i fucking loved golden eye. As a true, card-carrying “N64 kid,” this game is quite possibly the best console game ever made. It was 1997, and the PlayStation could only really put out first-person shooters that seemed to have been churned through a blender, while the PC was some true classics (Blood and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II were both influenced by the same. Year of the Hit – the year before with Quake and Duke Nukem 3D), for most people the N64 is the best choice for multiplayer gaming.
Rare’s GoldenEye 007 was the pinnacle of FPS multiplayer for those who didn’t like LANs or whatever the internet was doing at the time. It supports four-player multiplayer out of the box. This was revolutionary at the time. You can play the game right now, thinking about your Twitter bait negative thoughts, or suggesting that you never thought it was good in the first place, but just know you were wrong. Honestly, I’m sad you never played four-player GoldenEye split-screen with some friends because it absolutely rules.
At the time, it was hard to believe, I was a complete fool – which means I was literally cranking my way on the LAN. I’d even go to my local PC shop, hand over £3, and spend an hour talking to other kids on the 12 PC LAN set up behind Duke University. Good times, of course. I have a PC because, as mentioned, I’m a sucker. I’ve played those shooters mentioned earlier. They are great. Admittedly, but I had more fun with the GoldenEye. The memory of me playing it is more strongly seared in my mind. GoldenEye was a huge part of my childhood.
After school, me, my brother and some friends would play for a few hours. Facility was our map of choice, mostly because you could fall out of a toilet vent and kill your friends, often shouting some horrible catchphrases from the era. It’s fun. It’s not just about the facilities though; Bunker, Temple and Egyptian are all great too. The rounds in GoldenEye were fast and furious, and I’m sure our neighbors could hear the cries of “Stop looking at my screen!” and “Damn, he has a golden gun.”
Let’s face it, if you play GoldenEye today, it does feel a bit different than a modern first-person shooter. I very much doubt any newcomer to the 2023 game will find it great (though the controls have been modernized a bit on modern ports), but that doesn’t mean this N64 classic doesn’t deserve a place in gaming history.
It’s fine to look at old games with a modern eye, but also allow people to have nostalgic moments too. Let them remember the months, maybe years, of fun they had spanking each other in a game running at an obnoxious frame rate.
If you own the Switch Online Expansion Pack or Game Pass (or the digital version of Rare Replay), loved GoldenEye back in the day and want to go back to a different part of your life, then boot it up. Let’s face it, we can all travel back to a simpler time from time to time.
Or, of course, you can play Perfect Dark (on Game Pass), which is an all-around better game.
