Goldeneye 007 has been hailed as a classic for a multitude of reasons, and while I agree with a lot of them, there are still quite a few nagging issues that really affected my enjoyment of the game. Weirdly enough, GoldenEye 007 was my introduction to the James Bond series, as I’ve never actually seen a James Bond movie before, and while I’m pretty sure that James Bond doesn’t spend every scene in his movies shooting Russians and accidentally blowing up random crates and chairs, I’d say that this was a pretty good introduction. The levels are almost all nonlinear and have multiple objectives to complete, like many shooters of the time, and while I will get into why this has a downside to it later on in this review, I still like the concept, as it gives each of the level’s rooms and sections more meaning and it also increases the game’s replay value. While the controls feel weird on a keyboard, the shooting itself feels great and satisfying, and the gadgets that Bond uses in certain levels gives the game its spy theme, which makes the game more distinguishable from its early FPS counterparts.
A lot of my problems with GoldenEye 007 come from how some of the game’s parts haven’t aged very well. While I did appreciate the concept of nonlinear levels, there were a lot of cases where I wandered around the level endlessly around the level, having no idea what I had to do until I gave up and looked the objective up on Google. The draw distance is also really low, and while that isn’t so bad in most of the levels, the few outdoor levels in the game are a nightmare because of this draw distance, as you end up getting killed by enemies that you couldn’t even see. The aim mode is nearly unusable, as the red sight is always snaps back to the center of the screen instead of letting you aim wherever you want, and this makes shooting at something specific incredibly frustrating.
While it hasn’t fully aged well, GoldenEye 007 is a great and influential game that still deserves to be played, and although I haven’t gotten a chance to try out the iconic multiplayer mode due to the fact that I played this on an emulator, I still think that I had a great time with this game.
A lot of my problems with GoldenEye 007 come from how some of the game’s parts haven’t aged very well. While I did appreciate the concept of nonlinear levels, there were a lot of cases where I wandered around the level endlessly around the level, having no idea what I had to do until I gave up and looked the objective up on Google. The draw distance is also really low, and while that isn’t so bad in most of the levels, the few outdoor levels in the game are a nightmare because of this draw distance, as you end up getting killed by enemies that you couldn’t even see. The aim mode is nearly unusable, as the red sight is always snaps back to the center of the screen instead of letting you aim wherever you want, and this makes shooting at something specific incredibly frustrating.
While it hasn’t fully aged well, GoldenEye 007 is a great and influential game that still deserves to be played, and although I haven’t gotten a chance to try out the iconic multiplayer mode due to the fact that I played this on an emulator, I still think that I had a great time with this game.