added on a whim at the 11th hour, that of course truly created the Goldeneye legacy. Despite being riddled with quirks, hiccups, and exploits of its own, its broad appeal and addictive nature made it an instant hit capable of bumping Mario Kart 64 from the cartridge slot at four-player sessions. The list of memes, rules, and meta-phrases spawned by Goldeneye may differ amongst friend groups, but screen cheating, “Slappers Only,” no Oddjob, and the inferiority of the Klobb are present in many retro gamers’ memory banks. And the way the experience goes beyond simple deathmatch rules to include Bond-inspired modes like The Man With The Golden Gun, featuring Scaramanga’s signature pistol as a one-shot kill machine, adds designed charm on top of the pick-up-and-play accessibility and simple map design that makes the Goldeneye seem primitive in the shadow of Call of Duty and Halo.

But it’s this simplicity, particularly in the default controls, that has both historically allowed accessibility, while also inviting the folly of claiming it’s “aged poorly.” A single control stick scheme and an inherent lack of manual aiming can make the modern veteran gamer feel overqualified and out-of-sorts when picking up the N64 controller, though the options menu offers a more traditional modern setup and even a two-controller/two-stick layout for the truly intense. In another example of laying the groundwork of the modern console FPS, Goldeneye actually goes so far as to offer more than what’s needed for its purposes and hardware. Though it’s overall a bit janky by any standards, it’s the nature of the pioneer to be derided as such. And perhaps even overshadowed on its own hardware, as Rare would even manage to follow up with the more fully-realized example of their FPS offerings with the license-less Perfect Dark only three years later.

The list of Goldeneye’s accomplishments and milestones is nearly endless at this point, with even the amazing, film-inspired soundtrack by Robin Beanland continually lauded in internet videos for its brilliance. Rare hit the mark so hard on their first attempt at the genre and created one of the shining gems of the N64 catalog, as well as a blueprint for console developers to match the efforts of more intensive hardware, leading up to the explosion of the FPS as one of gaming’s most prolific styles. A game as beloved for its flaws by those who played it as it is for its accomplishments, Goldeneye 007 remains one of the major bullet points on the Rare and the Nintendo 64’s resume.

Continuing Legacy

Aside from its sprawling influence on the FPS genre, particularly the console multiplayer titles of the sixth generation, Goldeneye itself has been remade twice, originally for the Wii in 2010 (later ported to PS3 and Xbox 360). Another remake was reportedly completed for the Xbox One but not released. And the original game, in spite of Rare’s ownership by Microsoft and any additional licensing hurdles, was added to Nintendo Switch Online service in 2023.

Much of the original team would go on to form Free Radical, and bring much of their skill set from Goldeneye and Perfect Dark to the TimeSplitters franchise. Meanwhile, the 007 license would be acquired by EA, which would result in various different gameplay styles going forward, but the success of Goldeneye would often lead to a return to the FPS genre with heavy influence. Most notably, the immediate N64 follow-up The World is Not Enough, and 2002’s Nightfire for sixth-generation consoles.