Goldeneye is now almost 20 years old. Some of you reading this are young enough that you missed all of the hype surrounding Goldeneye’s release. The problem with Goldeneye 007 (for those who weren’t alive in 1997) is that everyone thought it was impossible.
First Person Shooter games had been on the PC for years. Doom proved you could make a first person shooter game for a computer. Quake expanded upon Doom’s greatness and released a better engine. Everyone ridiculed the idea you could make a first person shooter game work with a console controller.
Rare released Goldeneye and changed everything.
Playing Goldeneye 007 On Nintendo 64
Then came Goldeneye. Rare demonstrated you could make a first person shooter that was just as fun on a console controller as it would be on a computer. It was excellent, but more importantly for console gaming history: it was possible.
What Goldeneye Proved
Goldeneye had a wonderful single-player campaign that taught you how to play as you went through missions reminiscent of James Bond films. Missions flowed like movie scenes: Sneaking around an enemy Russian missile site. Sneaking into a weapons factory to steal helicopter plans. Retrieving the plans to the stolen helicopter.
Story missions had objectives you had to complete: Get into the base undetected, or blast your way through. Retrieve the item you needed to complete the mission. Or survive to the end of the mission. Play how you wanted.
The game encouraged you to play how you liked through its campaign. You shot down a helicopter with missiles while Sean Bean was firing at you. You evaded tanks while in an enemy tank base. You carefully navigated your way through the dam level using keen observation.
The single-player campaign took most players 5-8 hours to complete based on difficulty. Hours of content unheard of for modern games, and crucially, not a single minute of padding or grinding. It was story driven with focused level and mission design driven by you being James Bond.
The multiplayer however was what put Goldeneye on the map of gaming history.
Players could jump into arena style battles with up to 4 players playing side-by-side. At the same time. Each player would have to navigate arenas that were large enough to promote local multiplayer, but small enough to allow for true strategic depth. “The Facility” level was perhaps the greatest gaming level of all time. It was a two-story laboratory filled with weapons.
Respawns would be located strategically so one player could not infinitely spawn in on the same location and camp. Where you would find specific items (Golden gun), where you would find body armor, where you would find machine guns. The best weapon in the game was in the riskiest place to access.
Goldeneye’s multiplayer was balanced perfectly. The Golden Gun was overpowered, but you could only fire a few times before running out of ammo. The plasma rifle was powerful, but had slow-moving projectiles. The SMG was great up-close, but useless at a distance. The sniper rifle was overpowered on headshots, but leaving you vulnerable if you missed.
Anyone at any time could win a multiplayer match regardless of what weapons they found. Goldeneye respected randomness and allowed for comebacks, but also rewarded player skill with victory.
The Graphics No One Cares About
As someone who teaches game history, I have to admit — Goldeneye was not graphically impressive by 1997 standards. It was pretty bad actually. Models were blocky. Animations were lacking. Frame rate was capped at a lower level than most would like. However, what people forget is that Goldeneye was impressive for a console.
PCs had been utilizing first person shooters for years, but consoles had not kept up with the times. The technical achievement of Rare managing to make a game like Goldeneye work on Nintendo 64 hardware was great. The fact that they made it not only work, but work well is astounding.
Controls were a huge reason why Goldeneye worked on the hardware. Two players could use the same controller completely differently — one player would use one joystick to move and look around, while the other player would use the second joystick to aim and fine-tune their camera.
Alternately, if playing solo or online you could use the L button to aim around while using your joystick to move your character. Learning the controls was a bit strange at first, but you learned them and they worked beautifully.
Lets get philosophical for a moment on gaming history. Goldeneye showed innovation is not about pushing technical limits.
Rare could not match the graphics of a top-tier gaming PC in 1997. They were limited by being on a cartridge-based console with limited RAM. Innovation came from knowing your limitations and working around them. That is the lesson people seem to have forgotten about Goldeneye.
Why Oddjob Was Broken And Why History Erased It
Oddjob is permanently banned from multiplayer Goldeneye matches. His hat shoots projectiles that are too fast, have great aim-assist, and are difficult to dodge.
We all knew this. We didn’t care. Because the beauty of Goldeneye multiplayer was that you could create your own rulesets.
What weapons were legal? What characters were banned? What levels were off the table? Players could decide for themselves what “balanced” meant in Goldeneye because Goldeneye gave players enough leeway to figure out balance themselves.
Understanding how games impact gamers is part of understanding gaming communities. Online matchmaking services were nonexistent for Goldeneye. Communities had to police themselves. Games like Goldeneye could be knowingly unbalanced in certain areas and it didn’t matter. Players would ban the broken stuff.
This, to me, is the key difference between how games used to be and how they are now. Now games must be artificially balanced by developers through patches and updates. If there is a broken weapon, players will lose their minds.
Goldeneye allowed players to develop their own rulesets. Some will argue this is naive. I think it is genius. And naive.
The Multiplayer That Destroyed Friendships
Full disclosure, I am a history professor so I like to focus on important events. Goldeneye multiplayer is important to gaming history because it was the definitive game that proved local multiplayer was viable on console first-person shooters. And thus defined console gaming for the next generation.
Before Goldeneye you competed with friends playing sports games and Mario Kart. After Goldeneye you fought your friends with friends playing first-person shooters.
There is something to be said about competing against someone in the same room. Being able to see your opponent. Mock them via the controller microphone. Trash talk your friends to their face.
Online gaming does not provide the same kind of connection. Sure there are exceptions. But you can blame lag online and rage quit without anyone knowing. Holding someone’s hand when they lose because you’re right there? Magic.
I lost friendships over Goldeneye because people would get so angry over losing. Losing was not bad luck when playing with friends in Goldeneye. Losing was a reflection of your lack of skill. No one cares when they lose at random video games. They care when they lose at something they love.
Is Goldeneye 007 Still Relevant Today?
Goldeneye’s single-player campaign is still great today. Mission design holds up. Objectives are clear. Levels require you to observe your surroundings and plan your path through levels. Length isn’t an issue — it tells the story it needs to tell and does not overstays its welcome.
Multiplayer is barebones compared to modern FPS games. Graphics are outdated. Frame rate issues still exist. But shooting feels good. Weapon balance is impeccable. And the level design is fantastic. It is fun to play https: //newplayerready.co.uk/how-goldeneye-on-n64-nearly-destroyed-my-university-social-life-in-the-best-way/ Goldeneye on the original Nintendo 64 to this day.
Controls will take some getting used to if you are used to modern first-person shooters, but they functioned. After you learned them, they were incredible. This is where I will argue against everyone saying newer games are better than older ones — games like Goldeneye aren’t worse than newer games, they’re just different.
Why This Game Helped Shape Gaming Forever
Goldeneye did more than show FPS games could work on a console. It showed that shooters belonged on consoles.
The first person shooter genre did not see a true console evolution until Halo post-Goldeneye. Every publisher wanted to have their own first person shooter franchise on console after Goldeneye. The foundation console gaming was built upon for the next generation was built because of Goldeneye.
History is fascinating to me. One game can change the entire industry if it does well enough. Goldeneye was only mediocre in terms of technical innovation and graphics. It wasn’t even a Nintendo 64 bestseller. Goldeneye was released at the right time. Developers and consumers were curious about consoles and shooters, and Goldeneye gave them an answer.
Timing is everything in video games. Release too early and hardware may not have been there to support it. Release too late and nobody would have doubted the idea that shooters could not work on consoles. Goldeneye hit its release window right on time.
Conclusion
Goldeneye 007 is not only the best Nintendo 64 FPS game of all time, it is one of the most influential gaming titles of all time. It showed that video game genres can be redefined when moving to new platforms if the developers are innovative enough to work around their restrictions.
Goldeneye’s single-player held up as a fun James Bond adventure. Goldeneye’s multiplayer proved you could be viable with local multiplayer console gaming. Controls became a standard for future shooters. Weapon balance was thoughtful. Level design was innovative. Everything about Goldeneye came together to create one of the best shooters of all time on a budget that now seems microscopic.
If you have never played Goldeneye before, please do yourself a favour and play it. Learn why so many hold it dear to their hearts. If you have played Goldeneye and have memories of challenging your friends to Matches and yelling at each other through the controller separator, play it again. Remember why you loved it.
SCORE: 10/10
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Joe’s a history teacher who treats the console wars like actual history. A lifelong Sega devotee from Phoenix, he writes with passion, humor, and lingering heartbreak over the Dreamcast. Expect strong opinions, bad puns, and plenty of “blast processing.”
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