Goldeneye 007 (Player Two Start)

Goldeneye 007 is a first-person shooter based off of the 1995 James Bond hit GoldenEye. The game has the same basic gameplay and plot as OTL's game, though a few of the levels are changed around. Indeed, there are FEWER levels in TTL's GoldenEye than in OTL's game, though many of them are slightly larger and have extra mission objectives, particularly in the hardest difficulty mode, 00 Agent. The Bunker 1, Surface 2, Silo, and Archives levels do not appear in TTL's game (though the Archives still appear in multiplayer mode). In addition, both the Aztec and Egyptian bonus levels are removed. Instead, there is one large bonus level: Spectre, which is given as a reward for completing the game on 00 Agent level. In this bonus level, James Bond goes up against Blofeld for one final showdown. The mission is very difficult and very complex, but is also highly praised. In addition, the game's multiplayer mode is far more complex than IOTL, owing to the game's longer development time. In OTL, Goldeneye 's popular four-player multiplayer mode was added as an afterthought late in development. That remains true ITTL, but with several more weeks to work on the mode, additional things are added to it. In addition to the weapon sets available to choose from, there's now a custom loadout mode (similar to OTL's Perfect Dark) in which players can choose up to six weapons to appear in the stage. In addition, Rare and Nintendo were able to secure the rights to the images of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton, allowing them to be selected as alternate Bonds in multiplayer mode (and, after completing Spectre under 8 minutes, in single player mode as well).

The most major addition to Goldeneye 007 is the presentation. A new version of the film's opening credits, complete with Tina Turner's theme song, appears before the player enters the main menu (though it can be skipped by pressing a button). The new credits sequence is somewhat similar to the one that appeared on the Wii game IOTL, a slightly shorter but remixed version of the song, though in this game it's also performed by Tina Turner. It features a silhouetted James Bond battling through some of the game's missions, accompanied by silhouettes of pretty girls, and also alludes to the game's multiplayer deathmatch mode toward the end. The game also features full voice acting, with the movie's entire cast returning to reprise their roles, except for Pierce Brosnan (despite appearing in the game's advertising, he was unable to perform voice work for the game despite his friend Robin Williams begging him to do so). Bond's voice was instead performed by a soundalike, a somewhat obscure soap opera actor named Nolan North, in what would be his first of many video game roles (though North's appearances in video games would be somewhat sparse until the mid-2000s).

Release
Released for the Ultra Nintendo on March 7, 1998. Heavily advertised in magazines and on television (including a Super Bowl ad starring Pierce Brosnan), the game's debut in North America garners the largest single-day sales for any Ultra Nintendo game except for Ultra Mario Kart, with over 600,000 copies sold on the first day. The game also garners spectacular reviews, with many publications declaring it the best Ultra Nintendo game to date, even better than Super Mario Dimensions. The game revolutionizes the console first-person shooter genre, which had previously seen only three major successes: Doom on the Super Nintendo CD, and Doom II and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter on the Sega Saturn. The game's success shifts the title of “best console for first person shooters” back to the Ultra Nintendo, drumming up plenty of anticipation for future FPSes on the console such as Quake. It also solidifies Rare's place as Nintendo's number-one second party software company, putting Rare far ahead of companies such as Argonaut and Telenet Japan. In the eyes of many, it even elevates Nintendo above companies like Squaresoft as Nintendo's top software company period. The Teen-rated, largely bloodless shooter also avoids nearly all the controversy over video game violence that plagued earlier FPS hits. Even after a tragic school shooting later in the month, Goldeneye 007 isn't even mentioned, with most of the controversy centering around the ongoing debate over gun control. The game immediately establishes itself as a Game of the Year contender, and Sega once again ends up with its work even more cut out for it.