1997
GoldenEye 007
"A masterpiece of the first-person shooter and entire console gaming. Beautifully rendered visuals immerse you in the well-expanded film world with controls easy to use, challenging to perfect. Three difficulty levels pitched faultlessly ? wonderfully rewarding on completion, especially Secret Agent. Levels aren?t linear and time challenges throw up delightful surprises. Multiplayer is the pi?ce de r?sistance: get three friends for hours of battle mayhem."
10/10 - Steven Smith 64
User Reviews (18)
"Sure, the graphics are old and blocky but if you just squint your eyes a little and accept the slightly different controls as a result of making this game work with the old school but still awesome N64 controller, then playing this game is as much fun today as it's ever been. It's still one of thee very best movie licensed games ever made."
10/10 - Kirk 64
"This game is just brilliant. It still plays fantasticly, despite its age (the same cannot be said of many other N64 shooters). Some of the levels aren't amazing (screw you, Silo) but overall it is a quality experience. This game introduced the idea of unlocking bonus features by completing levels under a particular time. If you don't own this game, go and buy it!"
10/10 - SyntheticPerson 64
"Being only 10-11 years old when Goldeneye was released meant my initiation into First Person shooting took place with friends whose parents had looser morals. And what an initiation it was. Oodles of multiplayer mayhem and joy, avoiding Odd Job's hat, smirking at the over-exaggerated animations of your enemies, Immersing yourself in the wonderful Facility level, the music, Sean Bean's face! Truly Epic Times."
10/10 - YoshiTails 64
"Despite all its qualities, Goldeneye cannot quite compare to its younger sibling Perfect Dark. When it came out it was the best FPS, without wonderful missions, exciting multiplayer and insane cheats, but Rare's next FPS outing outclassed it so much in evey way (missions, multiplayer, voice acting, secrets) that Goldeneye's glow is forever dimmed. Still worth it, and a hell of a game though."
9/10 - Kosmo 64
"This is one of those games that really defined a generation. From the lengthy solo campaign complete with different difficulty settings and unique objectives to the endlessly entertaining split-screen multiplayer mode. This game defined the N64 experience for me and even 17 years later still holds up as a fun way to spend a few hours. This was a must-own game on the N64."
10/10 - OMGILikeTurtlez 64
"Arguably the greatest movie tie-in game of all time, Goldeneye 007 also doubles as an outstanding first person shooter. Several mission-based levels, each with varying degrees of difficulty; cheats for diversity; and a multiplayer mode that set the standard for all future shooters are just some of the many reasons why this game is so beloved. It's a little straightforward but it's nevertheless brilliant."
8/10 - GreenGaming 64
"It's quite a feat to be able to pull me away from PC online FPSs in the year 1997 but that's exactly what RARE game managed. Sure, the graphics where blocky, the frames sometimes dipped into the single digits but a well-designed campaign and a infinity replayable multiplayer sealed the deal and placed RARE on top of that generation developers. Playing as Oddjob? Douche!"
10/10 - Shiryu 64
"A master class in video game design, GoldenEye 007's biggest achievement apart from its multiplayer mode is that it features superb level design. Mission objectives vary with difficulty, and pseudo non-linear environments provide a far more rewarding experience than what most games offer today. Multiplayer extends the replay value immensely, although the sluggish frame rate may put off those accustomed to more modern titles."
10/10 - MegaWatts 64
"The one reason most people had an N64 next to the Playstation that gen. If you own an N64 this is the must have game for the system. All FPS games from Halo to Destiny owe their success on consoles to GoldenEye. As movie license games goes this is one of the best ever. So many nights lost shooting down friends in the back."
10/10 - Tasuki 64
"Besides all the multiplayer fun I've had with my friends, what still amazes and impresses me is that the level design, music and spot-on gameplay really suck you into the game and make you forget all about the blocky graphics. From dropping down the ventilation shaft to make your first victim until the final scene it's one big, exciting rollercoaster ride of a game."
10/10 - ThanosReXXX 64
"This game is more than just a couple of hours of entertainment. After a decade, the music will still blast through your speakers, the levels will still fill you with excitement and some quotes will still give you goosebumps. Along with Perfect Dark, this game is without a doubt one of the best shooters out there. Goldeneye simply takes gaming to the next level."
"Possibly the greatest Bond experience of all time - and that's nearly 20 years ago and hasn't been topped since then, and my personal favourite 007 of all time. Unfortunately, we will never get a Virtual Console release of this game but who knows, maybe we will someday? The next best thing is to play GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo Wii. Now, that's real Bond!"
"The German Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body (USK) xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx Idiots xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx after Heinrich Heine, Die deutschen Censoren "
8/10 - Nintendojuenger 64
"+objectives vary by difficulty +stealth gameplay encouraged +fun 'cheat' unlockables +first awesome deathmatch for console +inviting for players who don't typically play FPS +Bond theme +game as a whole has more charm and doesn't feel as overstretched as Perfect Dark -not as much customization in deathmatch -small resolution for split screen makes it difficult to see faraway in multiplayer -sluggish framerate -controls feel antiquated"
9/10 - VGScrapbook 64
"After I bought this game it almost never left my N64. Could largely be considered the first amazing licensed game. An article about it in a '95 issue of NINTENDO POWER swayed my next-gen ambitions from PSN to N64 and I never looked back. They actually studied the films' set layouts and various other resources when building it. Still in my Top 10 list."
10/10 - WhiteTrashGuy 64
"Goldeneye is by far one of the best games for the N64. Any body that grew up with a N64 knows how popular and great this game truly is. It stands the test of time and is still today my favorite FPS game. The controls are spot on and there are plenty of missions and unlockables to keep any one busy for a while."
10/10 - 16bitdave 64
"The game that brought the wonders of multiplayer, splitscreen shooters to home consoles, GoldenEye 007 was a remarkable achievement in 1997. Boasting amazing visuals for its time, complemented by non-linear level design, tight controls and mechanics, and the multiplayer mode that made it famous, the game cemented the N64 as the go-to system for hosting 4-player parties before the age of online gaming began."
9/10 - bizcuthammer 64
"I loved this game so much. I played this game every year during the winter time (Don't Ask). I used to come home from school and just put on cheats like DK mode or infinite ammo and play the campaign. I had so much fun looking for the secret passages on levels. I love this game just like Perfect Dark along with TimeSplitters series."
10/10 - JamesTheHitman 64
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Comments 51
Shut the door Alec, there's a draft.
Eh, I never liked this game. I wanted to! All my friends (and everybody else in the world) loved it, I'm a huge James Bond fan, you could play with 3 friends for hours...but ugh, it just never clicked with me. It's worth mentioning, though, that I've never liked first person shooters. If I were to rate it based on the amount of fun I had with it...I'd probably give it a 6/10? I realize, though, that it's a very well made and important game that just wasn't for me, so 8/10 would probably be more reasonable. Hmm...I'll split the difference and say 007/10.
I loved this game. It was the first FPS that I played and loved it. I can still remember the first time popping the game in and playing multiplayer with my dad and two brothers. I was winning until my younger brother found a rocket launcher. It was definitely chaotic and fun.
On top of everything else this game offered I remember creating my own mini games and challenges, both on the solo campaign and with friends. Going solo I'd spend hours trying to beat every level on 00 Agent without taking any damage. On multiplayer I would almost exclusively stick to the Facility map and set the timer for 10"...whichever team was able to hold the bathroom when the time ran out would win the game.
It was these types of things that really set this game apart for me. In no other console game could you write your own script as much as you could with Goldeneye 64. It provided endless opportunities to make the game however you wanted to make it.
^ agree with him.
I also liked how you could shoot guys in the groin and butt and it would show a blood stain.
Watch the language please — TBD
It's a 10/10 and that's about the truth of it.
Sure, the graphics are all old and blocky but if you just squint your eyes a little and accept the slightly different controls as a result of making this game work with the old school but still awesome N64 controller, then playing this game is as much fun today as it's ever been.
It's still one of thee very best movie licensed games ever made.
Without a doubt,1 of the greatest games of all time.I can still remember buying it from Comet and rushing home in anticipation,starting my first game and being blown away by the time I'd dropped down the hatch into the toilet.Together with Diddy Kong,the best multiplayer fun I've ever had.Great times!
Fantastic game. Great game for speedrunners too.
Only gripe is some of the levels can feel a bit empty compared with other FPS games, like Rare's similar classic, Perfect Dark.
Using the sniper rifle on the dam level is one of my favourite gaming memories. It seems ordinary to have a sniper rifle in a shooter but in 1997 it was the stuff of a madman's dreams. Nintendo should reunite the old Rare at whatever cost and rule the shooting world again.
For England, James?
I have no idea how much time me and my friends spent with this one ... must have have been hundreds of hours. It was 4-player couch play at it's very best.
I think the only other console-fps-mp-game that worked equally well for me, was Timesplitters on the PS2, couple of years later. I remember we put the Multitap to go use then, making it a worthwhile investment all by itself.
Still, Goldeneye was first and it was brilliant, I'll never forget it.
Thanks Rare!
An all-time classic. Graphics were superb for their time, the sound fantastic, level design peerless and then there was the multiplayer. It single handedly sold the N64 to many people. Good job it didn't finish up as a Virtua Cop-style rail shooter as originally planned.
It's legend will only grow as it languishes in legal hell, never receiving an update.
Goldeneye is a fantastic game on so many levels. My friend and I played and conquered single player and we always had friends blasting away in multiplayer. So many great and fond memories.
Sorry, Steven (@n64memories), but there where four difficulty levels: Agent, Secret Agent, 00 Agent and 007. Other than that, you nailed it!
still remember the day i finally cracked the last cheat... Facility in under 2 minutes or something ludicrous like that... ran around the house like a ferret on fire ... very happy days
@Sherman You're right. I stand corrected - think I forgot it because once I got access to Egyptian I felt like I had completed it.
I still like Perfect Dark better but I'd give this a 10 any day of the week.
@Andyv01 I feel that one....facility-2:14.......00 agent difficulty.....I think it was invisibly you earned...should we be proud or ashamed to call that a major life time achievement?? At least it's one that WE share
Facility on 00 difficulty. Yep, I loved that.
screw call of duty, THIS is where FPS multiplayers at!!
The only reason half of the N64's owners preferred Nintendo's multiplayer to Sony's. The other half were Smash / MK / WCW fans (those ones were the genres' glory days).
Outside of multiplayer though, I found the single player experience lacking, the graphics subpar, the story far too linear, the analog stick overly sensitive and the aiming to be a bit of a spotty affair.
Then again, 3D gaming was infantile at best (and would be until OoT lit the stage a year later) and I would still spend hours with teaching the girls to play pool while the other guys played Goldeneye on the projector.
A solid 6 for me, then again, outside XIII (graphic style, presentation) and Stranger's Wrath, I never cared for FPS.
3rd person has always been my preference, then again, I hate how cheesy FPS get when trying to make you feel immersed.
Don't get me wrong, I've played the CODs, MoHs, Battlefields, Crysis', Bioshocks, 007s, Halos, Quakes, Dooms, Wolfensteins, Unreals.. Hundreds of FPS, really. From that one Xmen FPS and Kiss' Psycho Circus to Half Life 2 and Metro Last Light and so many in-between, I've trudged through a country of fox holes, lobbed tens of thousands of grenades and crashed an automotive plant worth of vehicles.
It's not appealing. The experience is short and rather grating.
I've never finished a FPS. Not a single one. There's just not enough draw to keep going. Not even XIII or Stranger's Wrath.
Simply one of the best games ever made.
Why was it that Oddjob was a bugger to shoot in Multiplayer? We had a ban on this character when we played. Licence to kill mode was best way to play IMO, this stopped people hanging around the body armour
@OMGILikeTurtlez Yes!! I did the same sorts of things!
With the combination of player freedom, a great selection of weapons, and hilarious cheats, you could spend literally hours devising new ways to entertain yourself once the main game got boring.
I would have to say this is still my all time favorite shooter game. It may be a little dated for graphics, but some things about it like non-linear levels, shooting off hats, and just plain nostalgia make this my top favorite.
Goldeneye is simply...gaming perfection.
Not only was the multiplayer one of the funniest games you could play but the campaign mode was fantastic as well. It was tough as nails and you had to be inch perfect to complete the harder levels. Nothing they make today comes close to the brilliance of this game.
The funny thing is, Perfect Dark is better in every single way, minus the movie license. Yet I 100% agree with the 10/10!!! So what score should PD get????
@CaptainToad PD should get the "King of Games" award (or should that be Queen?)
@Ootfan98 The trick is to choose Jaws if your opponent chooses Oddjob. Autoaim will automatically aim at his head. Easy!
I never really got into GE multiplayer, as I only had one other friend who liked FPS games, and 1v1 got a little boring after a while. GoldenEye X though shows just how much better the game would have been with bots included!
@CaptainToad I fully agree!! The hours upon hours that this game consumed playing the 4-player mode consisted of almost every free moment I had back then with my friends.
Even if Perfect Dark was better in every way to Goldeneye, 007 was the game that was always picked to play every day.... Minus the proximity mines. They were boycotted by my friends cause I always knew the best places to place them
Amazing game at the time, I tried to play recently though and felt quite motion sick after a short while...
@ULTRA-64
im going with proud
Does anyone else remember the remote/proximity mine trick on the Egyptian level end cut scene? Could blow up Baron Samedi whilst he was chuckling away... took me forever!
This game blew everyones mind apart back in the day. It was a phenomenon. The N64 era, where Nintendo truly kicked ass and took names (and all those names werent Mario either!)
I think it still plays well to this day. I recently have been going back to Perfect Dark & Goldeneye. They play so well & they're FUN!!! Why can't compnies make fun FPS's anymore?
I was never a FPS player until this game came along in my early teens, this changed everything from the solo missions to the multi-player. This game was played through into the college years, it made FPS a thing to more then just PC gamers. This one definitely has a spot in time that will never be forgotten along with some other great Nintendo games.
Still play this every now and then and still enjoy it. My friends and family always have fun when Proximity Mines create havoc on Facility in Multiplayer!
Loved this game. Use to play this with my brother and sister all the time! We would call the AI bots "Al bots" since the text was hard to read and we thought they looked like Weird Al Yankovic lol. Only later we realized it was actually artificial intelligence bots lol
Perfect dark went on to improve on what was easily the best fps at the time. The multiplayer was amazing, many an hour was spent with my mates playing deathmatch. Oddjob was banned as a choice in our group of friends though!
@Nintenjoe64 Actually, some post-Rare developers made a Source SDK game, called GoldenEye: Source. It's actually done very well, and doesn't look super ugly.
This game took away so many hours of my teenage years. The only thing better than GodlenEye 007 is GoldenEye 007 + Game Shark Pro!
The hours I spent uncovering things like the "Classic Bond" portraits (proving that the All Bond Cheat actually was experimented with at one point), shooting tank shells from my head, walking through all doors, playing Statue and Cradle in Multiplayer, exploring the outpost in the Dam level, and of course playing as a floating arm.
Oh, also, what other game can you slide around on your knees, and dance like a moron by press the C buttons the right way?
Quite simply one of the best games ever. Incredible single player and multiplayer. Remember countless nights coming back from school with my mates and running around facility throwing proximity mines at each other!
The reason I had an N64 next to my Playstation that gen.
Is this review for real? I'm genuinely asking. It's funny, aside from the multiplayer comment at the end, it feels as if they were sarcastically highlighting all of the game's major flaws. Awful graphics, horrendous controls, incredibly linear missions, but the multiplayer was top notch.
Multiplayer and daggers. 'Nuff said.
I never finished the game, problem was my lack of English (or the vocabulary used in the game) back then so I eventually I guess I didn¨t undestand the mission and there was time and something... I do have Wii version, played it once and it crashed and never really tested that if it was the disc or just one time. Problem today is too much games.
Wasn't that bad (playing) once you got hang of it. Now it probably would be horrible when used to today's controlling.
Holy Rose Colored Glasses Batman! I loved this game 15 years ago too, but it has not aged well. From a nostalgia standpoint, I get it, but all the 10s? Not objective reviews.
@GrunkFace The graphics are dated but the game is very playable with the N64 controller; most people say it's bad because they're so used to twin sticks nowadays. However, your point about incredibly linear missions is the one I disagree with the most; many of the stages were fairly open environments you had to explore to find the objectives (and work out how to do them). Incredibly linear belongs to something like Call of Duty, which is an A to B experience at best. GoldenEye 007 was more like A to B via C, D and E — especially at higher difficulty levels.
As someone who played the HELL out of this with my mates in the loong past.
It's a damn shame that so many games are forgoing split screen multiplayer. That is the bread and butter of making gaming a social experience. Now, playing with your friends means you have to each have your own copy of the game on your own system, on your own TV. Don't get me wrong, online multiplayer is cool and all, but nothing beats playing with your friends in the same room!
I bought this with Mario 64. Doubt I'll ever buy two such amazing games at the same time ever again!
And more I totally miss the art of staring at a wall while running so that the people you are playing with don't know where you are...I do not mean this sarcastically...there really was an art to it!!
If there was an Activity Log on my N64 to record all the hours me and my cousins spent playing this game, no telling what large that number would actually be.
The level and mission design in this game is spectacular.
Perfect Dark is the only other FPS I've played that just about matches the tightly knit structure of the challenges in GoldenEye. I never played Perfect Dark Zero, but from what I'm hearing much was lost in the restructuring of Rare and the team. Or the reviewers expected it to be Halo.
I wish I didn't have to mention how atrociously bad Activision and Eurocom's new GoldenEye was, but that was a straight gut-punch to fans of the original.
For multiplayer action in the late 90s, Goldeneye was the absolute KING. I sucked at this game but it was never a dull moment playing this with 3 of my friends. Even the game's campaign mode was fantastic and even got me to watch the movie. My only gripe is that multiplayer require human players. At least this was remedied in Perfect Dark. One of the best FPS's of all time. 9/10
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