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| We have much to learn from this classic, including that ducking while playing as Oddjob is totally cheating |
By Aaron Matteson
With a remake in the works for the Wii (wherein, in a baffling but radical move, Daniel Craig is retroactively inserted as Bond), Goldeneye 007 is still proving that it carved a special place for itself in gaming history.
As the title that brought first-person shooters a whole new wave of converts, it deserves its place as the first N64 game to be examined under our moralistic lens.
So what exactly did we learn from Goldeneye, besides never to trust Sean Bean? Well, let's see...
1.) Everyone has a breaking point.
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| Bond makes an inquiry into the heart of darkness. |
One of the iconic moments of Goldeneye was the moment that the collective gaming community figured out how to drive perfectly reasonable scientists to the brink of madness, and then push them into the chaotic oblivion beyond. All you need is your trusty PP7 and a complete lack of empathy for ham-fisted NPCs.
The first step is to find a scientist. Point your gun at him and he cowers in fear. At this point, Bond's actions take a decidedly un-Brosnanian turn. Shoot the scientist in cold blood, but make sure it's in an area that won't kill him, only cause him horrific, blinding pain. Now, as he writhes in pain, do it again.
At this point, if you look deep into the scientist's goofy, 64-bit eyes, you can see his soul turn black with vengeance and any last shred of dignity burn to ash. The scientist, presumably with an appalling scream unrenderable by the N64 soundcard, pulls a gun and opens fire. In some cases, the crazy bastard will even flip out and throw a grenade.
Never push anyone so far that they feel their only option left is to throw a grenade at you.
2.) Take the challenging path - rewards await you.
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While Goldeneye had a single-player campaign that was fun to play on any difficulty level, the final catharsis of murdering Sean Bean on top of his giant Cuban satellite dish just didn't have the same effect if you played through all the way on regular "Agent" mode. In addition to hilariously fun game manipulations that the "007" mode awarded players once the "00 Agent" difficulty was beaten through and through, there was just that smack of self-satisfaction that came with completing the extra objectives, braving the more dangerous firefights, and minimizing civilian casualties.
Though, to be fair, of all the wonderful Easter eggs littered throughout Goldeneye, dubiously absent is any place where, say on 00 Agent difficulty, Famke Janssen actually tries to strangle the player character with her thighs.
3.) Don't take yourself too seriously.
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| It's hard to keep your battle-hardened sneer on when you look in the mirror and see this nonsense. |
Speaking of the Easter eggs and cheats - what better way to undermine the violence of the game than to insert stupidity like "DK Mode"? For every semi-disturbing display of violence on Goldeneye, there was something equally ludicrous, like Oddjob jumping out of a blown-up crate or Bond attempting to watch-laser a guard to death. Even as very young kids playing, we never forgot it was all in good fun.
4.) Friends make a good thing better.
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| "God damn it, do you have mines again?" |
For all its charms as a one-man kill-fest, what really gave the game a place in history was its multiplayer. "Multiplayer" in most contemporaneous games meant, at best, basic co-operative play. At worst, it often meant that one person sat and watched, somewhere between bored and hypnotized, as another person button-mashed.
Not so with Goldeneye. While it was not the absolute first FPS to offer choices in multiplayer mode, it near-perfected the customization of game types and map selection and brought the massively entertaining result to the forefront of console gaming.
And so, Goldeneye became a wonderfully social experience. Defying the stereotype of the lonely, pockmarked kids whose only friends were their Nintendos, many people had lively conversations while booby-trapping the Facility's bathroom, or laughed until they cried as they watched a certain player's suicide count rise and rise. Goldeneye taught us to value the friends we had, even while we stalked them with explosives.
5.) Violence can be horrific with weapons and without.
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We believe it was Einstein who said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with Slappers Only."
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