The British man with the suit and Walther PPK made his first
note-worthy gaming appearance in 007: Goldeneye. Goldeneye could be considered
the grandfather of all FPS games and without it we would not have some of the
games we love today. It pioneered some of the standard features that FPS games
still use today.
Based on the 1995 James Bond film, Goldeneye is a
first-person shooter developed by Rare and released by Nintendo for the N64
game console in 1997. In game, James Bond must prevent a crime syndicate called
The Janus Group from using a satellite weapon (the goldeneye) to create a
global financial meltdown. The storyline is secondary however, to the gameplay
that is the superstar of this show. If you’re interested in the story just
watch the movie, which is epic.
There are 18 missions to complete on 3 difficulty levels:
Agent, Secret Agent, and 00-Agent. You begin each level with a list of
objectives to complete and your trusty PP7. You have to do this while being
shot at by enemy soldiers. The amount of objectives will increase the higher
the difficulty. Completion of a level will unlock the next one until you’ve
beaten all 18. There are also a couple secret levels you can unlock once you’ve
beaten everything else on all difficulties. One contains a mad man in a white
suit, and an insane laugh, who will follow you around the stage trying to kill
you.
In addition to the one-player story mode is an awesome
multiplayer option. There are several deathmatch type game modes to choose
from. GAME MODES! These were some of the first, trust me. You can choose from:
Normal, You Only Live Twice, The Living Daylights, The Man With The Golden Gun,
and License To Kill. Also, when you play multiplayer you can choose from pretty
much any character that made an appearance in the main story including some
really irrelevant characters like Helicopter Pilot.
Weapons. Yes, the weapons. There are pistols, assault
rifles, grenades, throwing knives, a laser, and a golden gun! Forget the
ballistic knives, throwing knives are where it’s at! You can hold an infinite
amount of weapons and switch them whenever you please. You can also wield two
of the same guns at once but you cannot wield two different guns at once. Basically,
the possibilities and the fun are endless. If you find yourself empty-handed,
you can always deploy the hilarious karate chop to the head.
007 will sometimes
have gadgets on him as well that will be essential to completing the mission.
You can view these in your start menu, which is by the way, your super awesome
spy watch.
Now let me take a moment to touch on the graphics. Goldeneye
was, to my knowledge, the first FPS to have character reactions. What I mean by
that is, if you shoot a guy in the foot he will grab it, in pain, and hop
around on one foot. This was an amazing milestone for gaming. Another thing are
the doors. There is a level, The Facility, which has these heavy industrial
doors that slide open slowly and loudly. I found this to be much more realistic
than some other older games that just have the doors that swing open or you
“open” it and the screen changes but the door never physically opens. The
character graphics were a bit boxy like most games from that time but they did
a hilarious job of pasting Pierce Brosnan’s face onto James Bond’s head.
I know this seems like a typical FPS but it’s important to
remember that Goldeneye set the standard for many games after it. With that
said, I give Goldeneye 9 karate chops out of 10 for being a trailblazer. Now
ride your tank off into the sun.
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