Goldeneye was the first really good original console FPS game, ever since the game was announced and the first few screenshots released there was a huge amount of hype built up. So like most N64 games then the release date got pushed back and back... until finally it was released. It definetly lived up to the hype.

Almost everything about this game is amazing, the gameplay is very well balanced with the "agent" mode being simple for anyone to pick up and the "00 agent" requiring a very skilled player with tactics.
The lastability of the game was also great, around 20 missions with 2 secret ones. 3 levels of difficulty that did not only make the enemys harder but also added a load of new mission objectives so you werent just playing the same game again. Even after you have completed the whole game there were the cheats, you had to earn them by completing missions in a certain time... WOW this was amazing, some of the hardest cheats to get like invisiblity and invicibility really required planning. I rekon in total there must be over 100 hours of gameplay, all with great reply value.

Not only does this game have amazing single player, but the multiplayer which was added in at the last minute is awesome! 4 player deathmatch License to kill (1 shot kills) pistols... WOW.. after 4-5 years we still play this. There is something about the way the game is so simple that makes it good, no other PC FPS has captured this kind of gameplay. It is pure skill, you run around basic levels picking up guns/ammo and shooting each other. Some people might complain about the screen being split into 4 bits, but I have to say this adds to the fun. OK so you can look at your friends screens.. but they can look at yours too.
Most of the levels you play on are from the single player game, apart from the ultimate stack and complex! There are also quite few other modes of play apart from DM, like teams and a kinda hold the flag type game.

Considering when this game was made (1997) and the machine it plays on the graphics arent bad, all very realistic models and textures. I think it was the first game I played that mapped the paths of bullets 100%, so you would only hit a guard if your bullet passed through his body. Not just around his area. Obviously the graphics got cut down in multiplayer as the machine was rendering for 4 people, but this is in a way good. If you compare the graphics in Perfect Dark (kinda sequel to Goldeneye) to Goldeneye, the Goldeneye ones are much more simple, lower res textures and less lighting, but a lot of people find the Perfect Dark has too much graphics for small TV screens. So in a way the graphics in Goldeneye are suited better.

Controls.. well what can I say, you couldnt actually assign different buttons etc but there were so many differnt styles avaliable that you didnt need to. Also a cool feature was the dual controlers method where you could use 2 controllers, this ment your looking around and your movement were both analogue.

Sound - the game had pretty average sound.. the music was pretty good I suppose but there were no ingame voices. Probably cos Nintendo could only fit 16 megs on carts, YES the whole game takes up 16 megs lol!! Now they can get over 32 (wow lol.. compression needed)

What was bad about this game? Well there were a few bugs but these did not affect gameplay much.. apart from the annoying "explosions thru walls".. the guard AI was pretty good but nothing like half-life which was released not a huge amount later.

Really this is an amazing game, one to keep in your collection to bring out every now and again.

-Inuit