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I'd have preferred if a couple of segments had gone and been replaced by a closer look at "Perfect Dark" or the myriad of weird Goldeneye games that came afterwards.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.
