Erm, what? Quake already existed at that point. I always thought Goldeneye was poor compared to Quake, which was really mind blowing at the time.
(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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Speaking of the Jaguar, check out Alien vs. Predator for a console FPS that was years ahead of its time.
I think FPS domination was inevitable on all platforms, no single title could have stopped it.
All together, those made a great game for its time.
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.
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.