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.
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.
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.