You all remember it too, don’t you? Those first few steps towards the dam, pistol pointed nervously ahead of you and guards strolling around left, right and centre. The control tower concealing the sniper rifle, allowing you to crouch carefully and pinpoint oncoming enemies with accuracy never before offered in a first-person shooter.

GoldenEye. The mere mention of the name sends rose-tinted shivers through many a gaming brain, harking back to a time when Nintendo’s 64 was taking its first faltering steps and Rare still had a whole catalogue of classic titles still ahead of them. Shattering the illusion that movies do not make good video games, Rare produced a genre-defining title which had the player frantically diving for the nearest piece of cover and firing copious amounts of bullets at enemies way after they’d completed the single player mode for the first time.

What made it so good? The whole thing just added up and created a tremendously fun game, simple as that. The controls were tight and responsive, allowing the player to deal with enemies with no frustration or concern over aiming accuracy. Dashing around as Bond quickly became second nature, something which also could be attributed to the sublime Nintendo 64 control pad and the central analogue stick.

The game begged to be played carefully, especially on higher difficulty levels. Whilst incorporating a fair share of adrenaline-fuelled shooting, a decent degree of stealth could be used to aid progression through some of trickier levels. An ideal example of this is the second bunker level, which requires Bond to sneak around taking out security cameras dotted around the enemy base. Getting caught on a camera wasn’t the end of the game, but a whole range of ultra tough marines would hunt you down. In the end it was up to the player to decide the way he wanted to do things, although getting filled with lead by a group of hard-as-nails troops kind of gave you a hint as to what would be best.

Then there were the gadgets. As you’d expect when taking control of Mr. Bond, a whole range of clever little items were made part of the game, either as weaponry or tools. The watch laser, for example, could be used to take out marauding foes and was crucial to completing the train level, whereas items such as mini cameras and key decoders were provided so Bond could complete objectives at various points in the game. The range of guns was also pleasing, with everything from pistols to grenade launchers and proximity mines available to wage war with.

With the fun-and-gun of the single player mode put to one side, GoldenEye also offered a great multiplayer mode that made full use of the console’s four controller slots for some epic deathmatch larks. A selection of levels were available to choose from, whilst there was also a large number of classic James Bond characters like Baron Samedi and Oddjob with which to play. Hectic gun battles ensued, and whilst the 64 would soon be offering classics such as Ocarina of Time to sit alongside Mario 64, it was to GoldenEye which people wanting the ultimate multiplayer experience would turn, which pretty much stayed the same until Perfect Dark was released some three years later.

Obviously, things have moved on since then. Online battling with Call Of Duty 3 on the 360 attests to just how much fun shooters have become these days, with tense fighting and team battling absorbing players for hours. The fact that GoldenEye managed to do the same with only a fraction of the hardware capabilities and a comparatively basic multiplayer mode shows just how good it was for the time. It’s safe to say that for its period, GoldenEye provided a turning point. From the moment it was released, every first-person shooter was judged against it. Whether or not anything has bested it in the eyes of many gamers is still a point of debate even to this day.