The Dusty Game Society’s1 pick for November is GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64. I actually first finished GoldenEye on my Nintendo Switch OLED only a few years back, before I hocked it on eBay. GoldenEye definitely hits me in the nostalgia, even though I didn’t own a Nintendo 64 growing up. It’s a pretty basic early first-person shooter and just one of about seventeen or eighteen that released on the console. While it is a game packed full of memories for a lot of people, myself included, I’m just not convinced nostalgia alone is quite enough. Sure, it takes me right back to when my brother and I would head to our neighbour’s place in the late ’90s for Monday Night RAW. Before it aired, we’d fire up GoldenEye and have our asses handed to us in split-screen multiplayer. Definitely a simpler time, but does the campaign hold up in 2025 on the Steam Deck?
GoldenEye 007 was released by Rare in 1997 for the Nintendo 64. It’s based on the 1995 James Bond movie, uh: GoldenEye. It’s a fairly clunky early first-person shooter, which has been gifted no favours by the Nintendo 64’s controller. I did my playthrough on the Steam Deck OLED and while it was better and felt more modern with some tweaks, it still provided me with ample jank. GoldenEye loosely follows the film. James Bond and his fellow agent, 006 Alec Trevelyan, infiltrate a Soviet chemical weapons facility. After a well orchestrated execution, Trevelyan is presumed dead while Bond escapes. Five years later, Bond uncovers a plot involving a stolen satellite-superweapon called GoldenEye while learning Trevelyan is very much alive and working as the head of the Janus crime syndicate. With the help of programmer Natalya Simonova, Bond chases the weapon across the globe to Russia, Monte Carlo and eventually Cuba where he foils Trevelyan’s plan and destroys the GoldenEye satellite for good. Pretty well on par with the movie, but obviously cut down to fit on a gigantic 12MB cartridge.
The early campaign levels remain a fun experience. They’re fairly well designed and I think replaying it now is helped along with that nostalgia hit. Once you reach the later levels, things really start to feel rushed. The level design falls off a cliff and I have to point to Statue Park in particular. I mean no disrespect to the developers, I know the hardware was limited, but this level genuinely feels like one of the developers let their kid tag in. I get they were aiming for something that felt maze-like but this feels much clunkier than most and absolutely falls flat. Maybe it felt better back in ’97? I honestly can’t say. The later levels as a whole just don’t feel at all rewarding and reaching the final showdown becomes more of a rough slog than an enjoyable FPS. Rare did throw in some replayability through multiple difficulty levels up to 00 Agent and the unlockable 007 mode. The higher difficulties offer extra objectives but honestly, most of these feel like mindless busywork than meaningful challenges.
Graphically, remember this game came out in 1997 and had to be crammed onto a tiny 12MB cartridge. Returning to it now, those blocky, smeary faces in big chunky pixel environments take you down that nostalgic path and they’re a reminder of a much simpler time. Rare had an uphill battle with the technology they were working with and I think they did the best they could with what they had. GoldenEye still makes for a pretty decent experience, but it’s hard to ignore what else was happening in the first-person shooter genre at the time. A year earlier in 1996, we got stone cold classics like Quake and Duke Nukem 3D. 1997 was a banger year, stacked with heavy hitters: Blood, Doom 64, Hexen II, Redneck Rampage, Shadow Warrior, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and of course Quake II. The original Hexen even saw a release on Nintendo 64 that year. While it might be unfair to judge GoldenEye against some of the best PC shooters ever made, especially when they weren’t shackled with the Stone of 12MB Triumph, it’s impossible not to notice the gap. While I think GoldenEye mostly holds up visually for what it is, it was fighting a tough battle even back in its own era.
The true heart of GoldenEye will always be the multiplayer and Rare absolutely nailed that experience. The campaign is definitely uh.. there, but the sheer chaos of split-screen multiplayer is endlessly replayable. Firing up a round of four player free-for-all chops-only mayhem is just something you don’t really see anymore. Even coming back to it now, the jank makes up part of the fun and every match is a story you’ll still laugh about years later. I still remember afternoons after school at my friends houses, racing for a seat on the couch only to lose out and end up on the floor, which is slowly but surely becoming the unwanted home for Dorito dust. Someone always tried to enforce ‘house rules’ while you peaked at their corner of the screen and shot them in the back of the head. It was really a special kind of couch camaraderie that you simply can’t recreate in a lobby full of strangers.
GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 ends up feeling like a game caught between eras. It’s still worth revisiting, but mostly for what it represents rather than what it actually delivers. If you grew up in the ’90s, you’ll likely have memories of it baked into your brain. But coming back to it now, its limitations become impossible to miss. The campaign has its moments, mostly early on, but it struggles to hold up outside of nostalgia. Once it starts to wear off, the seams really start to appear. I can’t pretend that it doesn’t have something that pulls me back in, even if it’s mostly tied to multiplayer mayhem along with the memories and stories that come with it. GoldenEye might not stand side-by-side with the first-person shooter greats, but it carved itself out a place in gaming history and that’s pretty hard to dismiss. It’s flawed, dated and undeniably janky, but it’s a reminder of a simpler time where every gaming victory, or failure, felt memorable.
Verdict:
GoldenEye 007 is a classic first person shooter, packed full of nostalgia for its chaotic couch multiplayer. The campaign shows its age in nearly every way and it’s janky even by 1997 standards. Still, it’s worth firing up today if you want to relive some legendary split-screen mayhem.
Deck Compatibility: 10/10
Overall Game Rating: 6/10 – Nostalgia Isn’t Everything
- What is the Dusty Game Society?
The Dusty Game Society is a gaming club where community members come together from across the internet and play a select retro game each month. If you’re a fan of TechDweeb, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not, check him out on Youtube or visit his Patreon to find out more. ↩︎
Dad with a Deck 
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