The thing Goldeneye really brought was massive popularity.

(More copies of Goldeneye sold in 1998 than Quake sales for 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 combined...almost 2x.)

It also became a benchmark for console shooters, good multiplayer or get out.

> The thing Goldeneye really brought was massive popularity.

Exactly. I always thought Goldeneye was inferior to contemporary PC shooters, but for many who didn't have a powerful PC at the time, Goldeneye was their first FPS and they probably feel the same way about it as I do about the original Doom.

Indeed, I wasn't impressed with the game but that's partly being unused to the controller and mainly being previously spoiled by multiplayer Doom when a friend brought his laptop over and 4 player on my college LAN.

> for many who didn't have a powerful PC at the time,

In the late '90s I think most people did not have a PC at all. They were only just becoming affordable as the millennium hit. Surely console systems were more prevalent.

Quake was nice tech, but Goldeneye blew it out of the water in terms of gameplay and content. I always thought Quake felt like a very long tech demo more so than a game.

I had the original 3dfx card just to play Quake, but there were a number of things that still impressed me about Goldeneye.

- It ran on a console and not a $1000 PC.

- The game managed to go beyond what had been done in Doom and Quake, and actually have cutscenes that tell a story. Some of the cutscenes were super cinematic — especially for their time.

- Four player splitscreen was a hoot.

> I had the original 3dfx card just to play Quake

You didn't need a 3D card to play Quake, its software renderer was amazing in its own right. In fact, I much preferred the aesthetics of the software renderer over the blur-fest of the bilinear filtering on the 3dfx cards.

Oh I’m aware. I wanted those insane frame rates. I lived in bumfuck Pennsylvania where high speed Internet wasn’t going to arrive for a decade, so I wanted something to make the game cooler. Haha

Unlike Quake, Goldeneye focus was objectives-based, where you had to do more than reach the end of the level, and based its difficulty system upon it instead of simply making enemies stronger.

I must admit that GoldenEye is a bit slow-paced compared to Quake, but I partly blame the N64 controller for that. They still managed to make a great-looking for its time with the hardware resources they had.

> Unlike Quake, Goldeneye focus was objectives-based

Which also wasn't groundbreaking. Plenty of games were objective based, going back to the 8 bit era. A game like Exile [1] on the BBC Micro was easily as complex as Goldeneye, if not more so.

The control aspect alone of Goldeneye was awful. As a game it always felt forced and 'clunky' to me, compared to the smoothness and elegance of Quake.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbLndV_f_vo

It was far from a perfect game that's for sure, but it combines the elements of FPS, mission objectives, great level design (you might want to read how they managed to get some textures to fit the limited memory of the N64), a compelling story (that wasn't an exact replica of the movie, too many games make that mistake), couch/splitscreen multiplayer along with cheats you could unlock by being good at speedrunning.

All together, those made a great game for its time.

Goldeneye wasn’t ground breaking, but it was the first real playable, good, FPS on console.

And it was a blast to play.

It also did things right. Had a decent story, had good level design, great gameplay for console.

Without it, FPS on console might not have happened. Though some would argue that would be a good thing.

Wasn't Doom already popular on consoles by then/before then?

I think FPS domination was inevitable on all platforms, no single title could have stopped it.

Good summary except the last hyperbole. There's no way FPS doesn't happen on console even if GoldenEye was absent.

Indeed. DOOM was out on the Sega Saturn and Atari Jaguar, at least.

Speaking of the Jaguar, check out Alien vs. Predator for a console FPS that was years ahead of its time.

Most my memories of Goldeneye involve having 4 people stuffed on a couch, cheap beer, pretending we weren't looking at each other's screens.

Quake was a blast, but we weren't all in the same room, let alone the same couch.

I don't think comparing the games themselves directly really encompasses the difference in the playing experience.

Indeed, if you wanted something that felt like the best of both worlds I'd go with the original Halo, but of course that didn't come along until much later.

> Quake was a blast, but we weren't all in the same room, let alone the same couch.

I have fond memories of my Quake LAN parties and meeting to fight/exchange Pokémon on the Gameboy.

Playing GoldenEye on my friend's N64? I hated it. Found it pretty boring, and so did everyone else (except the N64 owner).

YMMV of course, circumstances are different, which I think is what OP was pointing at. E.g.: if you're on the USA PC gaming isn't (wasn't?) as ingrained in your culture as in Europe.

Quake had a very basic gameplay compared to golden eye, espacially regarding level design and the diversity in weaponery.

Plus Goldeneye had the advantage of not being entirely brown.

But damn it was easy and flexible to mod.

Quake was 256 colors of mud with super choppy character animation.

Was GoldenEye the first FPS that could support 4-player versus on a single console?

I believe Hired Guns (1993) on the Amiga predated it.

To my knowledge yes, but quake predated it but wasn't nearly as accessible

Quake didn't have splitscreen though, so it's not really a fair comparison.