Playing Nice With Mice - Goldeneye 007
Goldeneye 007, or simply Goldeneye, for the Nintendo 64 is a game I’ve always had a weird sense of nostalgia for. I had a PlayStation while most of the other kids I knew had N64s and, as expected, they all had Goldeneye. I spent several afternoons playing Goldeneye, either deathmatching with my school-chums or playing through the campaign while they weren’t looking. However, despite playing it several times, I’ve never quite gotten a sense of what the game was really like due to a combination of long lapses between play sessions and my shitty memory. The fuzzy picture Goldeneye had left in my mind made it the prime candidate for my inaugural Playing Nice with Mice entry.
Method used to play the game with a mouse:
Though there is a Nintendo 64 mouse compatible with Goldeneye 007 available, it was only released in Japan, and on top of that, it was only a pack-in accessory with Mario Artist: Paint Studio for the N64DD. These two factors make the N64 mouse a rather rare and expensive accessory, leaving me to pursue the only alternative: Emulation. Thankfully, the emulated game controls remarkably well with a mouse and keyboard thanks to the Nrage Input plugin. A quick glance is all one needs to tell the plugin was built from the ground up for the N64’s First Person Shooter titles. Setting Goldeneye up for Keyboard/Mouse controls is a breeze; all you do is drag the dll file into the plugin directory of your emulator, choose the plugin in the emulator settings, go into the plugin settings, and select the Goldeneye 007 profile. You can also change the keybindings (which also includes alternate bindings) and the mouse sensitivity from the profile screen. Anyone who’s interested in the N64 FPS library or in the N64 library in general should check out this plugin.
Though not designed for one, Goldeneye plays great with a mouse. Having it emulate the joystick works pretty well and results in increased accuracy and easier use of the crosshair for headshots.
Interestingly, this game has a lean feature much like Far Cry or F.E.A.R. which is triggered by holding down the Aim button (default: right mouse button) and holding down Left or Right (default: A and D respectively). I’m not aware of any console FPS game (not counting PC ports) with a lean feature. Though it’s not the standard, this method feels natural and works out well with the mouse. But not all is well in mouse-land: Crouching is awkward and weapon-switching is clunky. Crouching works in a similar manner to leaning: aim (default: right mouse button) and press down (default: S). However, unlike leaning, this feels awkward considering most games have crouching triggered by a pressing or holding of a button. Thankfully there’s not much of a need to crouch, so this isn’t a big problem. The big problem is switching weapons. As is standard for console FPSes of the era, players have to cycle through their weapons. Worse, you can only cycle forwards, so if you need to pull out your pistol and you have your Klobb equipped, you’ll have to go through all of your weapons to access it. Alternatively, you can pause the game and select your weapon from the menu, but the problem with this method is that gameplay grinds to a halt while you navigate the menu for weapons/gadgets. Additionally, there is a delay between gameplay and pausing as you have to wait for James to take out his watch and during this delay Mr. Bond can take damage from enemy fire. Either way, it’s best to think ahead as to when you’re going to switch weapons or pull out grenades. While it may require some minor adjustments to your play style, Goldeneye plays well enough with a mouse and keyboard.Graphics:
It’s nearly-impossible to critique the graphics in this game without being a dick because of the era the game belongs to. Every 3D game from the nineties look like shit today; models look like building blocks mashed together, textures are flat and blurry, faces are static textures which again are flat and blurry, polygon counts are low, and so is the resolution. Even Goldeneye’s PC contemporaries suffer from these afflictions. Sure, Quake II and HeXen II look better than Goldeneye, but that’s as substantive as saying Star Wars: Dark Forces looks better than System Shock. Though it may be true, it’s rather irrelevant to the average gamer. That’s my long-winded way of saying the graphics look like ass, but it doesn’t matter.
Audio:
Unlike the visuals, Goldeneye’s audio has aged rather gracefully. While the modern eye sees dated and unimpressive graphics, the modern ear hears a timeless soundtrack and dynamic sound effects. Jam packed in this 96Mb (12 Megabyte) cartridge are sound effects for every weapon, grunts for the enemies, and gratifying explosions. Many, many gratifying explosions, but more on those later. From the pulse-pounding drum and bass in the Silo mission to the calming winds and chimes in the Severnaya Installation, composers Graeme Norgate, Grant Kirkhope, and Robin Beanland deliver a varied film-score-like soundtrack with a different song for each mission. At 29 CD-quality tracks, the Goldeneye soundtrack supplies plenty to keep your ears busy while your thumbs kill Soviets.
As good as the audio is for the game, it comes at a price. Like other Nintendo titles of the era (and most today), there are no voice overs, with the exception of the previously mentioned enemy grunts and Bond’s heavy breathing. All in-game dialogue and mission briefings are text-only, tainting the movie feeling somewhat. This might be for the best as at the time voice actors for video games were pretty bad as Capcom so graciously showed us.
http://youtu.be/nWNoUlokaBY?t=3m51s
Gameplay:
For the most part, Goldeneye 007 is a linear FPS where missions amount to going from point A to point B while killing any baddies in your way. Though linearity is often a turn off of mine, Goldeneye uses it to its advantage by providing chats between the characters, rousing vehicle sections, and dramatic scenes. The map designs in Goldeneye are rather small when compared to old(er) school FPSes such as Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. This might appear to be a negative at first, but the linearity actually works in its favor. To have Doom or Quake-sized maps would actually detract from Goldeneye’s cinematic quality as it has a path to follow, being a movie-based game. There are a variety of objectives, most of which boil down to using a particular gadget or finding a McGuffin, but most of them involve shooting enemies in some way (e.g. rescue hostages, escort Bond Girl #17 Natalya, pursue Omorov, etc). The enemy A.I. isn’t anything to write (or post
) about since their main tactic is to rush right at you and stay behind cover long enough to get killed by a grenade. They can be labeled bullet-sponges as they can numerous body shots before going down. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about it much as you’ll mostly be doing headshots with your mouse. Now about those explosions: There are a shit-ton of explosions. If the player gets a nickel for every explosion, they’d probably end up with about five bucks since nickels don’t add up to much. Damn near everything explodes in this game. Boxes explode, lockers explode, computers explode, and even toy cars explode when they’re shot. If this game had achievements, there’d be an achievement for clearing a stage without causing an explosion. If you like explosions, (and who doesn’t?) you will have a blast with Goldeneye. With so many explosions on screen, you’d expect to see bodies flying about, but sadly, the explosions are rather impotent. The explosive crates can take a considerable amount of bullets, the blast radius isn’t very wide, and the damage dealt isn’t worth it. It’s just faster to shoot the enemies. Don’t worry about explosion-less screens because even without firing at the explosive crates there’ll still be explosions aplenty.
There is a stealth element to the game, but it’s rather superfluous as for the most part the player can just kill the enemies like normal and ignore the stealth. Further detracting from the stealth is the fact that a baddie can be killed right next to one of his homies and no consequences are suffered. Also, enemies don’t often hear a shot fired from your gun, but they’ll swarm your ass if you fire two shots in succession. Overall, gameplay feels like a semi-successor to Wolfenstein 3D with its speed, shooting of mindless soldiers, and navigation of corridors.
The Big Question:
How does Goldeneye 007 compare to its PC contemporaries? Contrary to much of what I’ve said, I don’t think it compares very well. The game is technically inferior to the likes of Quake II and Unreal, the vehicles sections were trumped a year later by Starsiege: Tribes, and the gameplay falters in parts, namely the A.I. and stealth. The one aspect of the game that isn’t trumped by the other FPSes of the time is the music. Though aspects of the game are bested by other games on or shortly after its release, I think Goldeneye would have been nearly as admired as the other FPS titles of the late-nineties due to its style and cinematic feel. As great as Half-Life and Quake II are, neither of them make you feel like James Bond.
