GoldenEye 007 is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console, and based on the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye.
The game has received very positive reviews and sold over eight million copies. It is considered an important title in the development of first person shooters, and has become particularly well-known for the quality of its multiplayer deathmatch mode, as well as its incorporation of stealth and varied objectives into its single player missions.
GoldenEye 007 was followed by a spiritual successor, Perfect Dark, also developed by Rare. The commercial successor was Tomorrow Never Dies, developed by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation.
Development
GoldenEye 007 was originally announced for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System before being stepped up to the Nintendo 64. The intention for the first few months of development was for the game to be an on-rails shooter similar to Virtua Cop; it only became a first-person shooter later in development.
The development team working on GoldenEye 007 was inexperienced; for all but two of them, the project was their first game. As David Doak explained, "Looking back, there are things I'd be wary of attempting now, but as none of the people working on the code, graphics and game design had worked on a game before, there was this joyful naïvete.
The game is based upon the GoldenEye film and its novelization by John Gardner, but, as game designer Martin Hollis explained, many of the missions were extended or modified to allow the player to participate in sequences of which Bond was not originally a part, or those in which he only played a minor role.
The original sets that were created for the film were first converted into complete, believable environments by one group of game designers; when this process was complete, other designers began populating them with objectives, characters and obstacles in order to create a balanced and fun game. According to Martin Hollis, "many of the levels in the game have a realistic and non-linear feel. There are rooms with no direct relevance to the level. There are multiple routes across the level." Hollis also noted that the concept of several varied objectives within each level was inspired by the multiple tasks in each stage of Super Mario 64.
GoldenEye was developed through two and a half years, but, according to Martin Hollis, only the last year was spent developing the game. During the beginning, the engine was built, art assets were made, and the enemy AI was written and polished. The game was delayed numerous times, partly because during development, the team decided to incorporate a multiplayer feature to the game to demonstrate the N64's 4-player capabilities.
In addition to the N64 game, a version of GoldenEye was in development for the Nintendo Virtual Boy, but cancelled before release.
Gameplay and design
GoldenEye 007's menu system is presented as an MI6 dossier.[8] Four save files are available to track the player's progress through the game's twenty missions, each of which may be played on either "Agent," "Secret Agent," "00-Agent," or "007" difficulty settings, with higher difficulties requiring the player to complete additional and more complex objectives. M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny provide background information on the chosen mission and its goals.
Once a mission is completed, the player may either continue progressing through the story or choose to replay a previously completed level. Completing certain missions within particular target times enables the player to unlock bonus cheat options which make various changes to the graphics and gameplay, and upon fully completing the game on the 00-Agent difficulty level, an additional "007" setting allows the player to customize the challenge of any mission.
The player's initial weapon in most missions is the PP7, an equivalent of James Bond's Walther PPK. Most of the game's firearms are modelled on real-life counterparts, while others are based on fictitious devices featured in the Bond films, such as the Golden Gun and Moonraker laser. The weapons vary in characteristics such as rate of fire and type of ammunition used, and inflict different levels of damage depending on which body part they hit. Stealth is an important element of the game: in order to avoid gunfights with multiple opponents, it is advantageous to eliminate soldiers and security cameras before they spot or hear the player. Certain weapons may be powerful enough to shoot through doors and helmets but are very loud, while others incorporate suppressor or zoom lens attachments to aid the player in killing enemies discreetly.
Some gadgets from the James Bond film series are featured in the game and are often used to complete particular mission objectives; for example, 007's in-game watch includes both the laser from the GoldenEye film, the remote mine detonator from GoldenEye and Moonraker, and the electromagnet from Live and Let Die.
Multiplayer mode
The multiplayer mode was added late in the development process; Martin Hollis noted that the setting was "a complete afterthought". According to David Doak, the majority of the work on the multiplayer mode was done by Steve Ellis, who "sat in a room with all the code written for a single-player game and turned GoldenEye into a multiplayer game."
The multiplayer mode features all of the characters in the game, including enemies and civilians. At first, only 12 characters are available, with 21 more becoming available as progress is made through the game. A button code allows players to temporarily unlock another 31 characters, all but two of them likenesses of the programmers. Variations between characters' heights and builds can affect the challenge of shooting them; for example, there is a significant difference between defeating Oddjob and Jaws.
As with the selectable characters, only a few arenas are available at first, with more becoming available as progress is made in the game. There are eleven arenas, not counting levels that can only be accessed with a GameShark, and a "random" button that chooses the level randomly. The multiplayer-only arenas are: Temple, Complex, Caves, Library, Basement, and Stack. Several arenas are taken from the single player mode, with alterations such as restrictions on which sections of the map can be used - they are the Facility, Bunker, Archives, Caverns, and Egyptian.
The multiplayer mode features five general scenarios, within which options such as weapon schemes may be altered. Weapon selections in the multiplayer mode are grouped by type, such as pistols, automatics, and explosives. Other selectable weapon schemes focus on weapons not frequently found in the single player mode, such as laser guns, throwing knives or the one-hit kill Golden Gun. The "Slappers Only!" setting removes all projectiles, limiting players to hand-to-hand combat.
Normal
A basic free-for-all deathmatch mode, in which players attempt to kill their opponents as many times as possible within a set amount of time. This mode can also be played in teams of 2 versus 1, 2 versus 2, and 3 versus 1.
You Only Live Twice
Similar to Normal mode, except players only have two lives before they are eliminated from the game.
The Living Daylights [Flag Tag]
In this adaptation of the playground game "Tag", a flag or "token" is placed in a fixed location on the map. The player who holds it the longest wins the match. A player cannot use weapons while holding the flag (although it is still possible to slap), but can still collect them to keep opponents from stocking ammunition.
The Man With the Golden Gun
A single Golden Gun is placed in a fixed location on the map. Players must locate and obtain the Golden Gun, which is capable of killing opponents with only one shot regardless of where they are hit, even if they are wearing body armor. After a player acquires the Golden Gun, others are able to see him or her indicated by a blue dot on their radar. The player with the Golden Gun is unable to pick up body armor while opponents can. The only way to obtain the Golden Gun after its removal from the spawn point is to kill the player holding it retrieve it from the corpse.
Licence to Kill
All attacks, including "slapping", will kill opponents in one hit. This mode cannot be played in teams, unlike the other scenarios.
