Goldeneye

N64, Goldeneye (1997) game

Goldeneye 007 to be precise, though how anyone could be confused by the low quality EA hijacking of the name, I don't know, but that was clearly the shameless attempt at stealing the great goodwill that came with one of the greatest console games of all time, and it was justified, for this was a true revolution and playing it again after so many years I found it was just as good as ever - as with most old games the graphics look relatively rudimentary compared to subsequent advancements, and at first I found the music to be distracting, striking the wrong note with my efforts at stealthy combat. But then it slowly hit me that while stealth is an option it's not the standard approach, even while it is a satisfying one, because the real power of this game comes when you've enhanced your skills and you stop standing around hugging the R button to aim, but it begins to become natural to run and gun, so shoot on instinct, to find the Controller has become an extension of your own hands and mind, to go where no man has gone before! Okay, getting a little carried away there, but it is an eye-opening prospect to realise, yes, my rusty old skills are returning, honed by the fear and desperation of survival as the goons become tougher, more accurate and numerous. And if you wanted to unlock the cheats and all the fun that came with them you needed to master the ability to plough through the enemy like a golden bullet, so as much pure joy as you could get from having fun with plugging a guard at a time, sneaking around to your heart's content the ultimate aim was to become proficient at firing and manoeuvring at speed, setting you up for epic death-matches in the multiplayer.

There was so clearly vast amounts of love that shone through this game, putting all other licensed fodder to shame, because far from being creatively bankrupt it was actually full of surprises, deviations from the plot of the film to suit the action of a game world, and just a toy box full of experimentation possibilities. The film wasn't even one of the better James Bond films, but it wouldn't have mattered if it had been a completely original property with no connection to anything else because that's not what's important, merely a historical by-the-by which makes it somehow more incredible that they were able to craft something so full of genius - I say it wouldn't have mattered, but 'Perfect Dark,' essentially the sequel in all but IP, did suffer slightly from levels where you took on aliens rather than real, hurting, cunning humans, and 'Timesplitters (2)' with it's complete opportunity for innovation by many of the team that worked on this game, was let down by a number of things. Saying that, even 'Goldeneye' wasn't perfect, with a small number of levels that weren't superb and stood out because of that. I think of the Statues, The Streets and The Depot as rather drab environments without much incentive to explore or enjoy merely being in the game, which is a bit of a shame since they came in the middle after so much greatness.

Importantly, the game was able to pull itself together from these lesser levels and finished strongly. Well, okay, the Cradle was one of those typical final levels in games that's simply tough without being much fun, just run around without much else to do. I always feel like game companies should spend as much time on the final level as they do on the first just so the final experience isn't a letdown, but at least the good reputation was saved by the first bonus level, Aztec - I'd forgotten how truly terrifying Jaws is, gunning for you in this large temple complex. That's it, those memorable moments, be it Jaws coming for you or creeping around the second Bunker, finally succeeding at the tough Control, hearing a guard sneeze, rediscovering the large underground Caverns, the old skill returning as you're forced to improve. Driven by instinct, circle-strafing, ducking in and out of cover, taking out a patrolling guard with a throwing knife, letting loose with a KF7 Soviet, approaching the vast ominous shape of the satellite dish in both levels of the Surface. The idea of returning to levels at a later time, discovering the extension of the Bunker… I could go on and on, and this is all without the endless happy (and angry!), hours of multiplayer we used to play, the true longevity of the game.

Quite simply it is an astonishing achievement to come up with something that throws so may ideas into the pot and never seems generous, just as if they believe it's a matter of course. But that was the way of Rare in the late-90s, a huge reason for the N64's unparalleled creative success and the making of the most memorable console for me. Age hath not withered it, and that goes for 'Goldeneye,' too. It's realistic without being gory, a huge sense of power and control belongs to the player as you take out the enemy in interesting ways. And like most of the best games it provides a playground of experimentation that lasts long after the main game is completed. I remember spending countless hours devising unique, tough new challenges thanks to both the multiplayer (Hunt The Dummy was one of our greatest ideas for two or three players: set it to four-player and then you only score points for killing the static fourth player, points deducted for killing any humans - really tests the knowledge of the arenas!) and '007' mode where you decide how much health and intelligence you and the enemy have (well, not intelligence for yourself, obviously!). There could be improvements even with this game - an onscreen timer would have been useful for best record attempts, and the fact you can be shot up as you go into or out of your gadget watch was very unfair. At the same time these limitations somehow fit with the world you're in. Without knowing how much time you've spent it adds tension, as does the watch, discouraging from pausing the game unless you have peace and quiet to do so.

Tactically it's a superb game, brilliantly presented, vast, varied, the music plays on the Bond theme and the music of that specific film to great effect. The limitations of the machine don't prevent it from some excellent textures and the only glaring omission were AI bots for multiplayer, but it could be argued it was easy to overwhelm the playing field in 'PD,' so maybe the lack was good? All I know is that I absolutely loved going back to this game which would probably be in my top ten of all time for all genres, it's that much of an experience. I have the Wii remake which I plan to play at some time, but don't expect anything from. It was one thing for the name to be stolen for the poorly considered 'Rogue Agent' and quite another to actually try to approximate a remake, especially as it was scuppered by a control system that wasn't best suited to precision control. We'll see. I'm just glad I got to experience the pleasure of the original again in all its glory and bring back a multitude of memories.

*****