An Exercise in Futility

Trying to Beat Goldeneye 007 over the Weekend

Just recently, I stumbled upon my Nintendo 64 (N64) sitting in a box at my parent’s house. I grabbed it and my roommates and I set it up at our place. We dug out the games and scoured over them until we came upon the mother lode: Goldeneye 007. The memories came flooding back. All those days and nights wasting away my childhood trying to beat one more level and get one more kill. This game is the epitome of classic. Many schoolyard arguments were settled through its multiplayer, and its single player birthed many rumors about hidden cheat codes and secret areas.

For those of you who don’t know what Goldeneye 007 is, shame on you! For everybody else, you would know it as one of the best, or at least most popular, first-person shooter games to come out on a console in the mid-to-late nineties.

We started to dig into the game on Saturday morning. It’s now 6:00am on Monday. All told, we collectively played the game for a conservative 12 hours. Here are the facts.

Fact: 00 Agent is still hard as balls!

00 Agent (pronounced “double O”) is the hardest difficulty setting the game has to offer. There are more enemies that are harder to kill and more objectives that are harder to complete. We are seasoned video gamers and veterans of Goldeneye, but it’s been at least 10 to 13 years since any one of us has touched the game. Never the less, we thought we would breeze right through, like the glory days.

Nope. On top of the difficulty with the game itself, we were also fighting the N64 controller. Depending on which controller we were using, the stick was either too sensitive or sluggish. We managed, though.

We each took a few turns. As soon as one of us died a frustrating amount of times, we would tag another in. The game was hard. In our recent years of playing video games, we were used to mid-level checkpoints and enemies that only take a few hits to kill. No such luck here. Once you die, you start all over again. Those tedious moments of trying to snipe those dudes in the pillbox on the Dam level really took their toll. All told, we made it to the Facility (the second level for you shameful few). We tried to beat the Facility for a good few hours, but just couldn’t, and gave up for the time being…

Fact: Multiplayer is still fun as hell!

Goldeneye’s bread and butter are in the multiplayer. There’s something about the design of those maps and the frantic game play that gives this title so much replayability! Multiplayer is where we spent the majority of our time. It was still as crazy and fun as I remembered.

At the end of each round, we had that “one more round” itch that kept us playing for hours. The maps are well designed and, with a good weapon set, you can play for hours. Throw in a great scenario and you’ve got yourself some intense games.

Some maps we knew every inch of from childhood, so we knew where to go and where to hide. Shit got downright brutal at times! We played for hours, often losing track of time. Aside from Fallout 3 I can’t remember the last time a game did that to me.

Fact: The game still holds up

I’m blown away by the dollar value to play-time ratio. This game paid for itself 10 times over. Few games can claim that. Plus with local multiplayer, you can ensure replayability as long as you got a few friends on the couch.

If you still have this game somewhere, dig it out! I’ve read claims on the internet saying that because of the controls, this game doesn’t hold up. But we got used to the controls about a half hour in. I implore you to seek this game out and throw it in. It’s truly a masterpiece and one I will be playing for a long time.

-The Marshall