The design ethics of GoldenEye 64 brings to mind that quote from Futurama: “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”


And other times, expectations are just too damn ridiculous to begin with

Continuing on from yesterday, where I finally made my triumphant return to the world of the creative in the form of starting to deconstruct GoldenEye 64, I soldier on as I breakdown the experience, discuss the metaphysics of the gameplay, the historicity of the title, and parse some of the philosophical elements of the gaming industry that GoldenEye helps to bring to light. I am playing through the game on Agent, as I know how ball-stompingly difficult 00 Agent is, and even how challenging Secret Agent is, if memory serves the last time I ran through the title, so for the sake of painless expediency, Agent it is.. A lot of the QoL (quality of life) features that would become common place among shooters had yet to be invented; no regenerating health to speak of, no mid-level checkpoints to rely on, hell, this was even before console shooters had dual analog capabilities, controllers with second analog sticks not having yet made their way to market. A truly simplistic time.

Getting ahead of myself here; when I started this “Bonding Experience” in the form of the current run through of GoldenEye I am working on now, I had started to make video content without pairing it with a lead in article, which means that I had already completed the Dam, the intro level of the game, by the time I started putting thoughtful words to screen. Since I am already currently “working my way” through the Facility in the timeline of my video content, it would be out of sorts to focus too much on the Dam, though there is plenty of fun stuff to briefly discuss in terms of it setting the stage. The atmosphere is immediately apparent, you get treated to the idea of more cinematically driven gameplay then you might be use to with shooters on the PC (up to this point in 97′, at least), you get a fun hodgepodge of weaponry to mess around with, including a sniper rifle, a common place weapon these days, but here in GoldenEye, an intimate novelty that felt like it was helping to widen the diversity of gunplay in new ways.

All of this just to name a few of the ways the Dam is a surprisingly cool opening level. Though this next bit may fascinate me more than it does many others, I’ve always appreciated that developer Rare was able to take what is basically less than two minutes of screen time from the beginning of the GoldenEye movie, with Bond running across the Dam to bungee jump off, and then blew it up into a whole level. Did an awesome job of capturing the aesthetic, the mood, the energy…just, wonderfully done, top to bottom, and it’s this kind of consistency that, as we press on to one of the most iconic levels, not just in this game, or on the N64, mind you, but a level with such caliber, it is in the running for one of the most recognizable levels in video game history, we see similarly impressive grace in handling the adaptation of the Facility, the 2nd level of GoldenEye 64.

There are a lot of things about this level that are, at least certainly now a days, taken for granted. This isn’t necessarily a crude accusatory accosting akin to shaking my fist in the air at “the kids these days”. Before I sat down the past couple of days and truly thought about it, even with my love of GoldenEye firmly intact, I also remain guilty of forgetting about some of the initial impressions a first time runthrough such a brilliantly crafted virtual environment merits. I think this is partly due to the fact that the first time some people may have played this (like me), was almost 30 years ago, three decades worth of life lived since the first romp. Another important reason is due to the notion that levels like the Facility are so well designed, you end up effortlessly gliding right through them, and kind of just become this automated entity, not really stopping to smell the proverbial roses, completely forgetting how much fresh novelty was conceived of when GoldenEye was getting developed. This is the cornerstone of good game design, though; you don’t really have to think about it; everything is set up so organically, you just intuitively know what to do and where to go, a rare talent no matter which era of gaming we are discussing.

For example, even though I know the average Joe doesn’t bother himself much with stealth when need not be the case, due to this intuitively designed organic gliding I speak of, GoldenEye effortlessly engages the player with the ideas of stealth being a relevancy in the game, just by enemy layout and weapon of choice from the get. Starting Bond out in the air ducts, the player is already simulating a crouch, with a silenced pistol no less. When they happen upon the opening they can drop down into, I’m guessing a lot of players did what I did initially, and that was move slowly enough, look before leaping, and realizing you had a clear shot of one of the guards in the stall. The player, taking advantage of this, might blow his hat off at first (another cool lowkey flex for Rare, of course), but then land a headshot, taking him out before he was even aware. The game slyly gives the player the heads up that stealth is an option in this game, at least one players may be able to rely on in the right circumstances, and this was even before Metal Gear Solid blew down the doors of stealth gaming on the PlayStation, so being sneaky sneaky wasn’t even en vogue yet.(I know Metal Gear 1 had already come out a decade prior on the MSX2, it was no where near as ground breaking or in 3D, so hush)

I think one of the delightful ironies of this article is that the average read time for when I’m finished writing, will end up taking longer to finish than a simple run through of the Facility does, and yet there is so much more to discuss. In regards to the quick completion time, and in a fairness, I have probably played through the level hundreds of times in my life, so there is a lot of practice involved. Honestly, there is a lot more to shoot the shit about in terms of interest level involving the Facility, but I like to pace myself with these kinds of things, so we will wait till next time to get a little more…philosophical with our approach in discussing where the Facility and GoldenEye 64 as a game ended up getting it so right.

See you then.

~Pashford