When Goldeneye 007 was released, everything changed. Admittedly, the British developers at Rare had proven that they could develop games with stunning graphics in the past, perhaps most notably in Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo. But console and FPS weren’t exactly something that went very well together, it was a genre for PC, a genre defined by being played with mouse and keyboard. Also, they were mostly associated with “unreal” games like DOOM and Quake, while Rare now stuck realistic faces on characters and enemies and gave them realistic movements like rolling away and kneeling.
But perhaps most astonishing was the fact that an enemy reacted to where it was shot. I remember demonstrating this to my friends. “Now watch me shoot the soldier in the leg” and it reacted accordingly.
Like I said, amazing in every way. At least in 1997.
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It’s still pretty cool to see how the enemies react to where they’re shot and they roll “nicely” when you kill them. I also like the effect of bullet holes that can be seen in the walls (Although the same effect somewhat funny appears on surfaces where it shouldn’t.) In many other ways, of course, time has caught up with Goldeneye 007. But now that it has arrived at Xbox (and Switch) and I, thanks to Gamepass, can relive it, so it’s pretty obvious that it will be a trip in pure nostalgia.
It all starts with the track “Dam” and depending on the difficulty level, there will also be a different number of missions to complete. A neat touch that more games could benefit from rather than just increasing the amount of damage enemies do. Then there is the briefing presented in a folder of documents, all to create a real atmosphere of actually being agent 007.
There is still a very good flow to the game. However, the surroundings are extremely stripped down, here time has really left its mark on how empty everything is. There are some crates and barrels here, but not much else. On the game’s second course “Facility”, the lack of detail is even more marked as the corridors and rooms feel almost comically empty. But I am aware that this is not a remake but a, albeit noticeably sharper, faithful version of the original.
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For some inexplicable reason, my friend Magnus managed to borrow a projector from the town hall in Trollhättan. He probably lied and said it was for a school assignment or something. Then we plugged the console into the projector, attached a sheet to the wall and played multiplayer until our eyes bled. It was of course absolutely fantastic then and there.
Reliving this particular part is probably this version’s weakest card and for the second time in this text I have to refer to how time has flown by in the game. There is still, of course, a charm to sitting on the couch and playing games together. I’ve had a lot of fun with Mario Kart 8 in split screen, so it’s still something that works. But Goldeneye doesn’t immediately feel like something that will brighten up game nights in this way, more than the times I tried it before this text in the ten games that were required for an achievement.
I want to remember reading about people shielding their screen from the game with pieces of cardboard attached to the TV. In today’s more technologically advanced world, it would not have been particularly difficult to just use a splitter to get the same image on several screens, but we did not think of such futuristic things back then. The Xbox version doesn’t have an online mode like the Switch version, which feels a little strange. So you get to relive exactly what it was like to play on the same screen, even if the advantage today is that each player’s box is very likely to be roughly the same size as the entire TV was in 1997.
Of course, there is often something very nice in nostalgia. Then one could make a long text about whether it is the game itself that is the beauty, or all the memories associated with it. As I sat and made my way through the paths of this text, my two years younger little brother came in and said; “I got that for Christmas” and the whole puzzle of memories around the game got another piece added. When the game was released, it was half a year since the Nintendo 64 had been released in Sweden and it was of course a very impressive addition to the game library. We were in a 3D era of gaming, where the Playstation very much paved the way for what we considered “nice graphics” but the year 1997 was in many ways a strong one for the Nintendo 64 as well. Games like Diddy Kong Racing and Lylat Wars followed Rare’s smash hit. And when we finally summed up sales figures, Goldeneye was the third best seller for the format, surpassed only by Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64.
Of course, I must not forget to mention the fantastic music in the game, like this at the end of the text. Here there is a heavy drive in the game’s musical pieces and of course a very iconic pause music. It is rhythmic and atmospheric in every way and sounds and music of course evoke memories in the same way as the visuals.
Returning to Goldeneye for this write-up has thus primarily been a trip into nostalgia, rather than dissecting the game itself. Nostalgia is something I like to delve into, because even though games may not age very well, something editorial colleague Marcus expresses in the following poetic way; “Ugh hadn’t touched it with a pair of pliers today. That generation’s 3D graphics have aged like old sweaty gym clothes that have been left in the sun too long” so for me this offered a nice look back. As games from this era can often do if they were played frequently and made an impression.
However, I understand what Marcus means, when angular trees and completely empty buildings are what is visually offered. But behind sweaty gym clothes there is still a fundamentally entertaining action adventure that is far from as good as it was back then, but still a very good summary of what was hot towards the end of the nineties. I kind of still have fun when at the beginning of the game’s second level I make my way through the ventilation system, then (just like in 1997) shoot off the hat of the soldier in the toilet, then shoot him in the head.
Sometimes the nostalgic trip is worth taking, especially if it’s in the company of when Agent 007 was at his very best. At least in video game form.
