GoldenEye 007 review

For 13 years it’s been the critic’s go-to reference point for Bond games and movie tie-ins. Endless review introductions have pondered: ‘Will be the game to match GoldenEye 007’s triumphs?’ before meandering to their inevitable conclusion that, while a valiant effort has been made, the answer is still no. Double-oh-seven out of ten.

It’s understandable. Rare’s seminal Nintendo 64 first-person shooter popularised a console genre that has grown to become gaming’s most prevalent and profitable. At a time when movie tie-ins were inevitably uninspired cash-ins, rushed through development in order to match their cinematic counterpart’s release date, Rare’s game arrived in its own time, long after the movie was out, treating the IP with unprecedented care. Those features that weren’t raw innovations were at the very least game-changing improvements on what had gone before. Developed by a company at the height of its expertise and creativity, the shockwaves of the original GoldenEye 007’s influence forever altered the FPS landscape.

Small wonder no Bond game has managed all that since. So after years of trying different approaches, Activision has asked the question: perhaps the secret of its success lay in the name? And in choosing to revisit one of gaming’s best-loved titles, leaves us to tortuously ponder: will GoldenEye 007 be the game to match GoldenEye 007’s triumphs?

It opens in Russia, with love. Arkhangelsk is one of those videogame locations whose layout is imprinted in the mind of every player who ever visited it. Best known for the tall dam from which Piers Brosnan swan-dives at the end of GoldenEye 007’s opening sequence, it has been reconstructed here in meticulous detail. Those players who tailed the delivery truck into the compound in the N64 game will instinctively know when to crouch, how to approach the sniper guard tower and how to take down its sentry with muscle memory that will only be lost at the grave.

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It’s an opening sequence lovingly inserted for fans of the original to ease them in, to let them know that, despite the recasting of Brosnan’s Bond as Daniel Craig; despite the recasting of Sean Bean’s 006 as who-knows-who, the wholesale removal of Robbie Coltrane, the new names of the guns and the achingly stylish menu screens that have preceded, losing all of the dated charm of the original, developer Eurocom isn’t going to stray too far from Rare’s hymn sheet.