Hours of sniping through snow and low frame rates, along with grenade-launcher game slowdowns and shouts of "Temple shotties," turn 20 years old today. N64 first-person shooter classic Goldeneye 007 launched in the United States on August 25, 1997, and it's hard to turn in any direction on the Internet today without finding someone posting an appreciation for it.

But how many of those appreciations are as old as the game?

Behold: my very first employer, the Dallas Morning News, celebrated the occasion today by republishing my own launch-week review of Goldeneye 007. In August 1997, I was a junior in high school who had been contributing to the paper's "Electronic Adventures" column for about a year, which was chock full of high school and college students willing to accept ridiculously low pay in exchange for early access to modern games.

If you're wondering: No, my review didn't age as well as Rare's classic game did. My text begins with a baffling setup: "In the words of everyone's favorite secret agent: 'This game's great, simply great.'" (I guess I was going for a "Bond, James Bond" thing?) Some of the text reads awkwardly, since I was an unproven teenager writing for a mainstream audience. I also used the phrase "graphic zest," which cracks me the heck up.

But I was mostly spot-on. I lauded the objective-based missions as a big deal for a console shooter. I pointed out the game's innovative handling of shots to different limbs and body parts. And I said that Goldeneye's split-screen four-player modes added "unlimited replay value." (I mean, time has proven that out, no?)

Some Sam trivia: Months after my review published, the game's strategy guide author actually came to my house and played me in a one-on-one deathmatch in the Temple level, first to 10 kills. He beat me by a narrow margin of 10-9. No idea if he intentionally kept it close, or if I was actually that good.

Anyway: Happy birthday, Goldeneye. May the licensing gods one day bestow upon fans the birthday wish of this game ever getting re-released . (At least we eventually got the sequel, Perfect Dark, in a nice remaster .)