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007 Goldeneye: My 4th Favourite Video Game

Released: August 1997
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Rare
Platform: Nintendo 64
Type: First Person Shooter
Graphics: Meh
Game Play: Narly
Originality: Narly
How many hours I’ve wasted: Blank-eyed soulless stare
The Nostalgia Factor: Narly

007 Goldeneye was one of the games that convinced me to finally break down and for the first time, purchase a video game console (in this case, the Nintendo 64)*.

A friend of mine would often pop into town with his 64 and collection of video games, and several of us would play 007 until our eyes bled, our arms went limp and we were unable to remain in an upright sitting position... and then we kept on playing. Occasionally someone would wipe the puddle of drool collecting around our faces to keep us from drowning.

Yes, Goldeneye was so good, we would voluntarily put ourselves into a near comatose state on a regular basis. Why was it so good?

First person shooters had of course been available for years before (such as Castle Wolfenstein and Doom to name a few), but Goldeneye was the first that one was generally more user friendly and approachable to the public at large (being produced and designed specifically for a console system). The graphics and sound for the time were pretty amazing. While it had well defined single player missions that were generally consistent with the movie and enjoyable and challenging to play, the multiplayer was what really made this game timeless.

Goldeneye had several creative multiplayer arenas in which one could run around and blast each other to pieces with various weapons that were scattered around. Various pistols, machine guns, mines and rocket and grenade launchers would make for a lot of rather manic close quarter fights. Any one who's played the game with me can probably attest to being blown to bits by well placed proximity mines, re-spawn and be blown to bits again, re-spawn, go to grab the body armour only to realize at the last second that it was mined as well and, you guessed it, get blown to bits again.

After a fashion there was a general consensus that anytime I was up for a turn, we would not be playing with proximity mines. Boo-urns.

After playing Goldeneye for well over a decade, there are only a few hardy souls left that fancy challenging me to a game. At this point I know all the supposedly random spawning points, and apparently (as I've been told on a few occasions) it's rather unsporting to shoot an unarmed player in the back of the head... repeatedly.

*I purchased this game at Zellers on April 11, 1998 (I apparently keep all my receipts). As you can imagine, all my games get great mileage. 

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