1997 Game of the Year Runoff Vote - GoldenEye 007 Vs Final Fantasy VII

[JaegerDice]

This is completely wrong, Goldeneye revolutionized console first person shooters. Before Goldeneye almost no one played FPS games on console, afterwards it paved the way for later successful games like Halo and Call of Duty, which never would have taken off without the success of Goldeneye (and its successor Perfect Dark) or may not have been made for console at all. Goldeneye proved you could have a successful FPS game on console, which no one considered possible before it, and many elements in the game (snipers, stealth, the aiming system) all became FPS mainstays. You seem to be completely writing off the impact Goldeneye had while propping up FF7 for having a similar (but lesser in my opinion as the console FPS genre is far more popular in North America than the JRPG market) impact on the JRPG genre.

This isn't particularly accurate.

GoldenEye didn't revolutionize anything.

Unlike Halo, which came years later, the release of Goldeneye did not lead to a huge flood of first person shooters into the console market or a marked change in the direction of the genre. There were no GoldenEye copy-cats, or even attempts at it. The FPS genre stayed largely stagnant on consoles, with baaaaad ports of PC games like Rainbow Six and Unreal Tournament released before Perfect Dark, which was the next console shooter anybody bothered to pay attention to released in 2000.

GoldenEye was a very popular game, with a well-known licence on a platform that had very few games. It was a perfect recipe for over-hyping. Which isn't to say GoldenEye had ZERO merit, only that it's merit was completely oversold, as was it's supposed influence.

Halo wasn't made into a console FPS because GoldenEye came out 4 years earlier. Halo had already been transitioned from an RTS, to a third-person open-world game, to an FPS when it was still planned as a Mac, and later a PC game. Microsoft ultimately made the call to make it an Xbox exclusive, because they were launching a console and needed a killer app, and Halo was tracking better than any of their other launch games. Look at the Xbox Original launch, take away Halo, and it's one of the worst launch lineups of all time.

After Halo, the FPS legitimately exploded on consoles. The market became flooded with them in the same way the market became flooded with JRPGs following FF7. And none of those shooters had anything resembling GoldenEye, from design to controls.

The 'impact' and 'influence' of GoldenEye is wildly overstated.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

This isn't particularly accurate.

GoldenEye didn't revolutionize anything.

Unlike Halo, which came years later, the release of Goldeneye did not lead to a huge flood of first person shooters into the console market or a marked change in the direction of the genre. There were no GoldenEye copy-cats, or even attempts at it. The FPS genre stayed largely stagnant on consoles, with Perfect Dark being the next console shooter anybody bothered to pay attention to.

It was a very popular game, with a well-known licence on a platform that had very few games. It was a perfect recipe for over-hyping. Which isn't to say GoldenEye had ZERO merit, only that it's merit was completely oversold, as was it's supposed influence.

Halo wasn't made into a console FPS because GoldenEye came out 4 years earlier. Halo had already been transitioned from an RTS, to a third-person open-world game, to an FPS when it was still planned as a Mac, and later a PC game. Microsoft ultimately made the call to make it an Xbox exclusive, because they were launching a console and needed a killer app, and Halo was tracking better than any of their other launch games. Look at the Xbox Original launch, take away Halo, and it's one of the worst launch lineups of all time.

After Halo, the FPS legitimately exploded on consoles. The market became flooded with them in the same way the market became flooded with JRPGs following FF7. And none of those shooters had anything resembling GoldenEye, from design to controls.

The 'impact' and 'influence' of GoldenEye is wildly overstated.

Wrong.

It takes developers years to develop a game, so once Goldeneye came around everyone started to make FPS which obviously takes years to produce and put on the market, like Halo.

 

[JaegerDice]

Wrong.

It takes developers years to develop a game, so once Goldeneye came around everyone started to make FPS which obviously takes years to produce and put on the market, like Halo.

You are WILDLY overestimating the length of time it took to make a game in the 90s. Hell, it rarely takes a AAA game in TODAY's industry 4 years to make, with high-res assets and far more complex game design. Back then, it was VERY rare for games to take more than 2 years to develop, the exceptions being games that saw significant resets in development, like FF7, RE2, OOT, etc. Well, except for Rare, who have always been notoriously inefficient (though undeniably talented) game developers.

The idea that it would take the industry almost 4 years to respond to a supposed phenomenon is honestly pretty laughable. Some FPS games trickled out, mostly bad ports of PC games like Rainbow Six or remakes of Doom for example, but for the most part, the genre stayed stagnant, a result of lacking technology and lacking design. By comparison, within 2 years of FF7, the market was flooded with 80+ hour JPGs that required not only development, but localization on top of that. The development lead time was NOT the reason we didn't see any influence of GoldenEye in the marketplace. We didn't see any influence, because it wasn't particularly influential.

The simple truth is, Halo created the 'language' of the console FPS, and kickstarted it's ascendance. Part of that was right time, right place. They had a console with two sticks so it could actually control well, they were launching on the most powerful console in a generation that provided a massive jump over the first, clunky 3D consoles - a console that was essentially a PC in a box as far as developers were concerned, making it the perfect place for all the developers that had honed their FPS craft on PC to migrate to. They were in perfect position to make an impact, and combined with design decisions like recharging shields and health, reticule friction (subtle rather than snap-to auto-aim), 2-weapon carry limit, one-button grenades, a more methodical pace, suddenly the blue-print was laid for FPS games that genuinely worked and FELT GREAT on consoles. And then the explosion happened, with almost every game that followed borrowing extensively from that specific blue-print. Not after the clunky GoldenEye, but the exquisite Halo.

GoldenEye was fun. But it's essentially a vestigial organ in the FPS genre's evolution. The console FPS equivalent of the appendix. A nice little side road that few if any followed.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I'm of the view that if Goldeneye was never released, another developer would have come out with a successful console FPS in the following years. Realistically, the only major influence Goldeneye had was popularizing console FPS and doing so with only one analog stick. If you think that no FPS would succeed on Xbox or Playstation 2 with double analog sticks but for Goldeneye's influence, you're out to lunch. Best case scenario, Goldeneye sped up the releases of console FPSs - but that's not saying too much because, outside of Halo, there weren't too many note-worthy games.

 

[RandV]

The idea that it would take the industry almost 4 years to respond to a supposed phenomenon is honestly pretty laughable. Some FPS games trickled out, mostly bad ports of PC games like Rainbow Six or remakes of Doom for example, but for the most part, the genre stayed stagnant, a result of lacking technology and lacking design. By comparison, within 2 years of FF7, the market was flooded with 80+ hour JPGs that required not only development, but localization on top of that. The development lead time was NOT the reason we didn't see any influence of GoldenEye in the marketplace. We didn't see any influence, because it wasn't particularly influential.

I gave my opinion earlier that people often overstate the "influential" aspect of a pioneer game, so I more or less agree with you on Goldeneye, but I'd point the same fingers at FFVII as well. JRPG's were always extremely popular in Japan and FFVII had little influence on that. Rather where it made it's mark is that it was the first of the genre so many in the West had played, legitimized the genre over here so that all the games Japan was making would get localized to feed this new audience.

Otherwise the primary advancement FFVII created in the genre was setting a standard/expectation of cutting edge graphics and expensive CGI cut scenes... which made for great commercials to draw in first timers but otherwise was more of an extravagant expense to the genre and was likely detrimental in the long run.

Personally my five favourite JRPG's on the PS1 came out after FFVII and take little influence from it: Suikoden 2, Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, Grandia, and Valkyrie Profile. Would throw Lunar/Lunar 2 in their but those were SegaCD games first.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Goldeneye was THE game of its kind back in the day - a first person shooter party game playable on a single console. It was a relatively new take on party games, and it was a huge hit.

Sure, it doesn't hold up to modern FPS standards (mostly thanks to technology limitations and those absolutely awful controls), but to be fair that's not the question. The question is, what do you think was Game of the Year in 1997?

I'm of the view that if Goldeneye was never released, another developer would have come out with a successful console FPS in the following years.

To be fair, you could probably say the same thing about any <insert game here> that anyone claims "revolutionized the <insert genre here> genre" and have no way to be proven right or wrong, since there's no way to test that theory.

 

[JaegerDice]

Goldeneye was THE game of its kind back in the day - a first person shooter party game playable on a single console. It was a relatively new take on party games, and it was a huge hit.

Sure, it doesn't hold up to modern FPS standards (mostly thanks to technology limitations and those absolutely awful controls), but to be fair that's not the question. The question is, what do you think was Game of the Year in 1997?




To be fair, you could probably say the same thing about any <insert game here> that anyone claims "revolutionized the <insert genre here> genre" and have no way to be proven right or wrong, since there's no way to test that theory.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

The truth is, it's kind of impossible to judge 'quality at the time' through retroactive analysis. All the games on the list were fantastic at the time. Retroactively, we can look at things like longevity and impact.

I mean, if you want to go by straight popularity, yeah, GoldenEye probably wins, cause it sold 8million copies or something, while FF7 sold 11million copies when you include PC port, PSN downloads, etc.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

The truth is, it's kind of impossible to judge 'quality at the time' through retroactive analysis. All the games on the list were fantastic at the time. Retroactively, we can look at things like longevity and impact.

I mean, if you want to go by straight popularity, yeah, GoldenEye probably wins, cause it sold 8million copies or something, while FF7 sold 11million copies when you include PC port, PSN downloads, etc.

Damn it man, you know we're in the tiebreaker poll.

Why is it impossible to judge the quality at the time? You lived it.

The game's popularity has nothing to do with anyone's pick. In fact, that's sort of the exact point the poll is trying to determine, no?



Aren't we just voting for what game we enjoyed most back in 1997? I mean, I suppose there are no rules and you can use whatever criteria you want, but isn't "retroactive analysis" and "impact on the industry" overthinking it? Or am I just under-thinking it?

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

To be fair, you could probably say the same thing about any <insert game here> that anyone claims "revolutionized the <insert genre here> genre" and have no way to be proven right or wrong, since there's no way to test that theory.

Yeah, but some games nail the genre on the first go. For example, you could say Super Mario Bros or Donkey Kong was the most influential platformer and I don't think many would disagree. Nevermind the graphics aging poorly for Goldeneye, the controls were never very good.

 

[Shareefruck]

I assume that 1997 GOTY just means "what was the best game released in 1997," and not "what did you enjoy most in 1997, biases and everything" or "what was making the most noise at the time and is most representative of the period," or "what lived up to the standards of their time."

Any game that doesn't hold up today was exactly as good or bad when it was released. Many people just overlooked their flaws or overstated their strengths due to various novelties and skewed expectations.

If, in 1997, you happened to think that Goldeneye's controls stunk, or that the localization of Final Fantasy VII was a complete mess, you would have been correct. If you were perceptive and honest with yourself, not allowing the buzz of new technology to cloud your perception, you should have been able to tell that the character models of both looked kind of ugly, even if that was the standard.

We should be looking at new games released today the same way, IMO. It doesn't really matter if "the voice acting is bad, but it's good by the standards of the industry right now." If it's bad, it's bad, and if it's good, it's good.

 

[syz]

Halo was originally going to be a third person real time strategy game, not a FPS. Microsoft switched it to a shooter because of the demand for console shooters (which didn't exist before Goldeneye) and advances in technology which made it more feasible. Comparing Goldeneye to Turok is a joke, Turok was a niche game while Goldeneye was a huge hit that made console shooters mainstream.

I'm not sure what you mean by "nobody tried to cash in on it", when that's exactly what happened. Goldeneye came out in the fall of 1997, and 2-3 years later tons of console shooters began hitting the market. Game development takes years.

[citation needed]

What are the "tons of console shooters" that came out? Because my memory tells me that Halo came out, and then 3 years later Call of Duty happened, and that's when things actually took off. Halo, not Goldeneye, created enough of an install base on consoles for developers to start putting time into console releases. N64 games were still coming out by 2000/01. Where were the shooters? Again, we had Perfect Dark, probably another Turok game, and that was it. Nobody else gave a shit. Outside of Halo, late 90s and early 00s shooters were still being made for PC. Quake 3, Tribes, Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942, Serious Sam (got an Xbox port after the fact), etc. Metroid Prime is in there somewhere, but isn't what you would consider a traditional FPS and has zero Goldeneye DNA in it at all.

Honestly it wasn't even until the 360/PS3 era where the market shifted enough for it to be a guarantee that a shooter would come out on console. The mid 2000s is when it became financially smart to make consoles the primary point of development if you were releasing a shooter.

The idea that stuff like Halo and CoD only exist because of Goldeneye is more wishful thinking than the people who were saying that esports only exists because of Starcraft; it was a major PC genre that would have found a way as soon as console controllers got good enough, and it did thanks to dual analog. Goldeneye was a completely isolated thing that hit big with a group of kids who didn't know any better, and that group's nostalgia is all that remains.

 

[The Nuge]

Any game that doesn't hold up today was exactly as good or bad when it was released. Many people just overlooked their flaws or overstated their strengths due to various novelties and skewed expectations

It’s not that we overlooked their flaws. We just didn’t know until later that they were flaws. That’s like saying the McLaren F1 is a flawed car because they didn’t turbo it like Hennessy, SSC, and Bugatti would eventually do. Things can be great at the time they came out, and still have things that people will later improve upon.

The older Grand Theft Auto games still dominated the GOTY voting despite the controls being drastically worse than GTA V. They were fine at the time. People came up with things that worked better. Practically every game could be improved upon with newer ideas

 

[Shareefruck]

It’s not that we overlooked their flaws. We just didn’t know until later that they were flaws. That’s like saying the McLaren F1 is a flawed car because they didn’t turbo it like Hennessy, SSC, and Bugatti would eventually do. Things can be great at the time they came out, and still have things that people will later improve upon.

The older Grand Theft Auto games still dominated the GOTY voting despite the controls being drastically worse than GTA V. They were fine at the time. People came up with things that worked better. Practically every game could be improved upon with newer ideas

I disagree.

Videogames aren't like engineering or technology where you're just trying to get faster and more efficient (which, I agree, would be completely relative to what's possible at the time). What makes them good is whether or not they come together effectively and lastingly communicate more than just a cheap novelty, which is the same goal regardless of what technology is available. Hitting that sweet spot is not dependent on the era/the capabilities of technology, nor is it something that simply gets better and better, IMO. It's dependent on whether or not what is done within those limitations works, and how well it works. If everything TRULY works well enough to be a great game, then it will always be a great game, like so many old games that hold up still are.

If your game looks or feels dated or unplayable because of outdated technology without maintaining the same charms that it once had, it means that you were overshooting what could be appropriately done with that technology and hoping that the novelty will allow people to overlook that, I think. Which is something that should have been considered a flaw at the time every bit as much as it's obvious now, IMO.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

[citation needed]

What are the "tons of console shooters" that came out? Because my memory tells me that Halo came out, and then 3 years later Call of Duty happened, and that's when things actually took off. Halo, not Goldeneye, created enough of an install base on consoles for developers to start putting time into console releases. N64 games were still coming out by 2000/01. Where were the shooters? Again, we had Perfect Dark, probably another Turok game, and that was it. Nobody else gave a ****. Outside of Halo, late 90s and early 00s shooters were still being made for PC. Quake 3, Tribes, Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942, Serious Sam (got an Xbox port after the fact), etc. Metroid Prime is in there somewhere, but isn't what you would consider a traditional FPS and has zero Goldeneye DNA in it at all.

Honestly it wasn't even until the 360/PS3 era where the market shifted enough for it to be a guarantee that a shooter would come out on console. The mid 2000s is when it became financially smart to make consoles the primary point of development if you were releasing a shooter.

The idea that stuff like Halo and CoD only exist because of Goldeneye is more wishful thinking than the people who were saying that esports only exists because of Starcraft; it was a major PC genre that would have found a way as soon as console controllers got good enough, and it did thanks to dual analog. Goldeneye was a completely isolated thing that hit big with a group of kids who didn't know any better, and that group's nostalgia is all that remains.

Agreed, good post. In relation to the bold - Halo:CE began development in 1997 (the year Goldeneye was released). On July 21, 1999, Steve Jobs announced it would be released simultaneously on Mac and PC. If Goldeneye truly inspired it to be a console FPS, wouldn't they have that plan 2 years after Goldeneye was released and 2 years into development? The answer is obviously no, Goldeneye did not inspire it to be a console FPS, but rather Microsoft saw it as an opportunity to sell Xboxs at launch.

 

[NyQuil]

Videogames aren't like cars or technology where you're just trying to get faster and faster (which, I agree, would be completely relative to what's possible at the time). What makes them good is whether or not they come together effectively and lastingly communicate more than just a cheap novelty, which is the same goal regardless of what technology is available. Hitting that sweet spot is not dependent on the era/the capabilities of technology, nor is it something that simply gets better and better, IMO. It's dependent on whether or not what is done within those limitations works, and how well it works. If everything TRULY works well enough to be a great game, then it will always be a great game, like so many old games that hold up still are.

If your game looks or feels dated or unplayable because of outdated technology without maintaining the same charms that it once had, it means that you were overshooting what could be appropriately done with that technology, I think. Which is something that should have been considered a flaw at the time every bit as much as it's obvious now, IMO.

If you can't see more than cheap novelty and speed in car design, I am shocked.

A great car will always be a great car.

Such as this Ferrari 275 GTB.

 

[Shareefruck]

If you can't see more than cheap novelty and speed in car design, I am shocked.

A great car will always be a great car.

Such as this Ferrari 275 GTB.

In that context (design, etc), I agree. But I was responding to The Nuge's sentiment that cars are improved with added functionality that makes it go faster or more efficiently. I don't really care about cars, so I was just going along with that barometer.

 

[NyQuil]

In that context (design, etc), I agree. But I was responding to The Nuge's sentiment that cars are improved with added functionality that makes it go faster or more efficiently. I don't really care about cars, so I was just going along with that barometer.

Makes sense.

 

[JaegerDice]

Damn it man, you know we're in the tiebreaker poll.

Why is it impossible to judge the quality at the time? You lived it.

The game's popularity has nothing to do with anyone's pick. In fact, that's sort of the exact point the poll is trying to determine, no?



Aren't we just voting for what game we enjoyed most back in 1997? I mean, I suppose there are no rules and you can use whatever criteria you want, but isn't "retroactive analysis" and "impact on the industry" overthinking it? Or am I just under-thinking it?

I mean, for myself personally, it's not a huge deal, because I was more impressed and engrossed with FF7 at the time than GoldenEye.

But there are plenty of games I loved at the time that time and perspective has allowed me to realize weren't that great, I was just young, dumb, easy to impress.

1994 me would have very likely told you that Donkey Kong Country was the greatest platformer ever made, for example.

The rules of the poll obviously aren't hard and fast, but IMO, I think it would be silly not to use the benefit of perspective to measure these games. But that's just me.

 

[Shareefruck]

I mean, for myself personally, it's not a huge deal, because I was more impressed and engrossed with FF7 at the time than GoldenEye.

But there are plenty of games I loved at the time that time and perspective has allowed me to realize weren't that great, I was just young, dumb, easy to impress.

1994 me would have very likely told you that Donkey Kong Country was the greatest platformer ever made, for example.

The rules of the poll obviously aren't hard and fast, but IMO, I think it would be silly not to use the benefit of perspective to measure these games. But that's just me.

Yep. This is how I see it as well.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I mean, for myself personally, it's not a huge deal, because I was more impressed and engrossed with FF7 at the time than GoldenEye.

But there are plenty of games I loved at the time that time and perspective has allowed me to realize weren't that great, I was just young, dumb, easy to impress.

1994 me would have very likely told you that Donkey Kong Country was the greatest platformer ever made, for example.

The rules of the poll obviously aren't hard and fast, but IMO, I think it would be silly not to use the benefit of perspective to measure these games. But that's just me.

It was for it's time.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

It was for it's time.

I was the biggest DKC fan, but Super Mario World was already out...

 

[belair]

Yeah, but some games nail the genre on the first go. For example, you could say Super Mario Bros or Donkey Kong was the most influential platformer and I don't think many would disagree. Nevermind the graphics aging poorly for Goldeneye, the controls were never very good.

The controls were fine. I just switched to 'kissy' and gave up the whole 'trigger to fire' nonsense. The N64 controller was a mess so it's kind of pointless to throw the game under the bus for that.

And lol to whoever's saying no developers bothered to dive into the FPS category after Goldeneye. EA made a second Bond game AND IT SUCKED. Rare desperately tried to duplicate its success with PD, but in reality nothing on that console was ever going to touch what a Goldeneye achieved.

 

[syz]

And lol to whoever's saying no developers bothered to dive into the FPS category after Goldeneye. EA made a second Bond game AND IT SUCKED. Rare desperately tried to duplicate its success with PD, but in reality nothing on that console was ever going to touch what a Goldeneye achieved.

So your counter-argument to the claim that "no other developers" tried to cash in on the console FPS craze in the years following the whirlwind revolution that was Goldeneye is that... one other developer gave it a shot? Damn, point conceded, I guess.

Another bad Bond game, another couple of Turok games, and Perfect Dark. All thanks to Goldeneye's influence. Truly the beginning of the golden age. Remove them all from history and very little changes, tbh.

The best part of all this will be when the 96 poll goes up and Quake gets like 1 vote.

 

[Shareefruck]

It was for it's time.

I would disagree. Virtually every Mario game released before it (including the ones from the NES era) completely dwarf it as a platformer, IMO. DKC had a lot of bells and whistles and at its best was a challenging and fully realized collect-a-thon with strong aesthetics (music especially) and a few innovative ideas, but it's always been really weak in terms of pure level design and platforming feel. There's still some charm to the overall product, but I don't think the games themselves are all that great.

I'd take that further and say that even the Sonic series was a lot stronger, and I'm not a huge Sonic fan.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

I was the biggest DKC fan, but Super Mario World was already out...

I liked DKC better.

Though I think DKC 2 was the best of the three SNES games.

I would disagree. Virtually every Mario game released before it (including the ones from the NES era) completely dwarf it as a platformer, IMO. DKC had a lot of bells and whistles and at its best was a challenging and fully realized collect-a-thon with strong aesthetics (music especially) and a few innovative ideas, but it's always been really weak in terms of pure level design and platforming feel. There's still some charm to the overall product, but I don't think the games themselves are all that great.

I'd take that further and say that even the Sonic series was a lot stronger, and I'm not a huge Sonic fan.