It's hardly fair to compare Tomorrow Never Dies (PS1) with Goldeneye (N64)
That said... Like most games based in the James Bond 007 license, Tomorrow Never Dies is based on the movie of the same name. If you don't remember what the plot of the movie is, here's a short reminder.
Elliot Carver is a man who knows there's no better news than bad news and, with his desire to start a newspaper which has "exclusive" news, he decides to simulate a conflict between China and Britain by cleverly hacking into the guidance systems of a British ship, leading its crew to believe it was still in International waters while, in fact, they have trespassed into Chinese territory. Hidden in a stealth ship, Carver finishes the job by shooting two missiles, one against the British ship, and another against the Chinese. Obviously, the British believed the missile was Chinese, and vice-versa. None of this is clear if you haven't seen the movie, so I suggest you do before playing the game.
The first thing you'll notice in TND are the graphics. The characters seem excessively blocky and washed out, with some textures being amusingly pixelated. To worst part about it, though, is the draw distance, which is so short, you can't use a Sniper Rifle with any degree of accuracy unless you're close enough for the target to shoot back at you. Character animation is average, at best, but you do get some movie clips in between missions, taken straight from the movie, although, they make little sense if you haven't seen the movie before.
Sound wise, it's sort of a mixed bag. There are some remixes of the 007 theme song, which sound really nice, and most of the voice work ranges from acceptable to good, although the delivery in most cases is a bit bland. Ambient noise and sound effects are probably where the biggest disappointment lies in this game because there's very little of it, and what there is sounds weak, which is particularly noticeable when you use weapons you expect to sound powerful like the Rocket Launcher.
As you enter the game, you'll quickly realize that the gameplay also has some hits and misses. TND starts out well by giving you a sort of "stealth" mission, where you have to locate a satellite dish and laser designate it so that a fighter bomber may destroy it. While you can easily go Rambo-style and shoot everything that moves, it's much more pleasurable (and Bond-like) when you hide behind objects, creep up behind the enemies, and slowly aim your silent PK7 at the unaware opponents.
Sadly, on this very same level, you'll reach a point where stealth no longer works because you can't see any enemies until you're close enough for them to see you, and then all hell brakes loose and you're left with a brainless shooter. Granted, the latest Bond movies have been more Rambo-style too, but the game seems to focus on that aspect a bit too much.
Anyway, by the end of this first mission, you'll be greeted by a Ski race sequence. Basically, you have to go down a slope, avoiding trees and avoiding the enemies which are chasing you. You can also push your enemies with your fists but it's pretty pointless and you might as well just slide as fast as you can and reach the end of the line.
Moving on to the remaining nine missions (yes, there are only ten in the whole game), you'll find occasional gems, like the "take photographs of key items" in mission two, to driving your BMW and destroy a convoy of other vehicles (don't expect Gran Turismo with guns, though). However, other than these small moments of interesting level design, the majority of your time will be running and shooting, which brings me to the subject of controls.
Since this is a third-person shooter, you'd expect your character to move swiftly, unfortunately, he has a very slow response to your commands, and gets stuck on the scenery every now and then. On the bright side, the enemy AI will miss often, even if you're standing still, and they have no problem shooting a tree if it stands between you and their gun.
There's also the auto-aim feature which, let's face it, is the only thing that keeps this game from being unplayable. You can shift into first-person mode, supposedly so you can target your enemies better, but the target reticle is so jerky in its movement that it's almost a matter of luck whether you manage to target something. TND is not a hard game, in terms of level design, but the fact you have to fight the controls in order to get your character to do what you want raises the level of difficulty beyond the comfort level.
As stated before, TND has only 10 missions, so it won't last you long. Despite the fact there are two difficulty levels (Agent = Normal and 007 = Hard), they don't really add anything new, and there's nothing to unlock, so I'm unsure if anyone would want to play the game through a second time knowing that it's exactly the same ten levels as before, only harder and, probably, more frustrating.
Considering that the game can be finished within a couple of hours, seeing you should take an average of 10 to 12 minutes per level, I'd say this game was never meant to be more than a rental.