Forget Call of Duty, Real Men Need the Retro Love: GoldenEye 007

It's effing GoldenEye. Nothing more needs to be said. Just so we aren't accused of lazy-assery though, we're going to continue this whole ‘typing words at your face' thing for a little longer.

The very first lesson you're taught in Gameology class is that GoldenEye is all of the awesome. This much-ballyhooed FPS is still many players' favorite entry in the genre, almost two decades after its release. Whether it's the ‘best' is the kind of query that'll send the Internet into a spiral of poorly-spelled tirades, death threats and general bitching, so we won't go there, but still. Let's take a look.

The game was unleashed on the N64 in 1997. This was two years after Bond number five, Pierce Brosnan, starred in the movie (and four years after he somehow lost the girl to Robin Williams in old lady drag in Mrs. Doubtfire). It was planned to be a Virtua Cop-esque rail shooter, but this was scrapped in favor of the FPS format. Presumably when the developers remembered that Virtua Cop sucked ass a little.

Anywho, here we are back in GoldenEye's world of dams, satellites and traitorous assholes. It adheres to the movie's plot fairly faithfully, with some liberties being taken to ensure the game is as badass and dramatic as possible. It's great, with any game-of-the-film, to see any effs being given about the source material, and that was plainly the case right here.

You had the guns, the funky watch-gadget-thing, you were James Bond. Sure, it looks as rough as a badger's ballbag now, but in the mid-nineties this was wonderfully presented stuff. The gameplay and animation and such held up well too, making for a game that both captures the spirit of the film and is surprisingly accomplished in its own right.

Alas, since then all kinds of terrible has been peddled, under the guise of being the ‘game of the hit movie.' Parents buy these for their children, who are then pissed when they discover that it's the kind of game two chimpanzees could have made in a half hour. While wanking, like the horny monkey bastards they are. Have you ever played Gamecube's Minority Report? No, no you haven't, because it's balls.

But not so here. GoldenEye was revered, and still is, for being such a quality and memorable slice of guntastic. What do the words ‘Oddjob' and ‘Facility' mean to fans? Far too much, in some cases. Oh, the memories.

While we're reminiscing, let's also remember that it was a real pioneer. In this era, everyone was trying to ride Doom's scrote to fame. This little slice of Bond was a different sort of shooter, a more realistic --if that's the word-- take on the genre. It was highly influential in turn, with the likes of Timesplitters 2 including dam levels and angry Russians in GoldenEye's honor.

Most important of all, this was a whole lot of ridiculous fun, right here. Who's got the golden gun?

Source of images: Gamefaqs.