2023 is off to a wild start thanks to GoldenEye 007, which will be hitting the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack on Friday. This is just the first of several high-profile Nintendo 64 games we'll be getting this year, including 1080 Degrees Snowboarding, Excitebike 64, Harvest Moon 64, Mario Party 3 and a pair of Pokemon Stadium titles. That's exciting news, but the question remains: Is GoldenEye 007 worth playing? To answer that question, I decided to flip through the pages of Electronic Gaming Monthly, 64 Extreme, Next Generation and more classic magazines to see what critics said back when the game first came out. Grab that golden eye and get your favorite gadgets ready, because this is another shaken not stirred episode of the Nintendo Switch Online Review Crew.


Four years after Doom reshaped PC player's expectations of what a first-person shooter should be, console gamers were still waiting for something as groundbreaking on modern systems. Although it took a while, that game came in the form of GoldenEye 007, an action-packed first-person shooter based on the blockbuster 1995 James Bond movie starring Pierce Brosnan. While the film may have been so-so, the game adaptation was a massive hit, with both fans and critics agreeing that it was a new high-water mark for 64-bit action games. You're definitely going to see that in the glowing reviews.

Over at Electronic Gaming Monthly, GoldenEye 007 was one of the highest-rated games in issue 99, with only Final Fantasy VII besting it. Believe it or not, part of the hurdle the critics had to get past was simply overcoming their dislike of first-person shooters. Dan explains that “OK, many of you know how I feel about first-person shooters, but I am VERY impressed with GoldenEye. For once, a game offers more than just move, kill, move, kill.” Sushi-X agreed, though he ended up giving Bond a slightly lower score than his colleagues: “Sniping, peeking around corners and secret levels, weapons and abilities all make GoldenEye a smash hit, the best N64 title on the market to date. I was very impressed with the four-player mode, even if the precise aiming took some getting used to.” Overall, EGM gave GoldenEye 007 an average score of 9.4 out of 10.

Now, you might think that seeing as this was one of Nintendo's biggest games of 1997, Nintendo Power might give the game a perfect 10. Well, that wasn't the case either of the times they reviewed GoldenEye. You see, in issue 99, they gave the game a 4.4 out of 5. However, one issue later and after they switched to a 10-point scale, they re-rated the game and gave it a 9. 64 Extreme did something similar when they went to review 007. They first gave GoldenEye a 96% when they reviewed the import version, only to turn around and give it a 98% two issues later. They said that “this is simply the best game I have ever played and concluded that it's “all absorbing and totally immersive in one-player and an absolute riot in the multiplayer mode. More than a game, it' an experience not to be missed.”

As you would expect there were plenty of magazines that gave GoldenEye 007 a perfect score. For example, you saw the coveted 5 out of 5 score from Computer & Video Games. That's the same score you saw in GamePro, who raved that the “challenging missions, insane violence and four-player death matches that will have you shooting your friends for the rest of the year combine to deliver a sensational thrill-ride unmatched in other corridor shooters.” Next Generation also gave the game a perfect score, explaining that “perhaps the game's biggest achievement is bringing the four-player mode into full play. Here the game succeeds as all N64 owners had hoped Doom 64 would have: Four-player, split-screens, polygonal characters, little slow-down and lots of scenarios. Finally, a first-person game is as fun and playable in multiplayer as it should be on the N64.”

If you came here expecting to find some magazine being a contrarian, then you're going to go away disappointed. Everybody loved GoldenEye, with the lowest score coming from Nintendo Power. This was a big deal for not only the Nintendo 64, but the future of first-person shooters on game consoles. And while it may no longer hold the same weight as it did in 1997, GoldenEye 007 is worth downloading, both for the story mode and the multiplayer fun.