I had heard about Goldeneye being a fantastic game, and had played it in HMV for about ten minutes to find out. As soon as I had the controller in my hand, I was addicted to it. A long queue had began forming behind me, and it took a few disgruntled and impatient viewers to shift me off it.
Goldeneye is the game that ultimately made my mind up to purchase an N64, and I haven't regretted doing this since.

As the name suggests, Goldeneye is really just an adaptation of the hugely popular James Bond movie. However, it pulls it off superbly. Many other games adapted from a film license have been, to say the least terrible. The characters from the film are all featured in the game, as Rare software attained a licence to do so. Goldeneye has been voted N64's best ever game, and it is easy to see why. If only the rest of the N64 game catalogue were like this, they would still be around today. Perfect Dark and Mario 64 are the only games that rival Goldeneye's superiority, and these are not in my opinion as good anyway.

Goldeneye has many levels, each a scenario from the film. You control Pierce Brosnan 007, who actually looks like him (as far as he can do!) The graphics are second to none on this game, and I have yet to see a more detailed N64 game with the exception of Perfect Dark.
The characters from the film are all featured, 006, Natalya (who in the game proves to be a damn nuisance!), Xenia, and also a few extras such as Jaws and Oddjob.
Characters such as Jaws and Odd-job appear in multiplayer mode, and also a host of other enemies are featured such as Baron Samedi. In multiplayer up to four players can participate, each of which can have a rumble pack attached, and there are many modes to select from. Each of these modes are very fun, and include 'flag tag', 'the man with the golden gun' and 'you only live twice.'
Multiplayer is excellent, and a wide range of guns are featured. However these gu
ns do not go under their real name, for example the Walther PPK goes under the name PP7 and so on. There are many multiplayer levels to choose from, including some from the 1 player game and others which Rare developed especially for multiplayer. Ive included (below) a cheat to gain some extra characters in multiplayer, including the game developers and even a terrorist!

- Firstly, make sure you have already got 33 multiplayer characters, which can be attained by completing the game up to cradle on agent difficulty setting.DO NOT USE THE JOYSTICK TO ENTER THIS CHEAT AT ANY POINT!

-Go to the last character in multiplayer (should be moonraker elite)

-Then, enter the following code:

-hold R & L and press C left

-Now hold L and press C up

-Now hold R & L and press D-PAD left

-Now hold L and press D-PAD right

-Hold R and press D-PAD down

-Hold L & R and press C left

-Now hold L and press C up

-Now hold L & R and press D-PAD right

-Hold L & R and press C down

-Finally, hold L and press D-PAD down

This code is very useful, and is tricky to get right, but be persistent and you'll get there!


One player mode is even better, with lots of levels extras included. Each level is completed by you completing tasks which MI6 supposedly set you. Some of these tasks can be extremely frustrating to do, and often if you fail one you fail them all. This just adds to the games addictiveness though. You can only progress onto the next level is you successfully complete each task on the previous level, fail to do so and you have to restart. Some of the levels you have to restart are very time consuming, and are very difficult to complete. I many times found myself wanting to smack my machine after dying on the home straight of a level, but once you do complete a level you get a feeling of satisfaction.
There are 3 difficulty levels to choose fro
m in Goldeneye, 'agent' , 'secret agent' and '00 agent'. Also, if you manage to complete the game on all three difficulty levels (no easy task I can tell you) you can access the '007 agent' difficulty setting. In this you are able to customise your game, and even freeze the guards motion! Many of you will never get to see this though, as it is so difficult!
Two extra 'secret' levels are uncovered if you complete the game on 'secret agent' and '00 agent'. In these two extra levels you meet Jaws and also **********, I will leave this one up to you to find out! You have to kill both these enemies, and these two levels are completely unrelated to the Goldeneye plot. They are simply extras.
Throughout the game, you are given extra incentives to complete levels. This is achieved by the game giving you cheats, which you can access from an in game cheat menu. A cheat is awarded if you mange to complete a level within a certain time limit. Some cheats are very easy to get, whilst some are almost impossible! All the cheats are very good, and add to the fun of Goldeneye. I especially like the invincibility cheat, which took many goes to achieve.

The game itself has many great features in it, and really does stretch the N64 to the best of its abilities, which many few games do. The graphics are excellent, with some great details on surroundings. One bad thing about the graphics are the characters and guards faces are not as detailed as they could be, but the N64 probably couldn't handle the rendering even if they were more detailed. Each character moves in a unique way, and when you kill a guard or enemy they don't all die in the same way. Shooting guards in different places provokes different reactions, I'll leave you to find out the best ones!

The game object is to stop 006 (a traitor to MI5) from firing a satellite gun called the Goldeneye at the earth (those of you that have se
en the film will understand more.) Throughout the game you are catching up with 006 until eventually you have a final showdown where you hopefully kill him. Along the way, you are captured by the Russian army, get lost in the snow, drive a tank and meet many enemies you have to eliminate.
The game has a host of great guns in it, including a rocket launcher, handgun, moonraker laser and jungle rifle. There are many others, and each level (almost each) has a unique weapon to discover.
The sound and effects are excellent, with many different sounds in each level. The levels also have a little movie caption at the end, which can vary depending on how you complete the level. I think this is a nice feature.
The addiction level in Goldeneye is very high, and you won't want to put it down until you've found every secret and completed every level!

I would really recommend Goldeneye to any N64 user that doesn't already own it, which is probably very few of you. The sequel 'the world is not enough' is also an excellent game, and is well worth a look too.

Some extra cheats:-

- To activate invincibility Cheat (please enter this code on cheat select menu, a beep will be heard if you enter it correctly.)

-R Button and Left

-L Button and Down

-Left

-Up

-Down

-R Button and C-Left

-L Button and C-Left

-L Button and R Button + Left

-L Button and R Button + Right

-L Button and C-Left

- To activate invisibilty (don't get confused with invincibilty) enter the following code at the cheat menu:

- Hold L & R and press C left

- Hold L & R and press C down

- Hold L and press C left

- Hold R and press C left

- Hold R and press D-PAD right

- Hold L & R and press D-PAD left

- Hold L and press D-PAD right

- Press D-PAD left

- Hold L & R and press C left


- Hold L and press D-PAD down

These above cheats are my favourite, and are difficult to get from playing the game itself.
Also, cheats are available by completing each level in a certain time, but entering these codes is much easier! Of course, I know none of you will cheat ;o)...