Rare Limited's first-person shooter adaptation of the classic 1995 James Bond film Goldeneye, released on the N64, stands as one of the finest and most important contributions to the genre. Some of its many innovations include adding real objectives to missions, interactive environments, and the idea of putting an authentic FPS onto consoles.
Multiplayer was also a huge draw, and most '90s kids have fond memories of spending hours with their buddies trading bullets as any of the iconic characters from the franchise. Despite all the hours spent with the classic title, some may have glossed over interesting details hiding in plain sight. here are ten things some may have missed during their time with Goldeneye.
10 Dr. Doak
Difficulty level determines more than the damage enemies do, it also adds objectives for the player. In the second level, "Facility," one such objective is finding a Dr. Doak. The face is modeled after a key member of the studio, David Doak, and the two even share a name.
The character's title isn't a coincidence, either; the real Doak was a scientist before entering the gaming industry. The game designer left Rare shortly afterward to found Free Radical Design, where he worked on the classic TimeSplitters trilogy.
9 Island
Sniper rifles were a new thing for first-person shooters in GoldenEye 007. After all, it was only four years prior when players weren't even able to aim vertically in Doom. In the iconic first level, "Dam," players can use the rifle while on the architectural structure to see a small island deep in the distance among the fog.
Most signs point to the plot of land being an objective early in the level's design. When the idea was scrapped, the island was still left in the map. Accessing it through normal means is impossible, but a Game Shark cheat will let players reach it.
8 Everybody In Multiplayer Has The Same Hands
The effect GoldenEye's multiplayer had on gaming culture cannot be overstated. Four-player deathmatch in any of the maps among friends was always a good time. People didn't care if the frame rate ran at a snail's pace during the frenetic action; all that mattered was the excessive bliss of shooting each other in a virtual environment.
The matches were so intensely enjoyable, nobody noticed that the avatars all had the same hands. Whether one played as Natalia, Xena, Bond, or Oddjob, the mitts holding the weapons never differed.
7 Control Schemes Are Named After Bond Girls
To a modern gamer, the controls, and the N64's controller in general, is like piloting an alien spaceship. Rare packed in several control schemes with the title, including one utilizing two controllers for an experiment in dual analog aiming.
Veteran fans of the Bond franchise will recognize each of the setups' names as callbacks to the women of the films. Honey references Dr. No, Solitaire is from Live and Let Die, and so on and so forth. Most of them are less than subtle puns.
6 Red Shirts In The Streets
"Streets" is a level taking place in St. Petersburg. One objective tasks 007 with protecting select civilians. All of these NPCs have red shirts, which science fiction aficionados will correctly see as a shout out to Star Trek.
Everybody wearing a red shirt on the Enterprise is expendable and usually bites it during the episode. This is a long-running joke among fans that has since become a common phrase everywhere. Since the level takes place in Russia, it takes on a double meaning; red has long been associated with the eastern European superpower.
5 The Watch
One wouldn't expect developers to put a lot of thought or creativity into a pause menu, but GoldenEye went above and beyond the call of duty by having James look at his watch to freeze the action. It helps the player feel more like the iconic spy and deepens the overall immersion by making a game mechanic more organic.
Look at the watch long enough and one may notice the hands actually reflect the proper time of day. The small artistic touch was entirely unnecessary towards making a good game, but one has to commend the attention to detail.
4 The Faces
The seminal N64 title had mind-blowing graphics for its time. The environments were huge, every weapon looked unique, and the character models outshone all of its contemporaries. How did the faces of the characters get such a realistic look?
Mainly, the henchmen were modeled after members of the development team. The game aimed for a grounded aesthetic in a time when the feat seemed impossible, but designing characters based on real people certainly helped them achieve this goal.
3 Goldeneye VHS
One funny easter egg involves a VHS copy of the movie. One objective in the "Bunker 2" mission requires Bond to pick up CCTV tape. Before snatching up the target, take a good lock at what it actually is. The design is that of the GoldenEye tape. The game came out two years after the film, so the VHS was available by then.
The character in the game would have been wise to watch the VHS before progressing through the story. If he did, he would have seen everything coming.
2 Four Bonds
This detail isn't in the actual game but can be found in the instruction manual. A common bit of trivia states how the four Bond actors prior to Pierce Brosnan were slated to appear in the game, but the idea was axed because of complications with the rights to their images.
Their models are impossible to access within the game, even with a Game Shark, but the instruction manual shows a screenshot with the four of them in use during a multiplayer match.
1 The Cradle And Statue
A Game Shark cheat allows deathmatch in single-player levels. The areas generally don't have spawn locations or item placement, making them fairly useless in competition. However, "Cradle" and "Statue" do have these two features, making them fully functional as arenas.
This implies that the two levels were prepped for inclusion, but taken out deep into production. They run even slower than the normal multiplayer stages, perhaps explaining why they were cut. It's a shame too; "Cradle" is an especially fun map to play with friends.