GoldenEye 007

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Goldeneye
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GoldenEye 007

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GoldenEye 007 is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console, and based on the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye.

The game has received very positive reviews and sold over eight million copies. It is considered an important title in the development of first person shooters, and has become particularly well-known for the quality of its multiplayer deathmatch mode, as well as its incorporation of stealth and varied objectives into its single player missions.

GoldenEye 007 was followed by a spiritual successor, Perfect Dark, also developed by Rare. The commercial successor was Tomorrow Never Dies, developed by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation.


Development

GoldenEye 007 was originally announced for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System before being stepped up to the Nintendo 64. The intention for the first few months of development was for the game to be an on-rails shooter similar to Virtua Cop; it only became a first-person shooter later in development.

The development team working on GoldenEye 007 was inexperienced; for all but two of them, the project was their first game. As David Doak explained, "Looking back, there are things I'd be wary of attempting now, but as none of the people working on the code, graphics and game design had worked on a game before, there was this joyful naïvete.

The game is based upon the GoldenEye film and its novelization by John Gardner, but, as game designer Martin Hollis explained, many of the missions were extended or modified to allow the player to participate in sequences of which Bond was not originally a part, or those in which he only played a minor role.
The original sets that were created for the film were first converted into complete, believable environments by one group of game designers; when this process was complete, other designers began populating them with objectives, characters and obstacles in order to create a balanced and fun game. According to Martin Hollis, "many of the levels in the game have a realistic and non-linear feel. There are rooms with no direct relevance to the level. There are multiple routes across the level." Hollis also noted that the concept of several varied objectives within each level was inspired by the multiple tasks in each stage of Super Mario 64.

GoldenEye was developed through two and a half years, but, according to Martin Hollis, only the last year was spent developing the game. During the beginning, the engine was built, art assets were made, and the enemy AI was written and polished. The game was delayed numerous times, partly because during development, the team decided to incorporate a multiplayer feature to the game to demonstrate the N64's 4-player capabilities.

In addition to the N64 game, a version of GoldenEye was in development for the Nintendo Virtual Boy, but cancelled before release.

Gameplay and design
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GoldenEye 007's menu system is presented as an MI6 dossier.[8] Four save files are available to track the player's progress through the game's twenty missions, each of which may be played on either "Agent," "Secret Agent," "00-Agent," or "007" difficulty settings, with higher difficulties requiring the player to complete additional and more complex objectives. M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny provide background information on the chosen mission and its goals.

Once a mission is completed, the player may either continue progressing through the story or choose to replay a previously completed level. Completing certain missions within particular target times enables the player to unlock bonus cheat options which make various changes to the graphics and gameplay, and upon fully completing the game on the 00-Agent difficulty level, an additional "007" setting allows the player to customize the challenge of any mission.

The player's initial weapon in most missions is the PP7, an equivalent of James Bond's Walther PPK. Most of the game's firearms are modelled on real-life counterparts, while others are based on fictitious devices featured in the Bond films, such as the Golden Gun and Moonraker laser. The weapons vary in characteristics such as rate of fire and type of ammunition used, and inflict different levels of damage depending on which body part they hit. Stealth is an important element of the game: in order to avoid gunfights with multiple opponents, it is advantageous to eliminate soldiers and security cameras before they spot or hear the player. Certain weapons may be powerful enough to shoot through doors and helmets but are very loud, while others incorporate suppressor or zoom lens attachments to aid the player in killing enemies discreetly.

Some gadgets from the James Bond film series are featured in the game and are often used to complete particular mission objectives; for example, 007's in-game watch includes both the laser from the GoldenEye film, the remote mine detonator from GoldenEye and Moonraker, and the electromagnet from Live and Let Die.

Multiplayer mode

The multiplayer mode was added late in the development process; Martin Hollis noted that the setting was "a complete afterthought". According to David Doak, the majority of the work on the multiplayer mode was done by Steve Ellis, who "sat in a room with all the code written for a single-player game and turned GoldenEye into a multiplayer game."

The multiplayer mode features all of the characters in the game, including enemies and civilians. At first, only 12 characters are available, with 21 more becoming available as progress is made through the game. A button code allows players to temporarily unlock another 31 characters, all but two of them likenesses of the programmers. Variations between characters' heights and builds can affect the challenge of shooting them; for example, there is a significant difference between defeating Oddjob and Jaws.

As with the selectable characters, only a few arenas are available at first, with more becoming available as progress is made in the game. There are eleven arenas, not counting levels that can only be accessed with a GameShark, and a "random" button that chooses the level randomly. The multiplayer-only arenas are: Temple, Complex, Caves, Library, Basement, and Stack. Several arenas are taken from the single player mode, with alterations such as restrictions on which sections of the map can be used - they are the Facility, Bunker, Archives, Caverns, and Egyptian.

The multiplayer mode features five general scenarios, within which options such as weapon schemes may be altered. Weapon selections in the multiplayer mode are grouped by type, such as pistols, automatics, and explosives. Other selectable weapon schemes focus on weapons not frequently found in the single player mode, such as laser guns, throwing knives or the one-hit kill Golden Gun. The "Slappers Only!" setting removes all projectiles, limiting players to hand-to-hand combat.

Normal
A basic free-for-all deathmatch mode, in which players attempt to kill their opponents as many times as possible within a set amount of time. This mode can also be played in teams of 2 versus 1, 2 versus 2, and 3 versus 1.

You Only Live Twice

Similar to Normal mode, except players only have two lives before they are eliminated from the game.

The Living Daylights [Flag Tag]
In this adaptation of the playground game "Tag", a flag or "token" is placed in a fixed location on the map. The player who holds it the longest wins the match. A player cannot use weapons while holding the flag (although it is still possible to slap), but can still collect them to keep opponents from stocking ammunition.

The Man With the Golden Gun
A single Golden Gun is placed in a fixed location on the map. Players must locate and obtain the Golden Gun, which is capable of killing opponents with only one shot regardless of where they are hit, even if they are wearing body armor. After a player acquires the Golden Gun, others are able to see him or her indicated by a blue dot on their radar. The player with the Golden Gun is unable to pick up body armor while opponents can. The only way to obtain the Golden Gun after its removal from the spawn point is to kill the player holding it retrieve it from the corpse.

Licence to Kill
All attacks, including "slapping", will kill opponents in one hit. This mode cannot be played in teams, unlike the other scenarios.
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Storyline

Post by Goldeneye »

Storyline
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Like the movie, GoldenEye 007 starts in Arkhangelsk, USSR during the mid-1980s, where MI6 has uncovered a secret chemical weapons facility at the Byelomorye Dam. James Bond is sent to infiltrate the facility by bungee jumping from the dam, then join his friend and fellow 00-agent Alec Trevelyan in destroying the factory. During the mission, Trevelyan is apparently killed by Colonel Arkady Ourumov, but Bond escapes by commandeering an airplane.

The following missions depict 007's investigation of the satellite control station in Severnaya, Russia where Natalya Simonova and Boris Grishenko work, a location he did not visit in the film. Entirely new to the game is the "Silo" mission in which Bond investigates an unscheduled test firing of a missile in Kirgyzstan, believed to be a cover for the launch of a satellite known as GoldenEye. This space-based weapon works by firing a concentrated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) at any Earth target to disable any electrical circuit within range; from its orbit, it would be a threat to any city on earth.

Bond's visit to Monte Carlo and investigation of the frigate La Fayette and the Eurocopter Tiger (referred to as the "Pirate" in the game) were featured in the film, but here they are expanded, with Bond rescuing several hostages inside the ship and planting a tracker bug on the helicopter before it is stolen by the Janus crime syndicate. Bond is then sent a second time to Severnaya, but during the mission he is captured and locked up in the bunker's cells along with Natalya Simonova — this meeting takes place much earlier than in the film. The two escape the complex seconds before it is destroyed, on the orders of Ourumov, by the GoldenEye satellite's EMP.

As in the film, Bond next travels to Saint Petersburg, where he arranges with ex-KGB agent Valentin Zukovsky to meet the chief of the Janus organisation. This is revealed to be Alec Trevelyan — his execution by Ourumov in the Arkhangelsk facility was faked. Bond and Natalya escape from Trevelyan, but are arrested by the Russian police and taken to the military archives for interrogation. The player must escape the interrogation room, rescue Natalya and communicate with Defence Minister Dimitri Mishkin, who has verified Bond's claim of Ourumov's treachery.

Natalya is captured by General Ourumov, and Bond gives chase with a tank through the streets of Saint Petersburg, eventually reaching an arms depot used by Janus — the player must destroy its weaponry stores, then hitch a ride on Trevelyan's Soviet missile train. This section features many departures from the film storyline, where Bond does not reach the depot, and only enters the train after stopping it with the tank. Bond makes his way through the train, killing Ouromov and rescuing Natalya. However, Alec Trevelyan and his ally Xenia Onatopp escape to their secret base in Cuba.

Natalya accompanies Bond to the Caribbean. Surveying the Cuban jungle aerially, their light aircraft is shot down. Unscathed, Bond and Natalya perform a ground search of the area's heavily guarded jungle terrain, but are ambushed by Xenia, who is quickly killed by Bond. Bond sneaks Natalya into the control center to disrupt transmissions to the GoldenEye satellite and force it to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. An original mission shows Bond following the fleeing Trevelyan through a series of flooded caverns, which conceal a Satellite Dish under water. He then arrives at the antenna of the control centre's radio telescope. Trevelyan attempts to re-align it in a final attempt to restore contact with the GoldenEye. Bond destroys machinery vital to controlling the dish and kills Trevelyan in a precarious firefight high above the dish.
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Additional missions

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Additional missions

Two further missions unrelated to the GoldenEye film were included as bonuses for the completion of the game on higher difficulties. The first, "Aztec Complex", is partially based on the James Bond film Moonraker, and is unlocked when the player completes all 18 missions on Secret Agent difficulty. During the mission, Bond is sent to the Aztec complex in Teotihuacán to investigate the Drax Corporation's unlicensed space exploration in which at least one space shuttle was stolen from NASA. Although Hugo Drax was killed by Bond in the movie, it has seemed that his corporation still existed after his death due to remnants and fragments that were still active. MI6 believes their intentions with the shuttle in space are militant in nature and authorizes Bond to reprogram the shuttle's guidance computer so that MI6 can take control of the craft once it reaches orbit. During the mission, Jaws makes a return in an effort to stop Bond from completing his mission. Many of the rooms in the mission were from the movie and included several new features, such as the launch room for the Moonraker shuttle.

The second bonus level, "Egyptian Temple", blends elements from the films The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die. To access this level players must complete all 18 missions on 00 Agent difficulty. Prior to the mission, M informs Bond that a person claiming to be Baron Samedi is in possession of the deceased Francisco Scaramanga's legendary "Golden Gun" pistol. Samedi has invited James Bond to the El-Saghira temple in the Valley of the Kings to retrieve it. Knowing it is a trap, M sends Bond regardless to take possession of the Golden Gun and eliminate Baron Samedi. Although the player "kills" Samedi three times during the level, he can be seen laughing in an end-of-level cut scene, similar to the ending of Live and Let Die
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Favorite Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me, A View To A Kill, Goldfinger, GoldenEye, For Your Eyes Only, Moonraker, Octopussy, Thunderball

Re: GoldenEye 007

Post by The Saint 007 »

My brother recently downloaded GoldenEye Source on his laptop, and I've been playing it whenever I can. Currently, it's just a multiplayer game, the single player mode is a whole other project. From what I've played so far, I think it's pretty good. There's the arenas from the original game, with some modifications, as well as new arenas, such as a casino. They are also taking single player stages from the original game, and recreating them into multiplayer arenas. My personal favourite arena is Scaramanga's Funhouse, which is actually created by a third party and not the GoldenEye Source team. They did a fantastic job recreating all the rooms with the optical illusions, and even have the James Bond mannequin just like in the film. Although it's made to sort of look like Pierce Brosnan instead of Roger Moore. The remixes of the original music is also done fairly well, and there's some new additional tracks which are good. The AI Bots still need some work, though, and there's not many characters to choose from at the moment. But all the issues with the game will eventually be fixed up with the continued updates.
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The Saint 007
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Favorite Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me, A View To A Kill, Goldfinger, GoldenEye, For Your Eyes Only, Moonraker, Octopussy, Thunderball

Re: GoldenEye 007

Post by The Saint 007 »

Intro and Runway themes from GoldenEye 64 done in 8-bit. 8)

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[video][/video]
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Favorite Bond Movie: GoldenEye, Licence to Kill, The Living Daylights, You Only Live Twice, The World is Not Enough, Casino Royale, For Your Eyes Only
Favorite Movies: Star Wars, V for Vendetta, Dredd, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Braveheart, Raimi Spider-Man Films, Man of Steel, Zulu, Indiana Jones, Road to Perdition, Enemy at the Gates
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Re: GoldenEye 007

Post by Kiwichris »

I just discovered the GoldenEye Source mod myself (link) and highly recommend it to everybody.
"Dalton makes an effective Bond - lacking Sean Connery's grace and humor, and Roger Moore's suave self-mockery, but with a lean tension and a toughness that is possibly more contemporary" - Roger Ebert
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The Saint 007
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Favorite Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me, A View To A Kill, Goldfinger, GoldenEye, For Your Eyes Only, Moonraker, Octopussy, Thunderball

Re: GoldenEye 007

Post by The Saint 007 »

Played a bit of GoldenEye X last night. It basically takes various features from Perfect Dark and combines them with GoldenEye. As with GoldenEye Source, it's currently just a multiplayer game with the single player mode still in development. They brought back a revamped version of the unused citadel stage, the hedge maze from The World Is Not Enough, as well as some stages from single player mode. One of the things I really like about the game is that along with Brosnan, you can also play as Connery, Lazenby, Moore, and Dalton.
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