GoldenEye 007 wasn’t the first James Bond video game.
It wasn’t even the first to take its name from a Bond movie, as that title goes to A View to a Kill, which pixelated Roger Moore’s final stint as the super spy in 1985. In the mid-1980s, gamers could confusingly play two games based on that same movie. One was an action game developed by Domark and published on the ZX Spectrum and a few other computer systems. The other was a text-based adventure brought to MS-DOS and Macintosh by Angelsoft. James Bond’s career in video games was already complicated, but GoldenEye 007 managed to beat its confusing reputation, and become a legend.
Over 25 years after its first release on the Nintendo 64, variations, updates, and remasters still appear of GoldenEye 007. True, some of them with — to quote villain Hugo Drax — “the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.” Other releases, however, prove that GoldenEye 007 is worthy to be a game with as many faces as Ian Fleming’s suave icon.
GoldenEye 007 (1997)
Expectations for Rare’s GoldenEye 007 were low. After all, it was the 14th game in the franchise, emerging two years after the film that inspired it. It tagged onto the sequel Tomorrow Never Dies, which was firing up in movie theaters, but that reinforced the idea that it was outdated. It was also held down by its exclusivity to Nintendo 64 — a console struggling to compete with its predecessors — and its attachment to a publisher not renowned for blood-soaked first-person shooters (FPS), and a developer best known for its Donkey Kong games.
Still, 007 was a revelation, and was soon bundled up with consoles and hailed as a genre legend. Against all odds, it changed the direction of FPS games forever.
The game achieved acclaim for its visuals and gameplay, and played a significant part in selling consoles as a home for FPS games that PCs long claimed as their own. Not a bad result for a game initially envisaged as a 2D platformer, which took inspiration from Doom and picked up parts of the N64’s 3D potential as it was designed.
The game has atmosphere in spades and a compelling take in bringing a new era of Bond to life. The sniper rifle, with its zoomable scope, and inaccurate but dual-wieldable Klobb both provide memorable moments, but the game’s success came in in nailing two things in particular. One, GoldenEye has a vital sense of fun. Second, the multiplayer mode, which allows up to four players to compete in split screen, was a revelation when the game came out. It remained the console standard until Halo: Combat Evolved arrived on Xbox in 2001.
GoldenEye was a massive step forward for console FPS and Bond video games, but when it came to multiplayer, it embraced its legacy. Deathmatch scenarios took the names of past movies — You Only Live Twice, The Living Daylights, The Man With the Golden Gun, and Licence to Kill — while legendary figures from the franchise were added in as nostalgic fun. The trouble caused by diminutive Odd Job stuck in the mind of sharp shooting players for years.
The N64 era was controversial and underpowered in many ways, as it was beaten in almost every area by Sony’s first PlayStation. But the eight million units GoldenEye 007 sold were only surpassed by Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64. Some even thought Rare’s game boasted more distance than Mario Kart. While the Bond rights moved on to other publishers, Rare continued the spirit of what they started in the Perfect Dark games.
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (2004)
GoldenEye 007’s name is carved into the FPS wall of fame, so it’s no surprise later games were keen to capitalize on it. Bond, if anything, is a franchise that consumes its past. Rare wasn’t involved in the title, however, after EA games seized the video game rights to the franchise in 1998.
The games giant embarked on an impressive run, releasing game adaptations of movies Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is not Enough before developing original properties Agent Under Fire, Nightfire, and Everything or Nothing.
Everything or Nothing was a lavish third-person shooter with driving levels. A new script from Bond scriptwriter Bruce Feirstein linked to A View to a Kill, but it was presented as a new installment in the Pierce Brosnan-starring series. The Bond actor was present and correct, providing voice and likeness alongside Judi Dench, John Cleese, and Willem Dafoe as the villain. It was one of EA’s better-received Bond games, but the publisher saw a new opportunity.
Rogue Agent spun from EA’s main continuity to draw on the franchise’s history, not least a sneaky nod to Rare’s classic. The twist was that players were the villain — a former MI6 spy known as GoldenEye employed by Auric Goldfinger to defeat Dr. No. Francisco Scaramanga appeared as the player’s liaison, providing upgrades to the eye that gave the fallen agent his name. Extra abilities included MRI vision, EM hack (allowing the player to hack electronic systems), and polarity and magnetic shields.
Across eight broad levels, the thrill of blasting through a fictional SPECTRE civil war was present, but the game fell into the trap of bad guys shooting bad guys, which makes them feel like they were never really bad guys. The quick dispatch of a virtual 007 in the first scene didn’t help. Released on three consoles, including the Nintendo GameCube, its multiplayer didn’t set the world alight in a way SPECTRE would approve. That’s the metric every GoldenEye 007 game is ranked on, and Rogue Agent never moved beyond the suspicion that it was trading on Rare’s success.
GoldenEye 007 (2010)
Activision picked up the exclusive rights to James Bond video games in 2007 and, three years later, released an update of Rare’s classic. Naturally, it arrived on a Nintendo console first.
This GoldenEye remains a fascinating update. When it was released, only 15 years had passed since GoldenEye 007’s release, but that time jump and the arrival of Daniel Craig necessitated some substantial changes. The character and humor of Moneypenny and Q were excised, while Craig lent his likeness and tougher approach. The famous bungee jump? Forget it — Craig’s Bond just leaps off the dam.
Movie franchise scorer David Arnold joined to compose the soundtrack while Nicole Scherzinger covered Tina Turner’s theme. The original movie’s co-writer Bruce Feirstein was back, this time forced to make crucial changes to the plot. Setting it in 2010 meant the whole narrative moved to after the Cold War and, astonishingly, ruled out links to Lienz Cossacks as Alec Trevelyan’s motivation for betrayal.
The update was a solid attempt to return to the game’s origins, but it could never compete with the success of the 1997 release, particularly in the multiplayer stakes.
GoldenEye 007: Reloaded (2011)
Reloaded was a remaster of the Wii remake released with much fanfare on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Finally, GoldenEye came in high-definition, and with a new achievement system thanks to its new game engine. The PlayStation 3 version was even compatible with PlayStation Move. Its pick-ups from the original, and motley clever attempts to update it for a modern Bond audience on new platforms, ensured the game a favorable reception. As a Craig-fronted game, it went down much better than 2008’s Quantum of Solace.
GoldenEye 007 (2023)
Another decade, another run out for the James Bond game that stands above all others.
It was unlikely the original GoldenEye 007 would ever return to Nintendo consoles following Microsoft’s acquisition of Rare in 2002, but Switch Online’s N64 library didn’t look complete without the 90s console’s third best-selling game. Fortunately, an agreement finally allowed the game to appear on Microsoft and Nintendo consoles, but this being GoldenEye, there were catches.
On Nintendo Switch, fans could finally play a faithful version of the original, with a slight polish for modern eyes but no updates to gameplay. Fans of the original quickly regretted what they wished for as they worked their way around the original control systems, but the multiplayer experience was there and, this time, online.
The Xbox One release updated Rare’s game to 4K resolution and included alternate control systems. The enhancements didn’t live up to years of leaks, however, and the game only had local multiplayer. Like 1997, the full GoldenEye experience of multiplayer battles through the Facility, Complex, and Temple were Nintendo exclusives.
Unbelievably, the above only covers the official releases. It’s nowhere near an exhaustive list of the ports, abandoned adaptations, and blocked remakes the game has inspired. To paraphrase the familiar words that end all 25 Bond movies, history suggests GoldenEye will return.