DAY 6 / GAME 6 GoldenEye

DAY 6 / GAME 6

GoldenEye (Nintendo 64)

            GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 will more than likely bring back memories for a lot of gamers my age.  The Nintendo 64 may not have been my favourite 5th generation console*, but the one thing it did have going for it was the 4 controller ports.  Yeah, in the days before HD resolution and affordable big screen TVs, playing four-player split-screen on a tube TV wasn't easy.  But it was a kind of fun that can't be replaced.  Maybe it was the timing;   With the lot of us in high school at the time, there was nothing better to do after the bell rang then to head over to a buddy's house, each of us with our own controller, and rack up some kills.  

           

Developed by Rare in '97 and based directly on the James Bond film from '95, GoldenEye seemed exceptional at the time on various levels.  I remember first seeing it when a few of us popped by my old friend Mike's house.  (The same house we would end up spending most of our spare time group gaming at.)  I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who was blown away by the graphics at the time.  What looked like photos of the actors mapped onto the game models made all the characters quite recognizable and all the levels featured familiar set pieces from the the movie.  Single player was great, and with all the unlockables it had tons of replay value.  But the true appeal of this game, something that Rare did so well, was some of the best FPS multiplayer, perhaps of all time.  I can't recall how long this was the game of choice for us, but I'm sure it was a good while.  I'm also pretty sure none of us never lost our twitch-response from this game, forever embedded in our muscle memory.  And if we picked this game back up today, it would be like we never put it down.

Here's to good times and crazy controller designs.


*(I had originally posted 64-it console generation, but was corrected as the 5th generation consoles weren't all 64-bit)