I was so excited I nearly spilled my martini while plugging in the new GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 game cartridge. Bond is an infinitely cooler franchise than Turok - I mean, who wants to run around half naked, shooting arrows, when you can save the free world and hang out with sexy, heavily armed women?
As a single-player game, GoldenEye succeeds where other corridor blastfests fail woefully. I can't remember the last time I wanted to finish a game this desperately. The story, based on the movie, is engaging, and the mission-based levels force you to think like smarty-pants Bond himself. Weapons dealer Janus and his syndicate are out to fry the world with the GoldenEye satellite, and I'm feeling the pressure. "Another cocktail!" I cry out to my imaginary friend, Miss Moneypenny.
Enemies are packed full of top-notch AI, and if you go in with guns blazing, failure is a distinct possibility. Stealth is the name of this exercise. Trust silencer-equipped PP7 handguns, D5K machine guns, and knives for a covert romp. It's a tense treat to sneak around the massive levels dishing out silent death, knowing that discovery by special-forces troops is around any corner.
The weapons and gadgets are enough to make any armchair techno-spy drool. The coolest item is the sniper rifle; use its scope to zoom in on a target hundreds of yards away. Characters have strangely realistic faces digitized and mapped onto their lumpy heads, and, coupled with unpredictable movements, the experience can be a tad too surreal. Touches such as dead-on physics, killer sound, and Rumble Pak compatibility make this a magnificent game.
Best of all, 007 is the first console game to fully exploit the tried-and-true joy of killing your friends. Action is fast, furious, and silky smooth. Up to four players battle alone or cooperatively through 11 levels. Once you complete the single-player game, you can climb into the skin of more than a dozen Bond film characters. Few things in life can equal the feeling of being Grace Jones hefting a Moonraker laser.
##### GoldenEye 007: US$69.95. Nintendo: +1 (206) 885 7529.
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