Revolutionary 007

[RCBH928]

Hello,

I know Goldeneye was an amazing game back then on the N64(graphics are like stabbing your eyes now), and people keep saying its revolutionary.

What I want to know is, what is so revolutionary about it?
I thought DOOM(or Wolfenstein 3d) revolutionized the fps, I still don't get what is so amazing about 007.

Don't get me wrong, I like it, but everyone is like crazy about the multiplayer feature.
Can any one explain?
and why no other game was matched by this one?

Also, its amazing that Nintendo got an exclusive license for that game given psx was selling multiple times more

[dlmvii]

The game certainly doesn't hold up well now, but I think it was the first good game with 4 player split screen, which was a pretty big deal. The fact that it had a popular license attached to it certainly helped.

[Hatta]

It was the first playable console FPS. It made the console kids feel cool too. If you had a PC back in the day, 007 really wasn't impressive. Still a good game though. I think it holds up fine if you keep your expectations reasonable. Much better than e.g. DK64.

[AmishSamurai]

It was revolutionary as a console FPS, not as a FPS in general. It's even more amazing when you consider that the team who did Goldeneye was almost completely new people.

[Inazuma]

4 player multiplayer matches with remote mines in the Facility stage. That's what my friends and I did for hours on end. Back then if you compare that to other console FPS's, Goldeneye was a million times better.

Not only did Goldeneye have a fantastic single player mode, but the multiplayer was extremely well done with so many different options for setting it up. I hate the FPS genre but Goldeneye was so fun that it couldn't stop me from having a blast.

[Xonticus]

It was the first playable console FPS.

Well of course we all know Zero Tolerance

It made the console kids feel cool too. If you had a PC back in the day, 007 really wasn't impressive..

Agreed, I am one of those pc kids who never saw the attraction for what personally seems to have lousy controls and slow mulitplayer. We already had been playing Duke nukem 3d, doom 2 and Quake online for years before it, so to be honest, I never got into it.

[Curlypaul]

Goldeneye proved that an fps could be controlable on a console, thats why its considered such an important release.

The graphics and AI dont really hold up now, you should try Perfect Dark. Its aged much better.

[Incognito D]

The graphics and AI dont really hold up now, you should try Perfect Dark. Its aged much better.

I disagree. I think the graphics in Goldeneye (apart from the character models) still look really good for N64, and Perfect Dark seemed to have frame rate problems last time I tried to play it.

[fastbilly1]

Goldeneye introduced an entire generation to First Person Shooters. All console shooters before it were fairly lackluster - sans Aliens vs Predator on the Jaguar. There were a good twenty or thirty console FPSs before it but Goldeneye was the first to get everything right. The soundtrack was spot on, the gameplay elements were solid, and the controls were easy enough that most anyone could start playing in a few minutes. It also introduced an large chunk of gamers to deathmatch.

On a technical level it did introduce the manual zoom sniperrifle to the genre. A few titles before it had zoomable rifles: ie Tunnel B1, Descent 2, but it was the first that let you zoom freely. Not a huge achievement, but really neat.

But to get back to my pain point - it just got everything right. It gave a solid experience that was very hard to top on any console at that time. Sure PC gamers were playing Descent 2, Quake 2, Outlaws, Marathon (ok Mac gamers) and a multitude of mods, but hey Ill be honest, the first FPS I really sunk alot of time into (ie over 100 hours) was Goldeneye. I had beaten Wolf3d and Marathon before it, but the one I kept, and still continue to return to is Goldeneye. It, along with Mario Kart 64, became synonymous with mulitplayer gameplay to many people.

[Ack]

And for the record, Faceball 2000 on the SNES predates Zero Tolerance by a couple of years, though Faceball 2000 on the Game Boy predates the SNES version by a year.

And the first FPS I sunk over 100 hours in was probably Doom II...

To add to Fastbilly's points, I'd also add that it was a quality licensed title based off a very popular property, so the mass market could easily recognize it. Plus the film it was based on is usually considered one of the best Bond films of the last twenty years, and the best of Pierce Brosnan's career as 007.