“Men are more governed by their passions then reason”, a paraphrasing of a sentiment expressed by philosopher David Hume. In the realm of gaming, this loosely translates to: hang the sense of it, ask yourself the real question: is it cool?


Cool happens when your heart is in the right place

Dovetailing from my last post, where I espoused the metaphysical wonderments of media adaptations, imbued with righteous idealism for that much sought after velvety texture that praise brings to the spirit, we continue our Goldeneye 64 “Bonding Experience” by commencing “Mission 2: Severnaya, Part ii: Bunker”, as we dive deep into the cold heart of darkness that represents Russia’s most maniacal macabre of machinic machinations.

At least, that’s the super sexy, darkly seductionist articulation of alluding to the horrors that would be GoldenEye’s capabilities, as seen in the film, which almost works like some kind of souped up EMP on steroids, but instead of just knocking out electronic equipment, it also blows all of the tech if effects as well? Somewhat unclear, given the visual destruction displayed on screen. I think whoever wrote this was banking on the fact that no one watching the film would be tech literate enough to understand what the fuck an EMP even was, so they just went the route most sci-fi joints do, and threw in some ridiculously farcical tech jargon and called it a day. Looks cool, though, and in the world of Bond, cool is the rule.

As I mentioned prior, for some frame of reference in terms of movie to game changes, I am watching GoldenEye while I play through the title, but as also previously mentioned, outside the largely accurate adjacency of the first ten minutes of the film, which encapsulates the first three missions of the game, developer Rare obviously went the route of seat of the pants improvisational gaming rationale, as there are plenty of scenes that maintain character development and exposition that simply weren’t going to translate well into the game given the tech, and ultimately, weren’t necessary as an ingredient that’s part of the secret sauce that makes a great video game.

I also realized last time, I was pointing out the queer disparity of hypocrisy between usual critics of inaccuracy of adaptations amongst fans, though gamers seemed to be in a mum’s the word kind of place with GoldenEye the game, as I don’t recall or have any recollection at all of anyone ever putting under scrutiny the liberties taken with the game diverging so much from the movie, though this maybe relates to a rare moment of self-aware gratitude on gamers behalf, as they stand in awe of what they got instead of what they didn’t get, and realized what they didn’t have would have been a far worse alternative than what they did get, leading them to unwittingly agree with the philosopher Leibniz, in coming to the conclusion that with the release of Goldeneye 64, in the form that we did get it, we truly live in the best of all possible worlds.

In any case, refocusing on the matter at hand, and with the “going off script nature” of the game, there was a bit of a timey-wimey moment in my last post, as I made mention of kind of a big change in the game from the movie, in that when the movie focuses on Severnaya, it’s essentially to introduce us to Boris and Natalya, two big players in the overall story, with Boris being the one who helps the big bads manage the daunting task of IT for a psuedo-beauracratic organization, and Natalya eventually ending up being “the Bond girl” of the movie. We also get insight into the fact Ourumov and Onatopp are working together to betray the Russian government, by testing and stealing GoldenEye, and then destroying Severnaya in the process. The timey-wimeyness I spoke of, in that absolutely none of this happens in the game, technically, in a very odd moment of paradoxical temporality, doesn’t not happen in this visit to Severnaya, but instead, doesn’t not happen in the return visit to Severnaya in the game.

Even more interestingly enough, in the film, since Severnaya is destroyed, there is nothing to even go back to…for anyone, so it is a one and done in the movie, which is where my head was in “Timeline A” of GoldenEye, and not “Timeline B”, which would be the game alternative, where none of that happens during the level. On higher difficulties the second time around, Bond and Natalya do set a timer on the bunker, but leave the premises without any explosions going off whatsoever, with no official destruction on screen. As mentioned, on Agent, that is not even an objective that one needs to accomplish at all, meaning Severnaya isn’t just not destroyed by Ourumov and Onatopp, it is also equally not destroyed by Bond, which kind of creates a time paradox if we were still in “Timeline A”, but which now, due to the changes of changed temporal events, has us branch off even further off af a branch of, hypothetically counting as a “Timeline C”, an alternative to the alternative to the real that happened in a different way altogether.

Perfectly not confusing right? This truly didn’t need to be addressed, but due to my penchant for enjoying the thought experiments of messing around with the spacetime continuum, and an infatuation with time travel in general, the idea was floating around in my head, so I needed to expel it and make it real in the ether that surrounds me to give myself a peace of mind.

Putting aside deviating canon and non-sensical temporally related inconsistencies, the Bunker continues the trend of contrast developer Rare is such a fan of with Goldeneye’s level design , in using the last level as a launching off point, and a frame of reference for what the next level should not be, in order to differentiate the two in a more meaningful way, creating a greater sense of depth and variation in fleshing out the world that Bond has to save, one shaken martini at a time.

In terms of the Bunker, with contrasting it with the previous level “Surface” being so open and outside, is that the Bunker is indeed set underground in tight corridors. This will be the first time we visit the Bunker, and based on how nightmarish the return trip is, especially on higher difficulty levels, for all intents and purposes, this is the “fun version” of the Bunker, as the number of guys you have to fight is a non-infinite, rationale amount of men, that does not eclipse the actual count of the entire population of Russia, unlike the revisit to the Bunker the second time around.

Much like I detailed in in “Being Quiet In A Really Loud Way”, GoldenEye does a great service to the stealth genre, even though it is not a stealth game at heart, it does an excellent job of organically leading the player into scenarios where a stealthy alternative becomes not only obvious, but perhaps preferable, in order to make the mission go that much more smoothly. The way developer Rare does this is twofold brilliant, as not only are these situations many and easily stumbled upon, they are also easily ignorable, forgoing the cardinal sin of forced stealth sections in video games, a phantom that haunts the modern day wastelands of misguided game design. Interesting that one of the first shooters on consoles got it right oh so long ago in attempting to leave a worthy legacy of inspiration to the future, only for so many to have missed the obvious historical memo laid bare.

So yes, if you do use stealth, it will help you avoid raising the alarm, which will summon very large men with big guns, and the general unpleasantness that follows. There are alarms scattered around the base that can be pressed, and surveillance cameras strategically placed as well, in order to catch you off guard and unawares, at which point, alarms will also be activated. The trial and error here is minimal, as the level has a compact nature to it, and since this isn’t a stealth game, there is no instant game over for being seen, and you can always shoot your way out of a bind, so even if the stealth isn’t flawless, you can kind of ebb and flow with it, which is what GoldnenEye does very well: provide opportunities for improvisational ass kicking.

As an aside, if one does know the level well enough, you can basically get through the whole thing without any of the enemies firing a bullet or any alarms being raised, if you know what you’re doing. There are two guards at the very end of the level right in front of the exit who, depending on their animations, are sometimes hard to down before they pull the trigger, which has to do with some weirdness involving a line of sight in relation to how the guards are positioned at the top of the stairs at the end of the hallway, but at that point, you’re about three seconds from the end of the level, so hardly relevant outside of the most solid of snakes obsessed with perfecting the art of ghostly infiltration.

Keeping on theme with the contrast angle, when one is speedrunning on Agent, most of the levels in GoldenEye are pretty short, Bunker 1 is considerably shorter than Surface, even by speedrunning standards, as my recent best times on Surface and Bunker on Agent difficulty are 1:44 and 0:29, respectively, so the Bunker by any metric, is more of a “fun size” experience in terms of scope.

If one does not want to go the way of Sam Fisher, then there is certainly fun to be had with blowing them all to hell, real style, with KF7 Soviet in hand and a devilish;y hellish hue of madness smattered across one’s face. Where as the stealth is satisfying due to pulling off a no hitter (or even a no alerter, if your RNG luck holds out against those last two guards), since the corridors are so narrow, and most enemy troops have to go through a short animation before they can start firing, the halls of the Bunker become not too dissimilar to a shooting gallery, which leaves you absolutely flush with grosse amounts of fatalities, as the ducks in this barrel quack like comrades.

The reason this level is likely so short is due to a couple of probable causes; in-game reasoning is they add some extra “time skips” to the game, where as the movie just goes from 006’s murder, and then time hops 9 years into the future, Goldeneye 64 adds an extra stop in chronology, at a near halfway point between the fast forward. This “4 years ago” represents Bond’s nonexistent first trip to Severnaya, in a move I’m guessing Rare used to both imply 007 being more involved with this case for a greater period of time, possibly due to the guilt he feels in being responsible for 006’s death, and partly to reuse game assets to pad out the level count and get a little more play out of already made environments.

As mentioned, on Agent, one can blast through this level in less than 30 seconds if one is practiced enough, as all is required of you is to grab a copy of the Goldeneye key that activates a doomsday-lite device mind you (why something so vital is literally laying out in the open on some greasy keyboard jockeys desk is anyone’s guess), copy it for…reasons, and then take a picture of the computer screen for….other reasons.. Totally normal spy stuff. After that, all you got to do is get the fuck out of dodge…err, Siberia, and you’re home free.

Overall, another fine addition to the collection of levels in Goldeneye 64, hitting all the right notes it needs to, without ever feeling too bare bones or overly stuffed…which is an issue we run into ironically, in the exact same place, just a little later down the road. As an aside, I remember this being one of my favorite multiplayer levels for splitscreen vs back in the day, with the obvious number one being the unbeatable Facility, but if in the grand scheme of things, if you’re ever up against a “Facility” like opponent in real life in any kind of competition, you can at least take solace in the fact that, compared to that?

Number two ain’t half bad.

~Pashford