The seminal first-person shooter stands as one of 007’s most memorable outings.
It’s been 20 years since the release ofGoldenEye 007on the Nintendo 64.
No James Bond video game has ever been better, not even close.
‘Goldeneye 007’; Daniel Craig as James Bond.Nintendo; Stephen Vaughan
Has any James Bondmoviebeen better since then?
A question worth pondering, even if any answer is intangible.
Ridiculous, maybe, to compare the franchise across the media.
The two decades post-GoldenEyehave seen two acclaimed 007 films: Poker-parkouristCasino Royaleand Freudian-fantasticalSkyfall.
(Renegade Cold War revenants bank-rob all England via EMP pulse, because Cossacks!)
The gameGoldenEyegets to make the movie’s plotmoreridiculous, because anything dumb looks purposefully silly in 64-bit pixels.
The miracle ofGoldenEye’s creation comes up all the time in gamer circles.
But it holds a strange, separate place in Bond history.
The 007 movies under Craig get credit, sometimes undeserved, for reboot-y throat-clearing.
Are therethings the Bond movies can learnfrom the single best Bond non-film thing of the last half-century?
But the last few films have trended self-serious beyond absurdity recall howSpectrefeatured a somber conversation about a meteorite.
And we know Craig’s funny look atLogan Lucky!
Bring back the energetic music!
It also has the kind of junk-rock swagger that the movie franchise’s music mostly lost years ago.
Remember always that the original Bond theme depends ona surf-rock guitar played by a low-paid twentysomething.
There are teasing references backward andSean Connerywasalmostcast as a paternal-ish figure inSkyfall.
Say this for theGoldenEyegame: It embraces all of Bond’s history.
(Consider: A Council of Bonds.)
Get young, hungry talent
TheGoldenEye 007team was composed of wildly imaginative programmers, many of them essentially rookies.
A programmer named David Doakrecalledthe experience of working on the game as “joyful naivete.”
Sam Mendes was a well-established director before he joined the Bond franchise.
Experience is great until it isn’t: It either producesSkyfallorSpectre.
Equal-opportunity objectification beats the alternative!
In theDeadpoolera, what’s bolder than a G-rating?
