Soapbox: Mario And Zelda Were Great, But GoldenEye Really Switched Me On To Nintendo

Not me, my friends always picked the cool people like oddjob and I got Boris.

At least I think that's this one. For me it was Mario 64 that really got me into Nintendo.

My biggest question about the article is why was Goldeneye on at the demo station? I would have thought it’s age rating would be too high incase kids tried to play

Wow, I forgot about Comet stores. All these places are gone now.

I still remember my college friend next door saying, "Dude, come over and play Bond with me!". It was a more of an order than a request. haha. He said it,like, all the time. I missed out on the N64. I got a Gamecube, though. I had seen Mario 64, and knew I had to play the next 3d Mario game. (I skipped that PS1, N64 generation.)

The N64 was also my first Nintendo home console. Up to that point, I had only a Game Boy and Game Boy Color because my parents didn't want to eat up a television for video games. But we eventually got a small tv (with a VCR built in) for the upstairs rec room and then I was able to get an N64. I loved that console. Technically GoldenEye did receive a remake/update for the Wii although it definitely didn't have the same charm or nostalgia factor as the original N64 cartridge.

Bond was the “other game” I got for Christmas that year. Didn’t even touch it for about a month, then realized it was the best multiplayer game EVER up to that point.

@Crockin It's amazing when you don't expect to like a game, and then it turns out to be epic

@frogopus Those games had terrible multiplayer in comparison. Goldeneye has incredible split screen multiplayer which is where it shined. I also finished Jedi Knight last week and it doesn’t hold up as well as Goldeneye or even Dark Forces 1. Quake 2 is brilliant but the Duke Nukem games are awful and I never understood the obsession.

Just like FF7.. never got into it.. this doesn't work for me either. Each his own

Never played it, but I can always download it onto my SNES classic need be.

I would say that Mario and Zelda ARE great, but GoldenEye was better at the time

Even though I wasn't good at it, I played this game a lot as a kid, both single and multiplayer. Dam is still one of my favorite levels in a video game.

I also loved entering cheat codes into the game, like the one for the enlarged heads and the one for the inivicibility mode. Shooting the unsuspecting big headed guards in the ass, getting them to jump high in the air, was hilarious.*

If I could get the chance to play through the N64 library I owned as a kid today, there are probably other games I would prefer to play to GoldenEye, like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time and Lylat Wars. But it still has a special place in my heart.

Best multiplayer games on N64: GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Diddy Kong Racing and Super Smash Bros.

*Hilarious from a child's perspective, mind you.

I watched neighbour playing Tomb Raider oh his PS2 and the next day I went along to my local Curry's to buy one. A TV screen was showing a funny plumber in a red cap, bobbing about.

I walked out with an N64 and Super Mario 64.

While myself and a mate rented an N64 from a video store and were amazed by mario 64 and spent alot of time with killer instinct.
Goldeneye sold it to us.it was just incredible at the time when consoles just couldn't do fps and pcs were pricey and for business reasons mainly not for 11 year olds.
Something is just special about it and being Bond.
Perfect Dark may be on paper way better but it never was same league in my head.

Goldeneye was probably there most important game I played as a kid.

Goldeneye took over my life during a semester at college. My friend and I would play it for hours. He was so hellbent on unlocking all of the multiplayer cheats that he worked for days on the missions required to unlock them. The four player multiplayer was the best, though. Paintball, one-shot kills, and the automatic weapon set. We had the respawn locations memorized. Good times.

Super Mario Bros. was the game that brought me to Nintendo, though. Before that, I wanted an Atari. Silly kid.

I also really enjoyed Goldeneye 007 on the Wii. It didn't have the same impact - I wasn't in college anymore, so the only multiplayer I played on it was online - but the single player campaign was very enjoyable.

As I read this I lean over and look at my clear green N64 on the shelf next to my desk. Yep, Goldeneye is still plugged into it.

My First experience with goldeneye actually sucked, I rentef it at our now defunted Midnight Video, when I got it home I couldn't see anything on the T.V screen as it was too dark (I was a kid and knew nothing of contrast) I ended up bringing it back thinking it was made like that and never thought of it.

About 8 months later I was over at a friends house where their family played nothing but goldeneye, I remember their fathet yelling "Nobody plays oddjob" after playing and experiencing that, I ended up getting it for christmas and never stopped tilk prefect dark came out.

I never played Doom and only rented Zero Tolerance on the Sega Mega drive. Goldeneye was the first FPS that really got me into the genre. That it was James Bond also attracted me to the game. Other greats would follow including Half-life, Turok 2 and Perfect Dark. They were some of my favourites. I’d love to see a remaster of Goldeneye. Maybe improved and additional objectives would be the modernisation it needs.

Mario 64 got me into the N64, as well as F-zero and Doom 64. Legend of Zelda really turned me off, once Zelda hit 3D it just hasn’t been the same. Oh wow, huge, empty open worlds with little to do, just what I expect from a Zelda game.

But Golden Eye with my cousins? Such good times. We were all so bad but it didn’t matter, it was so much fun.

@Fido007 Ok, I don’t feel bad now because I had the same experience with Dark Souls. My very first HDMI console was an Xbox360, and at the time, the HDMI cable was being sold separately and I had no idea it even existed at that point. So I plugged it in via RCA cable and it looked like hot garbage, outputting at 420p or something. Returned everything. Months go by and my dumb head learns about HDMI, I get a PS3 and then realize my dumb mistake

Oddjob was the worst character to be. Constant headshots from being so short (if you were good at shooting). Haha.

My little brother would always be him and I loved it for that reason. @Kalmaro

"The N64 sometimes gets a bad rap"

From who? The N64 was an amazing console and probably still my favourite Nintendo console, it may not have a big library but Mario 64, Goldeneye, Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 64, Smash Bros and Paper Mario easily rival any Nintendo platform before or since. Even more so when you consider the era those games launched as they felt years beyond anything else available at the time

goldeneye i remember me and flat mates bong munchies goldeneye and ISS. Now kids wife just dance mario kart and grey hair

@CTmatic Didn't his hat block shots from above? I can't remember, it's been years now!

Man I feel old...

“ DOOM was undeniably fun but it was a blunt instrument; ”
BS the combat in Doom has nuance because each of monster having unique behaviors and attacks with most of those attacks being dodgable projectiles, Goldeneye is like all the Call of Duty era of FPS where enemies stand around and spam you with hitscan. Doom is a ballet of death Goldeneye/COD is whack a mole.

Imagine not playing Mario 64 day one

I remember when i first got my N64 at the age of 15 during the 6 weeks holiday. My brother inlaw (10 years older) got one upon release with the 5 biggies, Turok, mario 64, wave race and pilot wings and shadows of the empire. He for some reason didnt get on with it and decided to sell it about a month after launch, to which i immediately belly ached to my dad that i wanted it. Unfortunately the 450 quid price tag my bro inlaw wanted was way too steep for my dad to fork out so my bro inlaw said he would keep it for me and i was to earn the money. I got set up with an old dude down the road and went blackberry picking for him every morning at 5am to pay that thing off. It is still to this day my very most favorite console. The fact i had to work to get it and the absolute joy of using, imo the best controller ever made on some of the very best video games ever made. I dont own one now days as my tv doesnt support the connections and lets face it, GE and said legendary games just dont look what they did when plastered on a 65" TV but boy, will those memories will stick with me for life. GE007 is an absolute gem of a game and i too rate is so much higher than PD.

I loved both Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, but I will tell you now every single person screen looked to find out where your camping butt was hiding haha.

@mjharper Atari is the best, especially with hidden (literally) gems like E.T!

@carlos82 it's great from a nostalgia based pov, but there are some reasons...
Not a large variety of games
Cartridges, instead of discs
Didn't sell too well
Then again, I wasn't too old back then, so you probably know more than me.

@MeowMeowKins
I know they were expensive and had way less storage than CDs, but man, I LOVED those cartridges.
They felt substantial and the "clack" when you inserted one in your N64... absolutely great. 🥰 (plus there were no loading times)

Still my favorite FPS to this day (although TimeSplitters 2 and 3 are really close behind).

I bet you more into PS2 instead of GameCube then.

The best FPS shooter ever.
Just the 4 player matches with friends man what a blast we had with that game.

@Jokerwolf I knew the maps so well I could look directly at the wall and side step to locations where I knew people were but they wouldn't be able to find me because all the walls look alike. Plus if you killed people in specific areas they would spawn in specific areas. Memorize the spawn areas.

Haha, same here. I’m 36, but still have clear memories of lining up my 4 controllers to play 4-player Mario Kart & Goldeneye. @Kalmaro

...and I don’t remember that. His hat. I just remember headshoting my brother over and over where I finally was like, dude. Pick another character, that’s why I keep beating you. Haha. My youngest brother just bought a N64, Goldeneye, and Mario Kart off Amazon. We’re gonna all play soon.

For me the three games that made me really want an N64 were Goldeneye, 1080 Snowboarding, and Mario 64. At the time there was nothing quite like them and they still standout today.

people salty about goldeneye 25.... get over it. its one of my favorite games but it DID NOT DEFINE THE 64 OOT Majoaras Mask and mario 64 did Golden eye was a system seller like animal crossing.

thats it

@CTmatic im 36 and people acting like goldeneye 25 is a travesty what do these idiots expect?

@CTmatic lol amazon hahahahaha

@Slowdive hot take no one cares

@carlos82 FFVII rivaled it dont @ me but still my favorite console

@MrBlacky was too young to play the N64 its entire life cycle, so I wouldn't know. I buy most my games digitally, but popping Wipeout into the Wii, man, that nostalgia hits hard.

I played it a few times back then and I never saw the appeal. Only a year later Half-Life came out on PC and that was a way more amazing FPS game.

@NintendoPok FFVII was a phenomenal game, I'd still say that game felt a bit more old fashioned to play than the likes of Zelda on the N64 though

What I wouldn't give for a new Bond game

@Jokerwolf I know right. Nowadays when everyone camps, you're sat doing nothing for 20 minutes.

One of the greatest and most underrated games in Rare's library is Blast Corps. I'd be all over a remaster. That game provided a lot of fun in the early days of the N64. A classic!

Goldeneye was so good I basically was addicted to this game in high school. The only other 64 game I really played was banjo. But that's not because I didn't have the monies, my parents would have bought me anything, I simply didn't want to play anything else. NES library 50+ games SNES 50+ games N64 2 games and really I only played 1

Goldeneye for me, is quite frankly the "coolest" video game Nintendo has ever been associated with. Yes there's better games, technically, graphically and even gameplay wise on N64. But the sheer fact Nintendo had the License for Bond and Rare absolutely nailed the "feel" of the game in relation to the film, make it one of those special games that will always be a nostalgic behemoth to overcome.

GoldenEye's visuals looked dated at the time.

007 was the best MP game the 64 bar none. Im exaggerating of course because I'm bias.

But this was literally the MP game you could play and not fight with friends unlike Kart and Mario party.

Eh, I don't like this style game so I never played it. Didn't even bother with a rental. Mario and Zelda..this game isnt in that league .

Goldeneye certainly defined a genre on N64 and consoles in general - and introduced ideas PC FPS games later added. I actually never got around to buying it as most of my friends had, so only ever played the first few levels and obviously lots of multiplayer.

When Perfect Dark arrived, that was a different story. One of the few games I played to the end without diverging to other games. Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion were other games around that time. Perfect Dark was just perfect! I preferred the setting, the guns were better, the missions were better, it had a co-op mode, plus the fully customiseable multiplayer that also could be played against bots. Don't forget the gun range either! For me, Perfect Dark is still the most complete and perfect game ever. My only complaint is it deserved to be on a more powerful system.

GoldenEye came a bit later for me. Meaning I already had my eye on a N64 from the jump. But the time I got to GoldenEye, Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time had already been the gold standards for the N64. But it was my dad who went ahead and purchased GoldenEye. I had no real interest in the game. But it eventually (and Perfect Dark after) eventually became staples in our gaming sessions

maybe it did ...but this game is just unplayable today and surpassed 1000 times in every its aspect ...no reason to play it

Yeah, GoldenEye really was an amazing game for its time, and probably my very favourite N64 game. And it's still great fun to play today as far as I'm concerned, even with some of the limitations of the time.

@BlackenedHalo No it's not. Only pure ignorance makes such claims. You probably haven't even tried to play it today.

There's still a few things GoldenEye does that many modern shooters fail to do (or usually don't do as well), such as being able shoot an enemy in the hand to make them drop a gun or in the head to knock their hat off (and then being able to shoot those things around on the ground for fun), or shoot them in the ass and watch them jump around grabbing their bums, or in the foot to watch them hop in pain, or write your name on the wall with bullets/paintballs and it actually stays there rather than simply fading away almost immediately like in so many modern shooters, or making pretty much every thing that is an item in the level interactive in one way or another (usually that meant you could shoot it to blow it up for some hilarious results), or being really amazing played either totally stealth style or all guns blazing (from sniping enemies a mile away, or using the silenced pistol all through the level, or placing a bunch mines across a level and then detonating them all at once), or having level designs that genuinely reward you for taking your time to explore and discover things (to the point it's built into the difficulty so that going into unnecessary offshoot areas in the easy mode becomes necessary in the hard more, with some cool added objectives and tasks created specifically for those modes), and even the way speed runs opens up some really cool cheats (paintball mode), and it has a soundtrack that is just brilliantly evocative of one of the most iconic franchises ever (how many of the great modern fps games can you name with such memorable, iconic and perfectly suited music, as opposed to just generic action music or whatever?), etc.

But it's not the individual things that make and/or make it great; it's the way all those things come together to form a whole that's great than the sum of its parts.

If a company like M2 did a slightly tweaked re-release that simply had the game running in 1080p at 60fps and with no pop-in, much like it did with the stunning Virtua Racing re-release on Switch recently, along with a simple re-mapping of the controls to work fully with dual analog (not that hard considering the game already had it as an option anyway, just using two N64 controllers at once), it would still be an absolute blast to play today.

If you can see past the graphical and technical limitations (none of which are game-breaking), which only takes a few minutes of play to overcome in my experience, then there's still a great little shooter there, especially in the single player campaign (I know most people think the multi-player is where it's at, but for me it's the single player), which I still have more fun re-playing today than most modern going-through-the-motions fps games. I mean, seriously, Doom Eternal is actually pretty garbage to me--for multiple reasons that would take to long to explain and you wouldn't probably still debate me anyway--and I would genuinely rather boot up and play GoldenEye again.

There's a handful of the all-time influential and iconic greats in the fps genre: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom 1/2, Quake, GoldenEye 007, Half-Life 1/2, Counter-Strike, Halo: Combat Evolved, and those games get that recognition for very good reason.

I totally agree with your points about GoldenEye vs Perfect Dark: Despite all the new stuff in Perfect Dark, I still think GoldenEye is the better all round game because it does what it does so well and so elegantly (within the obvious limitations of the time).

I remember the days well.. Goldeneye was a cool game and multilayer was so cool

Fantastic shooter on the N64, still a lot of fun today. Half Life & Team Fortress blew it out of the water though.

For anyone not keeping up to date on the news on Twitter, apparently, this article is wrong. The framerate and controls were rubbish and it turns out that no one actually enjoyed Goldeneye at the time. Bombshell!

mario 64 ds was the game that got me into not just nintendo but gaming as a whole prior to it i got a bunch of mediocre liscensed games and i viewed video games as toys until mario 64 ds i realized video games can be an expierence

GoldenEye 64 is a stone cold classic.

Super Mario World on SNES was the game that turned me into a hardcore Nintendo fan though, and the SNES remains my favourite Nintendo system to this day (even my [hacked] SNES Classic Edition has pretty much been the most fun I've had gaming this year).

First game EVER that was better than what I imagined it be when looking at the cover.

"Timesplitters was great, but it wasn't Bond. Perfect Dark, Rare's spiritual follow-up, was certainly impressive but it never worked for me on the same gut level. Intellectually, I appreciated everything it added, but much like Banjo-Tooie versus its predecessor, the game pushed the hardware to breaking point and felt a bit too ambitious for its own good. The multiplayer had so many more options--and bots!--but despite technical wizardry, GoldenEye felt trim and purposeful where Perfect Dark was bloated and broad. Years of navigating menus (ah, those filing sounds!) at lightning speeds meant I could set up a round of You Only Live Twice>Bunker>Power Weapons or Licence to Kill>Facility>Pistols faster than you could say Sight ON Auto-Aim OFF (always). I honestly can't remember playing PD's multiplayer more than a handful of times."

That's about my thinking too.

Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt.

My experience was a little bit different from that of others here, because I missed the train to Goldeneye when it came out. I only purchased it, some years later, when Perfect Dark was around the corner and I was so hyped for it that I played Goldeneye just to bide my time until the new game's release date. Looking back, I appreciate the fact that Goldeneye was a tighter, more consistent experience, while Perfect Dark was a ridiculous (and sometimes unwieldy) wealth of riches — but I still prefer Perfect Dark, because of the setting, the bots, the weapons, the vibe, and the whole "lifestyle" aspect: you're basically Joanna Dark chilling at the Carrington Institute, taking on missions, exploring the building, and climbing the rankings in the Combat Simulator. It was — and is — a brilliant conceit, and it works very well. I think Perfect Dark had ideas that haven't altogether been explored since then.

O GoldenEye... great times. Local mp was the best. That and Mario kart 64 battle mode. It’s about time we get a new 3D shooter with local mp.

@FoxMcCloud
Yeah I was in college by the time Goldeneye came out. Local multiplayer for this game (and Mario Kart of course) sold a lot of N64 consoles, especially to 20-somethings at the time. Being able to hook 4 controllers easily out of the box.

In hindsight I can still play doom and duke nukem 3D but the ridiculous auto aim of this game combined with not being able to play it without autoaim make it nearly unplayable now. It has aged like a loaf of bread.

Goldeneye is great I could not stop playing it when I got it
And then came perfect dark he great games
Nintendo really dropped the ball when they gave rare away

Hehe. N64 was the biggest leap imo. The astonishment of Mario 64, Zelda oot, and of course GoldenEye was priceless. Countless hours of fun with GoldenEye, me and my bro, friends and other family would play and make our own custom rules and teams. We even made these custom CARDBOARD dividers so we couldn't see each other's part of the screen. We had one for 2 player, and 4 player. Such a wonderful time for gaming...and something that will never and CAN NEVER be replicated.

@doctorhino I'm not sure I understand what u mean exactly. I turned auto aim off on GoldenEye immediately and it was 1000x better. My friends thought I was cheating somehow because I was so good at aiming without autoaim. I would use C buttons strafing to line up target in the exact middle of the screen which was default "aim" spot during normal movement. With some practice it was incredible and the TIGHTEST control for "from the hip" shooting. It was such a joy to turn auto aim off. I can't imagine anyone seriously enjoying it without doing that.

@Jhomesjones I guess I always assumed aiming with the cross hairs was the only.other way to go but that makes sense.

It still doesn't make it an enjoyable way to play a shooter after you experienced the dualshock. Which was released just over a year of GoldenEye

The time of fun Bond movies and Bond games. That's all different now.

@WoomyNNYes @Crockin The same thing happened to me with Ocarina of Time. I preordered it, but I didn't even open it until a couple of weeks later while I finished up games like Diddy Kong Racing, but once I put Ocarina in for the first time, I very rare played any of my other games.

@Koudai1979 I hadn't been following games much in recent years, and just wanted the Switch for Mario Kart 8, because MK7 was so great. At the Switch's midnight launch I got Breath of the Wild because, "ehh, why not?" I knew nothing about BOTW. At 1am, I unboxed the Switch, put BOTW in, and wow XD, it was so surreal, it was insane.

@Franklin Ah so that's why it won all those awards from all the multiplatform magazines for best graphics in 1997.

@WoomyNNYes BotW is the reason I bought my Wii U. I bought the Mario Kart 8 Wii U bundle on Black Friday of 2014 because BotW was scheduled to release in 2015, but then I had to watch as the game got delayed 2 or 3 times. It's all good, though, as I got to enjoy plenty of other games while I waited.

@Kalmaro
When i first saw mario 64 (leap from sness to N64) i was crying hahaha.