So, I'm going to confess something: I had a tough time choosing if this or Nightfire was my favorite. Nightfire has everything a Bond fan could ever want, and when playing a big part of my nostalgia growing up gives it a lot of weight. As I mentioned, I was too young for the Goldeneye craze as I was only four years old. I did not even own an N64; I could only play the console with a friend or relative who owned it. Though The World is Not Enough for the PlayStation is the first Bond game I played that introduced me to the franchise, I did notice Goldeneye before that.
Coming across my cousin Steven's copy as a child, having no idea who Bond was when I saw the cartridge with Bond's face holding a gun, I was more than interested in playing the game. I mainly knew it would involve gunplay compared to other N64 games I was playing then. But even Bond himself looked like a cool character I would love to play as. However, due to the game's violent nature, I was forbidden to play it, which meant it would only heighten my interest. I was at one point close to giving the game a try at that age, simply by turning it on when no one was around. Sadly, fearing of getting into trouble, I would turn it off before I saw Bond inside the gun barrel.
After becoming a Bond fan through my experience with The World is Not Enough for the PS1 and watching glimpses of Goldfinger and Thunderball as a kid, the opportunity to play the game finally came. My brother Jesse and my cousin Matt dueled each other in multiplayer mode, where I played as Jaws and, of course, was forbidden to play as Oddjob. I can still remember my cousin getting super annoyed when I would pick Oddjob, resulting in him refusing to play if I carried on. You seriously don't play as Oddjob. I remember the experience being fun, but aside from the choice of characters, I don't recall how well I was doing. All I cared about was just shooting my family up. I remember exploring all the maps, shooting, getting shot at, and seeing Bond's watch function as the main menu screen, which I thought was neat (especially amid a battle).
After having one or two occasions playing the game, I did not play it again until I became an adult a few years out of High School. Having played more Bond games and becoming a bigger fan of the franchise, I finally had to revisit Goldeneye 64 and play it all the way through. I received the game and the console for Christmas, turned on the game, and was filled with excitement and, frankly, slight disappointment. As I pressed on with playing the game, I grew to love it and understand why it is considered by many to be the best Bond game of the series. And for each time I would play through the game over and over, I would find more things to enjoy.
One of my disappointments when receiving my first whole game experience was the lack of cutscenes. Having little memory of the game's visuals back when I played snippets of the game and not so much as looking for clips of it on YouTube, I assumed the cutscenes would be similar to The World is Not Enough for the N64 (clips I did stumble upon). It is not perfect in graphic or audio quality, but at the very least, it is somewhat cinematic. At first, the game seemed that way with the Gunbarrel sequence; however, when I played the first mission, aside from a view of the dam and a description of the place and time, the level took me straight into the action. I thought maybe, in the second level, I would get a proper cutscene when I encounter Bond's friend (and soon-to-be foe) Alec Trevelyan. Instead, there was no cutscene, and both characters' dialogue was written in the text. And to make matters awkward, though I am not the type who gets too critical with graphics in video games, there was a bit of an uncanny valley seeing lifeless photographed faces (some horrifying to look at) attached to chunky pixelated bodies. In hindsight, I should not be too surprised, considering most N64 games I played were not too focused on having big cutscenes with spoken dialogue. But being spoiled with the later Bond games I've played (or looked at in the case of the next N64 Bond game) and hearing about how the game is a staple in video games that typically tops the other 007 games, I was underwhelmed.
Despite the graphics and cutscenes not meeting my expectations, there was still a charm and appreciation for how the game told its story. Given how little the game relies on cutscenes, players are provided with dossiers from MI6 before playing the level. The first is a non-diegetic summary of the mission; the second is M instructing Bond what to do; the third is Q with instructions on using a gadget; and the fourth is a few words from Miss Moneypenny. While reading the briefings, I used my imagination a little and felt like I was in Bond's shoes. I love watching cutscenes of Bond gaining information, but it always felt like I was watching a movie. And while I can't say the game's form of briefings is my favorite since I believe games like The World is Not Enough and From Russia with Love are handled better, reading the files does feel personal. I can almost hear the annoyance in Q's voice when telling me to be careful of his equipment or picture Miss Moneypenny flirting with me with her unhelpful teasing comments while reading the briefings.
Further selling the immersion in the confines of the game's limitations, though the dialogue exchanges are in written text during the gameplay, as many games would pause all the action and have the player read and click on the subsequent text, the game does not stop the player from moving about. When Bond first meets Trevelyan in the game, a player does not have to stare at a pixelated face awkwardly. They can set up the bombs while chatting with him. Later in the game, after Bond catches up with the villains on the train, though dialogue is present, the player is allowed to make their move with killing General Ourumov to rescue Natalya at any time, allowing the player to feel the suspense of the situation of when to act as Bond. Depending on how a player plays can also affect the outcome of a character meeting. One could listen to the interrogation and make their move when a guard comes in or picks up a gun lying right in front of a player and starts shooting to get out of there fast. When discovering that the head of Janus is Trevelyan, Alec's dialogue will alternate if you are carrying a gun or concealing it. After finding the truth, a player could read Alec's reason for his betrayal or start firing away. I always get excited watching the cutscenes in the later Bond games, but still controlling Bond during his meeting with the characters and altering how they happen in the midst without failing the mission is an absolute rarity in the franchise that makes the events more engaging.
The actual few cutscenes in the game serve as bookends to the mission. The mission would start with an establishing shot of the location (with a title card at the bottom), the camera sweeping to the back of Bond's head, and the image dissolving to his perspective and ending with Bond exiting. That's all there is to those cutscenes, though I have to admit, as simple as they appear, there is something extraordinary about them. Part of that is because the establishing shot is not always the same image. Each time a level begins, the first shot happens in either a different room or a section, creating a more spontaneous beginning. The beginning of each mission is not the only time the game changes images or shows something from a different angle. In the very beginning, after the gun barrel sequence, the order of characters that would appear in the opening credits would be the same. However, they would appear from an alternate shot, sometimes with a different attire and weapon, adding more personality and style to the opening. My favorite alternate cutscene has to be during the showdown between Alec and Bond at the bottom of the satellite antenna. If Bond manages to shoot Trevelyan off the antenna, a cutscene would show him perish to his death. However, suppose Bond falls off? In that case, a cut scene of Bond falling will take Trevelyan's place, which I think is astonishing that the developers went out of their way to animate a dark alternate ending to bring a heavier sense of dread for failing instead using the same game over screen.
The cutscene for showing Bond on-screen would not alternate; however, it perfectly fulfills the purpose of placing the player through Bond's eyes by literally doing so. Agent Under Fire tried to recapture the feeling of going through Bond's head to see through his eyes. However, given the game's advanced appearance by looking a little more realistic, zooming through Bond's back head and watch his eyes vanish look glitchy and awkward. The PS3 version of Quantum of Solace was seamless, switching back and forth from third-person to first-person, but it does not use the transportive camera work Goldeneye uses. Sometimes in Goldeneye, the camera would sweep through the level long before revealing Bond, showing more of the location while building up to the hero's model. In a way, the imagery and camera work almost feel spiritual, making the player feel like a spirit wandering through the game and possessing Bond where his fate is now in your hands.
The Bond model may not talk or perform much action, but the programmers do everything they can to make him stand out whenever his image is shown. It's neat to see Bond in various clothing, whether wearing a stealth suit, snowsuit, business attire, or tux, and wielding the weapon of a player's choice. Bond's body language outshines those elements, though. Despite not much happening in the cutscenes during the finale of a mission, it feels rewarding to see Bond act confident and calm without any words or facial expressions. Watching him casually walk away from an explosion, adjusting his tie, posing with his gun, jumping off a dam, or casually folding his arms when captured brings a strong sense of accomplishment for finishing the mission the way Bond would have. I mean, the game has the most extended make-out scene in all of Bond history, which fills up the entire credit time, allowing the player to really enjoy the romance after saving the world. The only time Bond is ever shown firing his gun during a cutscene past the opening sequence depends on whether you shoot the guards when entering a train, a nice little easter egg I discovered during my recent playthrough.
As an adaptation of the movie, the game does a near-solid job of following the events. All of the big action scenes from the film are present, such as the pre-title sequence, Bond driving a tank, Bond and Xenia fighting in the jungle, and the showdown on top of Trevelyan's satellite antenna. And the many liberties the game does have are mainly called for. Bond has to rescue Natyla from an exploding helicopter instead of getting trapped and escaping with her to create an interactive experience. Bond hops aboard Trevelyan's train without using a tank to derail it and fights guards from car to car. And players can dispatch the henchwoman Xenia Onatopp by killing her with their weapon of choice since animating her elaborate death would be nearly impossible. To make the players feel like they were playing in the movie, the developers visited some of the sets, took photos and videos, and acquired the set's blueprints and pictures from the costume department.
One of my favorite alterations to the source material that this game does best is how it expands on scenes and ideas from the movie. In the movie's opening, Bond is already on top of the dam, making his way to bungee jump. Incidentally, the sequence with Bond getting ready to bungee jump in the movie was supposed to be longer by showing him activate the electric gate while sneaking past guards; however, it was cut for time. Though the first level of the game takes place at the dam, players must fight past guards and unlock gates to make it to the part of the area where Bond bungee jumps, much like in the deleted scene, just with gunplay. Places where Bond was only present for a few minutes or has never been in the film are made into action-packed levels. The Frigate in the movie, which Bond was only on for less than a minute, failing to stop Xenia and Ourumov from stealing a Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter during a public ceremony, is now filled with terrorists who are holding people hostage who Bond must rescue on his way to the helicopter. The Severnaya Bunker, which Bond has never visited in the film, becomes where he meets Natalya and witnesses the first time the Goldeneye satellite is in action as the two escape. And for the many levels based on scenes or locations from the movie, there are a few levels made up by the developers. One of the most innovative levels is The Caverns in Trevelyan's secret lair, where all the water drains to when the giant satellite dish surfaces, with a color scheme of cool colors and futuristic doors that Karl Stromberg or Dr. No would love to have in their secret lair.
Of all the liberties the game takes with the story, the most original of the changes is having missions building up to the present-day events. Since Trevelyan's fake death happened nine years ago before Bond encounters Xenia, the game has three levels of new material between these events. Bond visits the Severnaya Bunker, where he makes a copy of the Goldeneye key and meets the backstabbing computer hacker Boris and has a brief encounter with Ourumov at a missile silo after taking a photo of the Goldeneye satellite before getting launched into space. It is plausible for Bond to have other missions between events, especially when relating to Ourumov, given their rivalry. However, from a storytelling standpoint, nothing is added, and it makes no sense (think of all the trouble Bond would have saved if he had destroyed the satellite instead of taking pictures of it). But as pointless as these levels are, they are still fun detours filled with incredible action and objectives, providing players with a visual look at the Goldeneye and some fun character moments.
Like Bond, though the characters in the game are silent and blocky, the written dialogue, movement, and actions give them distinct personalities. Many of the characters are accurate to their film counterparts. The sinister Trevelyan is as challenging and quick as Bond, Ourumov is a cold threat, Boris is comical, and Zukovsky is a helpful ally if it relates to his best interests. Outside of the MI6 regulars, the only main supporting character who does not physically appear is CIA agent Jack Wade due to rights issues. Unfortunately, the only real shortcomings in the game's portrayal of characters are female characters. Xenia, one of the greatest henchpersons in the franchise, is reduced to a minor role in the game. Before Bond has a boss battle against her, she is only seen at the train level, where she stands there with Ourumov and Trevelyan with a captured Natalya. At one point, the game says Xenia would be on the Frigate, which would be a perfect level to introduce her, except she never appears. And for levels that could show her and Bond facing each other, either at the Bunker or perhaps him chasing her and fighting off goons at the Turkish bath to get her to escort him to Statue Park, she spends more time on the dossiers than in the game (a problem the game Goldeneye: Reloaded would fix).
To give Xenia credit, as a boss, she is as skilled and taunting as she is in the film, while with Natalya, she is easily the poorest adapted character in the game. When people mention her name in the movie, she is typically considered one of the best Bond girls in the franchise. However, when mentioning her name to the gaming community, she is considered the most frustrating part of the game. Now granted, there are a few strengths the game gives her. Natalya is still skilled at computers, and when giving her a firearm, she is actually helpful when fighting alongside her in the jungle. I was surprised by how good she is at killing guards, hardly ever taking a bullet from them. And like Winston the Butler in Tomb Raider, if you leave Natalya locked up, she won't be a hassle to complete objectives. That's probably why I hardly had a problem with her, unlike other gamers, because I usually escort her when I'm done with all the objectives, which is easier than bringing her along. And that's the problem when comparing her character to the film; Natalya should not be an issue to have. She was not a skilled agent and was vulnerable on many occasions, but she was brave, challenging, and resourceful to stay alive as she hardly took any crap from the other characters. But in this game, she acts like a frightened, confused child without her gun and hacking skills. When fighting enemies, she'll get in the way, resulting in her getting shot. When she does not have the sense to stand in the line of fire, she'll run away and hide, forcing the player to search around for her, that is, if she does not get shot by a guard.
After all the trouble of protecting her, she has the nerve to act like she is behaving as badass as Bond was when all she does is run and hide and suddenly get captured in the next mission. But that's not half of what's wrong with Natalya. When protecting her from enemy fire while hacking the Goldeneye satellite, she'll tell you to quiet things down. I'm out there risking my neck for her AGAIN; loud noises should be the least of her worries! And if I kill Boris, she'll refuse to save Britain. I can understand the game itself claiming Boris is a civilian causality for not having a gun, but for Natalya to be willing to let people suffer because of my action with a man who attempts to kill me makes her a whiny, self-centered brat. The game did Natayla dirty. For a character who could be one of the best Bond girls in the game franchise, it is as much of a step backward as Nicole in Blood Stone. And the fact that this game has one mission proving she could be as awesome of a character as she is in the movie makes it all the more of a letdown.
I have said this a lot about 007 games in general, but especially regarding this game: the story is not why this game is fondly remembered. It is fascinating that it was not meant to be a first-person shooter during the game's early stages. At first, it was considered a side-scrolling platform game for the Super Nintendo until the developers thought the game should be made for the N64 for its 3D quality graphics. Unsure of what the console was capable of, the concept was changed from a side-scrolling platform to an on-rails shooting. Due to delays and the popularity of the Doom game series, which spawned off plenty of first-person shooting clones, the on-rails shooting platform was dropped to follow the trend. There was still a significant risk when creating the game, which was designing the first shooter game for a console system, as they were not well received then. Thanks to the game's smooth controls, imagination, and freedom, gamers and critics realized a console first-person shooter for a movie tie-in can become legendary in gaming.
Obviously, without the success of this game, there would most likely be no Agent Under Fire, Nightfire, or The World is Not Enough, considering that is where the gameplay in the franchise originated. Players can choose to use stealth or go in all guns blazin', use gadgets, and fight against Bond villains. However, considering that Bond games after could give gamers so many other things to do, this game is still hailed by many as the definitive Bond game. And taking away how it would influence the franchise and first-person shooter console games, why is it typically considered the strongest?
As fun and improved as most Bond games are, the secret to the game's success is how much it challenges the player to think like Bond. The games that followed afterward had voice acting, vehicles to drive, more substantial graphics, and storytelling that felt cinematic, with Bond doing cooler stuff in the cutscenes. On that basis, they should feel like the ultimate Bond experience, and while certainly looking like it and playing it (even rewarding the player for thinking like Bond), there seems to be something missing. Perhaps it's because I usually play these games on the easy difficulty, but while they can be challenging, they feel like they're holding the player's hand for most of the part. The games, as action-packed and badass as they are, usually tell a player what to do, even without hearing the allies instructing you during the mission. It's typically clear where to go, what to do, and what methods seem appropriate. Even during the on-rails and driving missions, figuring out what to do or surviving was hardly much of a challenge. The times I can think of getting stuck on a level in the games after Goldeneye for its unclarity was either using a Q Decryptor in Nightfire, unsure what gadget to use to stop a van in Agent Under Fire, and not figuring out the weakness to forklifts in 007 Racing.
Goldeneye, though a first-person shooter, functions more as a puzzle game than just shooting enemies to reach the next objective. There are certain levels where a player must think carefully if firing around or sneaking past guards is the best choice. Usually, it depends on the size of the levels. If it is outside on a wide-open landscape, fighting against guards, head-on is practically inevitable. With an emulator, it should be easier to playthings stealthy in these environments, but as someone using an N64 hooked up to a modern TV, the enemies from afar can be as hard to spot as they are in Tomorrow Never Dies or The City of Walkways in N64's The World is Not Enough. Sometimes, the guards blend into the background, while on other occasions, they're already shooting at me before I can see them. It's usually when a player is inside a tighter environment, whether The Bunker, The Facility, or The Archives, where stealth is encouraged. A player can see the guards better, making it more advantageous than others. But the catch is that once guards are alert, they'll keep spawning in herds, making it easier for players to find themselves cornered and die. And it's not just avoiding guards catching you if you encounter one; it's also preventing the security cameras and drone guns from seeing you.
As small as many interior levels are where one must be cautious and observant, the more expansive levels require a player to act the same, even when stealth is not an option. Many of these levels are like mazes, causing players to get lost in the fog or familiar rooms where one must rely on landmarks to navigate. When given a task to use a gadget, destroy a piece of equipment, or collect items, though the game gives players an idea of what to do, it never tells you how to do it efficiently. A player cannot hear M or Q instructing Bond where to go, how far they are completing their task, or where to install their devices; they only have the briefings to reference and resources. It's a game all about trial and error to know what to do. There's also rarely any particular order of finishing an objective, meaning the player can perform them anytime like as long as they are completed, just like what Bond would do. And unlike how most games would lead to a mission failure for failing a task and end, this game allows you to keep playing because that's what Bond would be realistically doing, carrying on with his mission. A player just won't see a cutscene and progress to the next level.
While challenging the player's thinking during a mission, the game's action when battling enemies is explosive. What I always loved about playing the 007 games on the N64 was having a controller with a trigger, which always made the feeling of firing at enemies authentic. Adding to the sense of realism is how enemies respond when you shoot them. In most games, they die instantly or feel invincible until they suddenly drop. In this game, they would slow down and react to their bullet wounds when you shoot them. The guards don't have the same reaction and speed when they get hit; it varies to fit the situation appropriately. And unlike how most Bond games don't show blood when a guard gets shot, this game is one of the few to show it. For me, to say the way the enemies die, and scream is fully realistic is untrue because their screams and the way they collapse or fly away from an explosion are highly exaggerated. But these little details to show the guards suffering from your gunfire are enough to make their deaths feel more impactful than usual.
Conversely, feeling danger while sneaking around or fighting against enemies is always present. Of course, that is a given in all the 007 video games, but no matter your difficulty, getting hit by any enemy takes away your health and does not slow you down. Goldeneye ensures you must avoid enemy fire at all costs for two significant reasons. The player is given two color-coded bars; the orange is how much health they have, and the blue is how much armor protects them. In most games, when a player loses health, the body armor they pick up can increase their health. Goldeneye raises those stakes where losing a part of your health means there's no way to rejuvenate it. The only hope is to collect as much body armor as possible if one is lucky to find it. And if a player gets shot, rather than fighting forward as if you were never hit, a flash of light appears, causing Bond to breathe heavily and push him back a bit. Although a player can't feel it, the sense of pain because of the impact keeps them on their toes, especially when knowing how much to lose. And the guards, though, are weak when shot, have the power to act as skilled as the player is by hopping around, kneeling, and using weapons as powerful as yours. When the player gets killed, blood trickles down on the screen like in the gun barrel sequence, which would become a staple in the game over screens for many Bond games. The game even shows cutscenes of you dying from the spot you were standing from different angles, which I would say adds insult to injury, but it can also be helpful for a player to be aware of where enemies are coming from for a replay.
With many Bond games, when changing, the difficulty usually leads to the same objective, only with stronger enemies and limited ammo and health supply. Goldeneye offers the same challenges, except players are given new things to do depending on the difficulty. For instance, in the first level of the easiest setting, all I have to do is make it to the end of the level. But on the hardest difficulty, I have to neutralize all alarms and use some of Q's gadgets. And the game is hardly ever short of giving players new things to do for the difficulty they choose to play. Players must destroy security equipment, defuse bombs, make it out of a level on a time limit, use more of Q's gadgets, rescue more hostages, and rendezvous with some of the characters. As frustrating as the difficulties can be, the excitement and interest remain for the game, giving a player plenty to do than just survive, adding to the replay value. The only thing that gets confusing about the concept is reading the dossiers. No matter what difficulty a player chooses, all the dossiers read the same, meaning M and Q will give the player the exact instructions on the easy setting as if a player decided to choose the harder setting. However, all the player has to do is follow the bullet point objectives, which certainly helps, but it makes reading through the dossiers almost pointless aside from a storytelling standpoint.
Increasing the difficulty with new objectives gives the game a special flare that's barely seen in other Bond games, but what makes the game so unique and one-of-a-kind is how much freedom it offers. Since the game does not kick a player out when they fail a mission unless they are killed, the levels can function as sandbox gameplay. Players can kill as many civilians as they want, explore every nook and cranny of a level, countlessly fight off many guards until death or boredom, and cause countless explosions. And I am not talking by just shooting explosives or using them; I mean almost everything in the game, even a model plane, can explode and cause a chain reaction. Compared to the others that follow, how much the game encourages a player to play through a level as long or short as they want is a rare privilege.
Naturally, the selection of weapons, like any Bond game, plays a significant part in making the gameplay action so amusing, and the game offers some of the best weapons in the franchise. Aside from the infamous Klobb, the machine guns are powerful and typically have good accuracy. My personal favorites are the heavier set, including the US AR33 Assault Rifle, and the weapon Xenia carries, the RC-P90, which is easily the best machine gun. As always, players are equipped with Bond's signature weapon, the PP7 Special Issue. However, my favorite pistol easily goes to Ourumov's weapon of choice, the DD44 Dostovei, for its impactful sound design and the damage it causes. When holding a sniper rifle, unfortunately, a player cannot see through the scope but can zoom in and out when aiming toward enemies to make up for not having animation to simulate looking through one. The sniper rifle is also the only weapon where a player can kill enemies by using the butt of the gun, adding more variety to using the weapon, which is barely used in Bond games before the Craig era. The game even contains a rare combat weapon, a throwing knife, that hardly works but is more than satisfying when penetrating an enemy. The best weapon in the game that is more powerful than an explosive is the Golden Gun, which players love to collect in multiplayer mode. But on top of everything, the best part of using weapons in the game is being able to carry dual weapons, which means a player can fire two pistols, two shotguns, two machine guns, and even two explosives at once, doubling the amount of destruction for the fun or challenge of it.
Just as the game cannot get any more generous with its freedoms, the cheats spoil the players. Cheats are usually accomplished through speed runs. The very reason why the mission The Runaway is short is to practically hand the player their first cheat, to let them know they can unlock them depending on how fast a mission can be accomplished. That also includes performing missions fast on different difficulties. I could unlock a few; however, I had little to no luck accomplishing as much as I had to. Luckily, I heard there's a way to unlock cheats without working for them, and thanks to the internet, I could use them all. Whether playing for them or using cheats to unlock the cheats (as odd as that sounds), they are indeed really worth it. Some make the experience cool and comical at the same time, such as paintball mode (where beautiful paintball colors replace bullet holes), D.K. mode (giving the models large heads and arms like Donkey Kong), and Tiny Bond (where everything is humongous). Suppose one wants to feel as "invincible" as Boris. In that case, one can become invisible, carry all guns with unlimited ammo, take no damage, or use all the cheats to become unstoppable. Using them all for the first time certainly helped me alter the story a bit, like killing Trevelyan earlier in the game and still completing a mission or rescuing hostages undetected as the guards cower. You can also bet the game won't be short by supplying players with new weapons, like a hunting knife, a Cougar Magnum, and a stunner made to look like a Gameboy. On top of it, when completing all difficulties, the game allows a mode named after Bond's number that can edit enemies' health, damage, speed, and accuracy, who can either be the weakest foes ever or unstoppable sharpshooters.
All of these cheats are marvelous and incredibly useful, but the best unlockable of them all are the secret levels. The way to unlock them is by finishing all three difficulties, and before I found a way to use the cheats while playing the game and still allow myself to move on to the next level, I nearly gave up. I must have test-played at least 6 Goldeneye copies at my local game store to see if I could access the already unlocked secret levels, only to be disappointed to find none. As I have stated, I am not a serious gamer; therefore, as much as it hurts that I would most likely never play these levels, I would still report on them by watching videos. But through the miracle of the internet, I managed to play the secret levels, and my experience did not disappoint. From Russia With Love, Goldeneye: Reloaded, and Everything or Nothing contained secret levels, except they were ordinary. Nothing special happened in terms of story or objective, making them bland and uninteresting. As much as I love the secret racing level in Nightfire, it is still just a racing level. Goldeneye could have been like the following games; except they treat these missions as part of the game's story mode. Both missions are based on films from the Roger Moore era. The first mission, Aztec, is based on Moonraker, with a tuxedo Bond sneaking into a beautiful recreation of Hugo Drax's secret launch pad, fighting off guards and Jaws with a laser gun while finding launch codes and escaping from the blast of a rocket that's about to launch. The second mission, Egyptian, is the most original as it combines a few films. It involves Bond going through a Spy Who Loved Me-inspired Egyptian setting with the mission to acquire the deceased Francisco Scaramanga's golden gun while avoiding a booby trap and fighting against a laughing and unkillable Baron Samedi. Both levels pay a wonderful loving homage to previous Bond films through their choice of villains, eye-appealing level designs, creative new objectives, and stories reminiscing Bond's adventures.
Because I have fewer limitations and less help with finishing a level, I feel more like Bond and am rewarded when succeeding (And I don't need the game telling me every time I perform a Bond move as I play). And the fact that I can do whatever I want when toying around with a mission certainly hardly gets boring. With that said, and once again, coming from someone who is not a hardcore gamer, that does not mean the game cannot be unreasonably complicated. It's incredible that the game wants you to strategize and get to know your surroundings, but it gets annoying when you repeatedly stumble upon the same landmark. Trying to figure out how to complete a task efficiently can get so frustrating and confusing that one would need to rely on a YouTube Let's Play video to understand what to do (which I certainly had to). And unless you use cheats or have all the time in the world to know every level inside and out and have been practicing your aiming at a harder difficulty, you'll find yourself dying over and over and over until you can't take it anymore. Even the secret missions are incredibly hard as well. I suppose that's expected, given how they are traditionally unlocked by completing all difficulties, but even in easy mode, these missions are frustrating to finish. Just as I used cheats to unlock these levels, I still felt the need to do the same to finish them. I highly appreciate and admire the game's difficulty for a player to earn cheats and feel like the hero, especially since it has hardly been recaptured in future Bond games. But the sheer frustration of trying to figure everything out while at the risk of dying does distract a bit from the amusement factor.
The gadgets in the game are half and half. Some of the franchise's best include a watch with a laser and magnetic setting, a tracking bug, and (my favorite) the remote bombs. All the items I mentioned are delightful; however, all the other equipment just exists. Aside from seeing them on Bond's watch, they never appear physically or that interesting. They mainly serve as generic hacking equipment. Bond also has a Moonraker-inspired mini-camera, which I was interested in seeing in Bond's hand, only to discover that the camera is as invisible as the one in Agent Under Fire. While the watch is cool and needed, a part of me is annoyed that the laser is not rechargeable. So, when using all its power to escape from the train or kill a guard it becomes useless. The watch's restrictions add to the suspense, and I can use cheats to make it unlimited, but it's still an annoying limitation. These gadgets were excellent for the time, and in some respects still are. However, compared to later games, not many of them have stood the test of time, though they certainly are better than most of the gadgets in the Craig era.
What I am about to say may be the most sacrilegious thing anyone can say. It could be something that will lead gamers and Bond fans to feed me to the piranhas, but I have to be honest: the multiplayer has not aged well. Before I lose creditability for this, let me clarify that it's not bad and should still be celebrated after all these years! Understanding that I barely have nostalgia for the multiplayer experience, I acknowledge and appreciate how this multiplayer paved the way for so many other console multiplayers involving firearms. And having experienced the multiplayer mode a few times since I received my copy of my game, plenty holds up about it: the weapon selection, the character skins, the cheats, and many of the maps. My best memories of playing it are going to The Facility and trying to access the Golden Gun. And unlike many people who say Oddjob is forbidden, I allow first-time players a chance to play as him, adding to the challenge while they get comfortable with the controls.
In essence, especially when discussing Bond games, we owe a lot to Goldeneye's multiplayer campaign, but compared to the games that followed, I rarely play it. It amazes me how much of the game's story mode holds up where I can do so much and revisit the levels just to mess about, while I feel I can only do less with multiplayer. Considering how most maps function as mazes requiring four players to keep the action going, as someone who does not usually have four people visit, it's annoying that I am limited to a few smaller levels to have a proper match. After Goldeneye, 007 games that can still allow four players, typically accommodated for gamers who only had two, mainly by the maps, or including A.I. Bots to fill in the void. While many of the maps in Goldeneye are based on levels from the game, they feel empty and have little personality, which is not as engaging to play around as other Bond games. It's also disappointing that every level starts with a player unarmed, rather than being supplied with a weapon, which one could argue is part of the fun, but personally (and I know I am not alone on this), I want my gun right away as I find better ones so I can get the action started. The character skins are still neat, but so many of them are guards and civilians that there are very few special characters worth playing as. Part of that is because the developers wanted to lower the number of women characters since it would be in bad taste for Bond to shoot women (a rule I hardly understood, as I mentioned in the past). It has been reported that the multiplayer was made at the last minute, and I can see why. Make no mistake, what they did was beyond incredible; it is downright historical. However, living in a post-Goldeneye 64 world with multiplayer games that not only have more time but offer so much more in terms of personality, skins, gadgets, weapons, and accommodations, of all the best multiplayer Bond games, Goldeneye 64 is the one I revisit the least.
On a more positive note, the game does have the catchiest score. Now, many Bond games afterward had incredible scores that sound cinematic, giving the games a ton of atmosphere. Though working as a score should function, when I think back to scores in Bond games, I think about the music in this game the most. I feel excited and relaxed when I hear softer versions of the Bond theme when reading the dossiers or looking at my watch. The elevator music playing the Bond theme is a tuneful rendition I can hardly ever get tired of. The music for The Dam is loud and exhilarating, while the music for The Facility is eerie and industrial. Fighting my way through The Silo has catchy electronic music with a tempo and melody that comes across as urgent. When exploring Statue Park, I get goosebumps when hearing patriotic music that sounds grim and ominous. And the score when chasing Trevelyan on The Cradle increases the tension and excitement for this showdown. The only nitpick I can think of is how the Bond theme is overused, which hardly bothered me considering the different styles in which the theme is played, which are groovy and perfectly fitting for the location and scenario.
