GoldenEye. For many of you it's a title that speaks for itself. Out of that crazed Nintendo 64 era, that gave us such prolific titles as Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 came what may be the grand-daddy king-kong of them all: GoldenEye. Based on the movie of the same name, GoldenEye is a video game about one of the coolest protagonists of all time: James Bond. And, unlike many other games from the same era (the Mission Impossible Nintendo 64 game, for example. Ugh), it was not only good, it was great. It's hard to describe what precisely made GoldenEye so good.

Was it the tension and storyline, keeping all the best parts from the movie while adding still more? Was it the tight controls and terse combination of sneaking your way through and gunning your way through the levels? Those all helped, sure. The single player game on it's own was absolutely revolutionary in terms of design and game A.I. By the way, I totally used the movie poster for this post instead of the game box. I think it communicates how awesome the game is more than the box does (shown below), don't you?

Anyway. Do you know what really took GoldenEye to the next level?

MULTI-PLAYER

Hours upon hours upon hours spent playing multiplayer GoldenEye. To this day I'm not sure I've spent quite so much time playing a game. It was nearly bottomless in it's fun level and complexity. Playing with my three brothers, tersely competing to completely destroy and embarrass each other through 'a little friendly competition' every weekend or so. It was heaven, and made us much closer as a family.

^{They always flip out over my floating gun trick}

...That is, when it didn't have us at each other's throats. The deviousness of the game. The excitement and desperation of each all out fight. It keeps you and your characters, bruised and bloodied, coming back for more. Play with the same crew enough and there might even be temporary alliances against a lurking Odd Job (that short f*ck) or someone on a killing spree.

^{Multiplayer? Try Multi-slayer... See what I did there?}
Some games leave an impression. The first couple of levels and multi-player rounds of GoldenEye left me shaking like a leaf. I'd never played anything as violent or realistic (hard to believe now, I know). But soon enough I was dashing through the levels and multi-player matches like a stone cold assassin. Rockets, Walter PPk's, AK's and all might leave me shaken, but never stirred.

And so I walk away from this dossier, the mission done. Analysis? GoldenEye is without a doubt, unequivocally, one of the best games ever made.

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Images: 1, 2, 3, 4

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