Considering this game was only supposed to be a crappy movie tie-in game, I'd say Rare went way above the call of duty. Not only that, they've also raised the bar for FPSes to come, making several innovations to the genre. The single-player campaign offers an exciting and challenging experience that incorporates stealth, objectives, and guards that could actually make smart moves to keep you on your toes. It really immerses you into what it feels like to be James Bond quite well. The multiplayer mode was and still is a blast to play. There's enough weapons, maps, and game modes in the multiplayer to keep it from going stale. Same goes for the campaign too, you could play through levels with cheats and a custom 007 mode that lets you edit how easy or difficult you want it to be. There's also a bunch of unlockable cheats that you could go crazy with when you finish levels fast enough.
But I didn't decide to review this game with a pair of cheap $5.00 nostalgia goggles over my eyes. This game has plenty of issues and parts of it really haven't aged well. The framerate is choppy and can drop dramatically, especially when there's particle effects like smoke or explosion fire. This is common since every almost every object explodes when shot too much, even a toy car on a desk. The manual aim is somewhat unnecessarily tough to handle, and the enemy guards sometimes make boneheaded decisions and at times be completely oblivious to you or the sound of your gunfire. Not to mention that some of the objectives are cryptic enough to confuse newcomers.
If you don't mind the rust and forgive it for being old; GoldenEye can still be a kickass game that's well worth your time. My suggestion: Download the GoldenEye ROM for the 1964 emulator, there's no lag and it looks and runs much smoother. You'd be glad you did.
*Final Score: 85/100 (Silver Medal)*