Amdist the bombast and the bullet holes, the violence born of national woes, stands tall and proud the human spirit, with all of their eloquent prose.


Well, if it’s true what they say about people being made in “god’s image”, then god is just some freak ass gooner chud pumping loads to Power Rangers porn in a mid-western basement somewhere at 3 in the afternoon, so put me down as unimpressed

Admittedly, a disappointment hangs in the air, as I was unable to string together reason between my Words of Wisdom and my replay of Goldeneye 64; the ideal blend of Wisdom being somewhere in the middle of the Venn Diagram involving Empathy, Experience, and Egalitarianism…throw in some electric energy involving the epoch of modern day interactivity; a still budding medium that at its apex, provides an engagingly evocative sense of emotionality, and you’ve got a perfect storm in the form of a message delivery system any Tish, Dot, or Mary can vibe with….

….but at the end of the day, Goldeneye 64 is a game where you can shoot people in the butthole and watch them wiggle funny afterwards, so perhaps not the most romantic avenue on which to drive a vehicle of social commentary upon.

No point in bemoaning the past or lamenting about a possible future when we have a perfectly palpable present to deal with, yes? Continuing on with our frigid sojourn through the tumultuous climate of the Cold War, we find ourselves starting mission 3, level 6 of the GoldenEye 64 campaign, named “Silo”, which is the first area in the game Rare went completely off script for, as no such set piece or even cutaway/filler scene in the film exists at this location. This is another moment, much like the Severnaya “Surface/Bunker” duoloagy, which were added to make the level variety more robust, while giving players more to chew on by reusing assets from other bits of the game Rare had lying around. While the first trip to Severnaya is largely a remixed deviation of the return trip, Silo at least has an impressive scope to it, as the immense verticality of the level is made abundantly apparent by the massive missile you start next to at the beginning of the level, and of which you pass many times, as you ascend through the base of operations that makes this whole thing tick….tick, and one imagines, eventually booms.

Where we are in the film is totally irrelevant at the moment, but for the sake of posterity, after the “Timeline A scenario” (set in the movie), where Severnaya is exploded so hard most of the debris lands in the 9th level of Hell, Bond has to do some Bonding in Russia, and meets up with Jack Wade, and they have a boyfriend fight or something (if I’m remembering correctly). We are then treated to the best cover of “Stand by Your Man” ever caught on film (sorry Blues Brothers), as Bond then meets up with Hagrid before he joined Hogwarts, so he can have some rough foreplay with Xenia Onatopp, who takes her namesake very seriously. After some thigh busting and cheek burning, Bond, in finally catching up to the not quite dead yet* Sean Bean (give it time), ends up in Statue Park, aka, a location that any Goth Communist with an unhinged LEGO fetish would have their wet dreams be made of. However, if the game followed this exact pacing, we, the players, not only miss out on Silo, if the game was being congruent with the movie mind you, but would also exclude multiple of the following levels, four in total, skipping right to Statue, and missing out on a decent chunk of gaming goodness. So, tl;dr, no Silo on the silver screen.

But again, this helps to underline a point I made quite recently about stellar media adaptations, in learning how to translate from one medium to another, by understanding how to “metaphysically speak the language”, in how to translate from one to another, so the games inaccuracy is our benefit.

Not that it truly matters, but I think one of the reasons Silo has a slight alibi in sliding under the closing door of canonical reasoning, is that much like the Severnaya duology, the Silo involves a “pre-present day” reference point: both the first trip to Severnaya and Silo take place before the point our current hunt for GoldenEye would take place; one four years ago, the other two, respectively. The implication obviously being that Bond has been working on this case for a long time, and one can view this trip to the Silo, one that takes place off screen in reference to the film, as “expanded universe” related horseshit someone didn’t have the time or energy to make a “cross-pollinated media synergy” comic book about.

Though again; our benefit, as the Silo is quite a fun little romp through some raucous latitude with surprisingly limited liminals. At least on Agent difficulty, the mission structure is far more gracious which its aims, as “easy does it” gameplay do be doing sometimes, since as Bond, all you must do is make your way to the top of the Silo structure, take a picture of the model of the GoldenEye satellite, and then get the hell out of dodge. You do have to be concerned about scientist casualties, but it’s percentage based on dead vs alive, of which there are many, and the scientists have a decent amount of health on Agent, so you’d really have to be going full blown Rambo (post Pt.1, everyone forgets Rambo only incites one death in the first movie, and that’s in self-defense with a rock vs a helicopter!), to make that kind of chaotic collateral come to pass.

They start you off with a PP7 (silenced pistol), which almost comes off as a bit of a troll, as stealth as an option in this mission is pretty much non-existent, as most of the progress involves going through lengthy hallways with a multitude of men aiming directly at the door you enter, like an old cowboy just waiting for an unwanted guest to arrive with nothing but sickly sweet chew and a fist full of boomstick at the ready, with which to blow whatever poor bastard who walks straight through that door all the way to kingdom-fucking-come. There are intermittent connecting sections involving low-budget computer laboratories, with which to collect relevant items (most of which relates to higher difficulty levels). These rooms are more or less for a moment to catch your breath in, in-between the Old Boy like hallways the base is littered with. Alternatively, these rooms may serve as a polarizing chance to curse your maker, after you or an enemy soldier accidentally shoots a computer terminal, which then swiftly explodes right in a poor scientists face, possibly ending your mission, and negating the last ten tooth and nail fought minutes. Such a sadness.

One of the only other mentions of import involves that on higher difficulties, you have to set explosive charges, which kick off a timer that only allows you six minutes to escape. For those incapable of using 4th dimensional thinking to lessen the pain of this mission objective, this spells an anxiety ridden disaster, and adds all the more complication to an already gun porn heavy level, but again, we are on Agent, so hakuna matata, y’all.

Overall, and with Agent in mind for this critique, as the difficulty of this one jumps up significantly on higher challenge modes, is overall a great addition to the game. Even on Agent, it is kind of the first level that says “okay big boy, play time is over”, as you are forced to face a legion of men, and stealth has been essentially taken out of the picture. Add in the high ratio of possible critical mission failures due to too many scientist deaths in an incredibly enclosed space, and it is definitely the most tense level yet, signifying a heel turn in terms of kicking it up a notch in the realm of the spicy.

This is also a level that benefits greatly from players judicious usage of the crouch button, as there are a number of metal crates one can hide behind, for when you are either reloading, or just dodging a volley of gunfire. I’ll be honest though; I’m not quite sure if it’s because other gamers don’t even know that you can duck in this game, or they simply don’t give a shit about such “west coast liberal elitist” battle strategies, but I’ve never seen another player in real life ever crouch in this game in my life. Luckily, on Agent, since you’re a fucking walking bullet sponge, you never really have to, so asses to that, then.

As a fun little piece of developer background spilt tea, one of the influences used in the making of Goldeneye 64 was Virtua Cop, a groundbreaking light gun game that Sega put out in 94, and was the first game in its genre to use 3D polygonal graphics during gameplay. Reportedly, developer Rare even played around with using “on-rails segments” ala light gun games, where the player would move forward on a set path after all of the enemies were defeated, though they dropped that idea and it never made it into the final product. If you look at the level design of Silo, however, one would be led to believe its conception possibly sprung out from both the influence of Virtua Cop, and the idea of an on-rails shooter element, as its design seems perfectly suited to such a style of gameplay. I hadn’t really thought of this as a possibility before this most recent playthrough, but one of the reasons replaying old games can be such an engaging experience, is due to the fact that once you’ve played through a level a dozen times, you start to notice the little things you were too busy drowning in bullets and blood the first time to notice.

Definitely one of those levels that, with just a little less polish, may have been an absolute drag to play through, due to it’s minorly repetitive structure and high enemy count, but the music does a lot to set the mood and enhance the energy, and because it’s so fast moving. you don’t tend to care that much that the structuralism of your progress is largely a repetition of itself. Like I said, there is a lot of worth in mentioning the changes of difficulty levels, as I feel like Silo might be in a much higher personal tier of quality if judged on Agent, but if memory serves correctly, this one becomes an easily induced headache on 00 Agent, so mileage varies.

Much like how Silo ends, with Bond just casually getting on an elevator after committing mass slaughter, and kind of anti-climatically fixing his suit, elevator doors slowly pressing together, giving you this overwhelming sense of a “huh” feeling , I end this article in a similarly surprising, low key manner…

“not with a bang, but a whimper…between the desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow….” (T.S. Elliot- Hollow Men)

~Pashford