GoldenEra

At 42 years old, I (sadly) am the perfect age for this documentary about a seminal game in my life, 1997's "Goldeneye" for the N64. I was a Nintendo gamer before the N64, so can remember how truly revolutionary it felt when the console came out and had a series of undisputable classic titles. I'd argue that this documentary is a little too wide ranging in its targets, and is missing two key names, though getting those would have been extraordinary, but I still enjoyed it.

Brother Chris and Tim Stamper found video game production company Rare, in Twycross in the mid-1980s. Having established a strong bond with Japanese giants Nintendo, the relatively small team were handed the licence to the James Bond film "Goldeneye". With creative freedom, and with Nintendo being very accommodating in terms of time and money, the team produced one of the most influential and successful games of all time. This though would prove to be the creative and financial peak, for the company.

The documentary was well researched and had on screen input from most of the Rare creative staff at the time, including David Doak, who is probably the most high-profile developer involved. The Stamper's themselves, notorious publicity shy as they are, are not interviewed, but the situation at Rare at the time is well explained by the staff recollections. Ben Potter's wonderful voice is a great choice as narrator, and as to many he's embedded in videogame culture, is a wonderful transition into the documentary. The story is well told, as the team manage just to keep on the right side of their publishing masters and deliver a game of absolute quality.

I would accept that the game doesn't work as well now, as it did, the N64 controller is such a unique one that going back from any sort of dual shock controller now is a struggle, but at the time, it felt like a natural evolution from a SNES controller and, as the documentary says, felt like it could at least compete with the keyboard and mouse set up.

I'd have preferred if a couple of segments had gone and been replaced by a closer look at "Perfect Dark" or the myriad of weird Goldeneye games that came afterwards. The modding community bit just about works, as that at least demonstrates continue fan adoration, but the speedrun section and the bit about the guy whose making movies about a Goldeneye tournament were a bit to tangential to be interesting.

It's tough for anyone, who wasn't there, to go back and appreciate this time, particularly as the videogame industry proceeds at such speed that games from even ten years ago seem crude, let alone twenty but for a tired old Generation X-er like me, it did make me pine for a my awful student digs, four controllers, one TV and hours of Remote Mines.

Goldeneye. One of the best games ever made. Like everyone, we'd always go to Drew's to play 4 player cause his Dad had the huge projector to make your 1/4 of the screen feel bigger.

This movie. Ugh. I mean great job on these guys for their incredible talent and programming skills, but putting them in front of a camera does nothing to enhance the awesomeness of the memorable game.

They are straight up nerds with zero appeal and now I get why, despite RAREs reputation for excellence, they were never part of the marketing.

The accents are simply hideous, and these guys have about as much charisma as Pedro from napoleon dynamite.

Literally just an hour - two of "I didn't know the game would be so good but it was". (Insert nails on chalkboard British accent)

Do yourself a favor, just play the game if you're feeling nostalgic.

I have to write a counterpoint to the other review here. I grew up with Goldeneye. I was already obsessed with the film, and James Bond more generally, by the time the game came out, and it was something I solidly played for at least the next decade, and yes, I revisit it every now and then to this day. I think what so many fans of the game (like the people who did the remake) miss is just how screen accurate this is. They took what you see in the film and extrapolate. It's genius. You feel like Bond. Ok, so I'm reviewing the game rather than this film, perhaps, but I don't think so. Someone should have made this at the time. It's extraordinary - 8 guys in a shed in England made possibly the best game ever. That story deserves to be told. They do a great job with the interviews here, they finally answer some age old questions (was all Bonds real?) and the cutscenes seemingly using the game engine as transitions in this doc? Inspired. Well done, guys. I loved it.

I'm a massive fan of both GoldenEye (the game) and Perfect Dark. I was really having high hopes for this documentary..

If you work in the video games industry you will probably be disappointed. There are some good bits, but they are drowned by the much less interesting segments. I kept hoping it would improve, but it didn't.