The Goldeneye 007 Age

This is when things started to get really good. Console gaming had become widely popular throughout the world, and kids looked at you funny if you didn't own a Nintendo 64. Goldeneye, the movie that put James Bond back on the map in the mid 90s is arguably one of the greatest Bond movies ever. Concordantly, Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 is quite possibly one of the greatest shooters ever created.



The Nintendo 64 was quite a sophisticated machine when first released, and the lifelike polygonal graphics were some of the first to be created using green screen motion sensing technology. The game, developed by RARE, traced Bond (played by Pierce Brosnan) through multiple levels following the movie's storyline, and also included some unlockable settings from older Bond movies. The real fun in this game, however, was the four-player multiplayer mode. The N64 allowed up to four players to play simultaneously on the same screen, and allowed several different game modes, including capture the flag, "the man with the Golden Gun," and "Licence to Kill."



The only other FPS game on the N64 that I would consider noteworthy is Perfect Dark, also developed by RARE, which was in many ways, an upgrade from Goldeneye. It offered far more weapons, characters, game modes, and other perks, than Goldeneye, but many considered it to be overwhelming, and stuck to Goldeneye.