It was produced by then second-party Nintendo developer Rare. The story of the movie was altered in several aspects to enhance the gameplay. The stolen helicopter was renamed the "Pirate", for example. In the game, Bond copies the key and leaves the original key on purpose - then plants a tracking bug on the helicopter so MI6 could find out where the helicopter was going. His first encounter with Natalya Fydorovna Simonova is not at the Statue Park, but in the Severnaya Complex, where she is imprisoned.
A highly regarded game, it was considered the best of its kind not just when it was released in 1997, but of all-time. It was probably best known for its incredible four-player "deathmatch" mode. It was followed up several years later in 2000, by Perfect Dark.
Critics however, came up with the term "Golden Eye Syndrome" to describe the popularity of this game. They point out that this was the one of the first multiplayer deathmatch first person shooters to be played by people who only play on consoles. This large audience who were ignorant of games of this genre previously (which were almost always on the PC), immediately hailed its to them revolutionary gameplay, not realizing it had been done before. The term now applies to any game which is generally falsely credited as revolutionary due to ignorance of the true origin of the innovation of that game.