Goldeneye 007 (Switch/Xbox)
By: Rare
THE stuff of legend for anyone who cradled a joypad in the 90s, many a misspent youth was wasted squinting at the corner of an 18-inch Ferguson during drunken multiplayer sessions on Goldeneye – the N64 masterpiece and blueprint for console shooters.
Fans have been carrying a torch for its re-release for over a quarter of a century, and this week they finally got their license to chill again with one of the all-time greats. Released two years after Pierce Brosnan's Bond debut, Goldeneye proved that first-person shooters – at the time the preserve of snooty PCs – could work on consoles, and gamers tired of making fat tradesmen squash turtles could finally see the world through the snout of a rifle: rather fittingly, given Goldeneye had the highest kill count in Bond's history.
Its compact missions, designed like miniature sandboxes with multiple objectives depending on the difficulty level, referenced every previous Bond movie, while multiplayer represented everything good about the golden age of couch split-screen, even if Oddjob – with his hard-to-hit stature – was inevitably banned (God only knows why he was so short – did the developers confuse him with Nick Nack?).
Goldeneye went on to become the best-selling N64 game that didn't star a plumber – and it couldn't have been further from Nintendo's flagship property. Indeed, Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, worried that Goldeneye was too violent. Its director, Martin Hollis, recalled, "He felt the game was too tragic, with all the killing – he suggested that it might be nice if, at the end of the game, you got to shake hands with all your enemies in the hospital". Such advice was mercifully ignored.
Now available on Switch and Xbox in all its original glory, this is the same Nintendo 64 game you enjoyed with two litres of White Lightning in 1997, bar modern controls and improvements in framerate and resolution – so don't go in expecting the bells and whistles of a full-blown remake.
Its visuals are blocky and unrefined, characters sport sausage-like limbs and cuboid noggins – Bond looks like a serial killer has draped Pierce Brosnan's face over a cereal box and popped it on over his head.
The soundtrack, however, has aged like a fine Martini: its one of gaming's best, mimicking Eric Serra's cold, electronic movie score, it's all synth noodling and electronic gongs.
After the nostalgia high, though, comes the inevitable comedown. Multiplayer is only available on Switch, but Nintendo's version is crippled by woeful controls that attempt to mimic the N64's one-stick pad. On Xbox, Goldeneye plays like a dream with its modern shooter layout, even if you won't be using it to PPK your mates online.
Goldeneye is a bit of a monkey's paw – warts n' all wish-fulfilment for fans, even if both versions are hampered by either dodgy controls or missing multiplayer. Still, it's Goldeneye, on a console, and free on Game Pass, so tis churlish to gripe – even if it can't compete with your hazy memories of the original.
