In times of stressful need, one has to have effective ways to blow off some steam, in order to give themselves a little self love, for the sake of cognitive clarity and psychological well being.


…cause it’s definitely going to get worse before it gets better

After our brief excursion with ATE’s weekly Words of Wisdom, we forge on after our gratuitously expedient ingress through the Archives, as Bond and Natalya defenestrate themselves in order to escape, landing them smack dab in the middle of St.Petersburg’s streets, as our racucous replay of GoldenEye 64 lumbers onward.

Once again, the game pulls a confusing narrative rug pull, not the “let’s make extra canonical shit up to increase level count” kinds of fuckery, but the “look what happened just offscreen, even though this level starts right where the last one ended” kinds of horseshit, as the game sees it fit to immediately enforce Natalya has been captured *again*, with absolutely no rational standard as to how this would have happened. This is literally in the name of breaking ingame logic to maintain adjacency with the film continuity, as Ourumov has Natalya in the car during the epic chase scene in the movie, and I guess Rare just wanted the stakes to feel that much higher (or accurate? Oh, that’s rich….)

Quite the lazy execution, however, but whatever, it doesn’t fuck with the gamplay, so let’s just move on.
Streets is a fascinating level to me, as it’s ambitious as it is underwhelming on some level, which may explain why I never hear people talk about it whenever GoldenEye convos come up. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever discussed it IRL with any other players…at all, so it is either truly forgettable in most peoples eyes, or, going by achievement percentage unlock ratios, only about 5% of gamers beat this level on Xbox Live, which may signify to me that if the levels of commitment are in anyway similar as it was on the N64, a lot of people didn’t even get this far, perhaps losing themselves in the splitscreen multiplayer entirely back in the day.

This is definitely one of those moments where it’s a balancing act; giving credit where credit is due, without being a simping stan, in a guilt ridden loyalty test of idolatry, in terms of being realistic about what Streets entails. All of this in reference to the fact that developer Rare was able to fit a vehicle mission into an FPS, which must have been one of the earliest examples of this happening, certainly on consoles. I know there are a metric shit ton of Doom clones on the PC from the mid 90’s, and one of the innumerable amount I didn’t get to may have had some wacky vehicular nonsense at its disposal, so I can’t say with absolute certainty this was truly the first example ever, but it was one of the most notable early examples, in underlining the value of creating varied gameplay in an FPS, as well as putting importance on vehicle related combat in a shooter, so it has an impressive legacy, regardless of whether it was truly the first of its kind.

To that point, it would take half a decade later, when Halo hit the scene, that Bungie started carrying the torch, and cemented the relevancy of vehicles as defaults for shooters moving forward. In this way, Rare really did try in pushing extremely limited hardware, and arguably pulling it off, helping to set a precedent that holds true to this day. The silver lining of its inclusion is of course, it happens to be enjoyable, while simultaneously stress testing the 64 hardware, as I don’t feel as if in any way, shape, or form, Streets, either then or now, feels bloated or frustrating, which are the two deathknells of vehicular related campaign missions. Whether it be the missions themselves being far too stretched out, the vehicle health somehow? paradoxically being weaker in terms of health bar and how many hits it can take vs the player themselves, or the controls being so bad, you honestly would rather just fucking walk. As I said, however, Streets largely avoids all of this, making for a nice little experiment of ingame modalities.

The equivalent of “Streets” in the film, is a huge set piece, and arguably not only a lynch pin in helping to create a memorable chase scene for Brosnan’s Bond, but putting Cold War conflict front and center, as the exchange between a western presence against an eastern standard is ridiculously destructive, and leaves behind an orgy of collateral damage in its wake.

Recreating this 1:1 in the GoldenEye engine was obviously never going to be possible, as replicating such a bombastic and larger than life symphony of destruction just wasn’t going to have the same resonance in game as it does on screen, in very much the same way Runway had to be more or less entirely desouled in its execution for the level to have a chance to even exist. I’m guessing developer Rare felt that since the scene was so integral and a contingent focus of connecting to the ramp up that leads us to the finale, they kind of had to get as close as possible, and as I said, though underwhelming, the mission does work, and the game is able to handle the load without the frame rate morphing gameplay into GoldenEye: Flip Book edition.

Just like in the film, Bond has to race through downtown St.Petersburg, in order to catch up to Ourumov, who is holding Natalya hostage in a fast moving getaway car, so as to deliver her to 006, who is comfortably chilling on an armored train at the edge of town. At the beginning of the level, you can steal a tank without any effort, and basically begin the carnage full tilt. Obviously, the tank controls like a tank, so don’t expect the most responsive turning, and certainly not the epic kinds of power sliding Bond does in the movie. Environmental destruction is also out, as this engine just isn’t capable of doing that, and sadly, due to keeping the performance steady, you don’t ever have to compete with traffic, as moving cars in this level would have just been an absolute nightmare in every conceivable manner. But you do have a tank, so Rare got that right, at least.

The level is mindfully short, which, per my citation of where vehicle levels in shooters get it wrong, less is more with this kind of novelty, and just having a few minutes in this thing is ideal. You basically have infinite shells* with the tank (the count is technically 30, but not in the entire games life span have I ever run out)*, so you can go ape-shit on the soldiers littering the streets, blow up parked cars, destroy makeshift minefields setup to stop you dead in your tracks; they don’t skimp on the explosions, so between just how explosive the minute to minute gameplay is, combined with the music, there is still kind of a loud bravado that comes with tanking, so while a far cry from doing the film justice, the spirit is there, and everything functions in a “good enough” kind of way, you finish the level satisfied.

You do have to watch out for civilian casualties, but on Agent it’s not of any serious concern. This is also the only level (I think)* in the game with a naturally spawning Rocket Launcher (there is one on Depot, but for anyone keeping track, that level takes place following this one, so chronologically speaking, this would be the first chance you get)*, as troops come packing to stop the tank, so if you want to mess around with one, you will have to get out and grab it. On higher difficulties, you do have to go into an alley/apartment to meet up with Valentin, this extra little extension of the in game city does add more charm to make the map feel a little more intricate, but sadly, it is the only extra space of its kind, the rest of the streets completely closed off.

It is interesting to note, however, that in that same alley, there are some troops shooting at you through windows, windows of which the player can just phase through, as the visuals look as if there are panes of glass blocking you, but it is just a graphical ruse, acting as kind of a secret area one can easily miss. Passing through here will net you some grenades and body armor, so it is a helpful little nook of resource on higher difficulties. Ironically, as much as I like what this alcove represents, in being an easily and purposefully obscured missable secret area, is that it does exist, as it brings into focus that it is basically the only one of its kind in game, and ends up coming off as a relevant context of interest, in terms of creating even more replayability and encouraging exploration, by having similar areas in other levels, in what would be a wise page taken out of the book of Doom, but nay, twas not in the cards.

That about does it for Streets: super simple section, well tuned, not as epic as it could have been, but restrained by the technological standards at the time, leading us to an adequate level of fulfillment, that represents what would become a staple for the genre It’s too bad Rare wasn’t able to find a way to make the tank multiplayer compatible, as I’m sure it would have added absurdist wonderment to an already beloved multiplayer suite, but they at least held onto the idea and made it happen as a vs mode for Conker’s Bad Fur Day, which ends up being one of the most underrated multiplayer experiences of its time, but that’s an article about a different Rare game for another day.

~Pashford