Welcome to Remember 64. We're this week.
We're playing. Do I even have to tell you?
Welcome to the show everyone. This is a very special episode.
Yes, that's right, we have booted up Goldeneye 007 for the
Nintendo 64, likely one of the most influential games of the
generation of the 90s, and, some could argue of gaming in
general. Jiggy look back is in the
cohosting chair once again. But to be honest, it's not
myself or Jiggy that make this episode as special as we think
it is. It's because we have Elise Nor,
associate professor at Regis University and the person that
has written the book on Goldeneye 007.
She is the author of Goldeneye 007 from Boss Fight Books.
According to the website, it says quote through extensive
interviews with Goldeneye creators, writer and scholar
Elise Nora traces the story of how this unlikely licensed game
reinvigorated A franchise and genre.
Learn all the stories behind how this iconic title was developed
and why Goldeneye Double O Seven has continued to kick The Living
Daylights out of every other Bond game since.
And because of all this, we're going to be doing something a
little bit different. Yes, I usually intro the show
just like I'm doing now, but I'm not going to go through the
history of Goldeneye and its development.
We have a lease with us if anyone knows anything about
Goldeneye and the development of it, she is the perfect, perfect
person throughout this book, which myself and Jiggy read.
Highly recommend it by the way. Never mind, just this podcast,
but it's something that is definitely worth reading, you
know, She spoke to a lot of the people that created this game at
Rare, and it's just such an extensive look at what this game
means and how it was created. So instead of taking the time
and listening to me talk for a few minutes, we're going to
bring a lease in in just a moment.
And we're going to have a full on discussion about the game,
its development, how it relates to the movie, how it relates to
the franchise, what it means for society, what it meant then,
what it means now. Oh, we just have a whole lot to
go through. So it's time to cover one of the
biggest games of the Nintendo 64 and the 90s.
Goldeneye 007, Thank you very much for listening to Remember
64, a proud member of the Tokyo Beats Podcast network.
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Do you know how to use one of these?
Goldeneye. Load a rumble pack and see how
it feels when 007 meets N64? Well, we usually have a pretty
long spiel at the beginning of our episodes.
I usually talk everyone's ear off with the, you know,
development of these games and how were they, how they were
created and everything. But instead, this time we were
lucky enough to have, I would say, an expert on the show.
I would say if there's anybody to talk about Goldeneye 007 on
this console, it's going to be Elise Snore, the author of the
Boss books. Book about Goldeneye, about its
development, about everything around Goldeneye.
Elise, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me.
It's great to be with y'all I am.
I'm so excited because not only is Goldeneye obviously a very
big game when it comes to the N64 and really just the 90s and
this generation of games, but to be able to talk about someone
who did so much work in order to make this book and talk to so
many people that helped develop it and everything, it's it's
really exciting. Jiggy man.
Like I don't know I I can go for the next like 10 minutes be like
I'm excited, but I'm assuming we're we're in the same button.
Yes, absolutely. And I'm here, by the way.
Yes. And you're here.
So at least let's, let's talk a little bit about, I'm going to
ask you about you about how you came to writing a book like this
because we were sort of, you know, joking before we hit
record that, you know, me and Jiggy are experts at the N64
games, which I think we're just going to own it.
We're going to run with it. But we're giving you.
Yeah, exactly. We're giving you the expert
title on on Goldeneye, double the seven.
And you know, a lot of people can sit here and be like I
played this game or any other game over and over and over as a
kid. But it's different when you've
dug into the history and all that.
But but how do you get to even get to this point of writing a
book like this? Well, so I've always been a big
fan of games. I I played my first game before
I could read or write. My dad sat me down in front of
Super Mario Brothers Three and Doom and Mist and Day of the
Tentacle when I was tiny. So I grew up with games.
I've always loved games. Can I stop you right there to
ask, Yeah, please, what was your first video game?
It was Super Mario 3. It was Super Mario.
What a glorious way to start. Sonic the Hedgehog.
Excellent.
Also excellent. Also excellent.
If we're all sharing your mind. Yeah, mine is not a standout
title because I didn't get a console.
I mean the first one that I think I owned and I played
rather than like watching someone play, let's say Super
Mario Three or something like that, was this like old F1
racing game that was on our PC that you would just control with
the arrow keys or in maybe was indie probably.
Arrow keys, Yeah, that's. Amazing the magic controlling a
game with arrow keys like forward was gas and the back
button was break. Like it was that kind of thing.
Literally, you just used for keys and it almost looked like
this, you know, wire frame representation of the cars.
And he's only sat in the seat. I think, honestly, I think it's
just called like Indy 500, like that's all it's called.
I don't know how we had it because my parents do not play
games, never have. So I don't know where it came
from. Maybe it was just preinstalled
on whatever, you know, little PC we had.
I don't know, whatever. That's the first one I remember
that I actually sat there and played is probably that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Incredible. Yeah, incredible.
Interrupting. I just was really curious.
Yeah, I love it. Please, please interrupt.
So I just, I always loved games. I went to college and studied
creative writing in journalism. I became a English professor.
I was living up in Alaska, starting to get into my, like,
you know, late 20s, feeling a little nostalgic about the games
I grew up playing. And I saw a call from boss fight
books for proposals about video game, for books about video
games. They release, you know, one like
standalone titles about individual games.
And I was thinking, like, you know, mostly I write poetry, but
it would be really fun to apply those journalism skills, to
write a book that says documentary work and memoir work
combined on a video game. So I wrote a book about Super
Mario Three, since that was my original favorite game of all
time. And then a few years later I was
got the itch again to do some more video game writing and I
pitched the editor gave a book about Goldeneye.
So sort of drawing together my video game fandom, my love of
writing, memoir and creative work and also wanting to put
those those journalism skills to get use and and keep those fresh
with interviews and research and documentary style writing.
That's that's awesome. I will say too.
I I don't know if you have any involvement of any of the
authors have any involvement in like what even like the books
look like. But the Super Mario Brothers 31
literally has a real raccoon just on the front of it, which
is just fantastic. And then the artistry that kind
of goes into the I guess there's there's two editions of the
Goldeneye one there's a regular then there's a deluxe and the
the look of them are both very cool.
Like it's it's very simple art. But I just want to point out
that if anyone looks it up, I find them very charming.
All three of those, so. Oh, thanks.
Yeah, they did. A pretty cool job with that too.
Sort of. I think the first few seasons
that he doesn't in seasons gave during the endor of Boss.
First few seasons of Boss by books.
The covers all have a real life representation of something
that's you know, graphically rendered in the game.
So in my case for Mario it's the raccoon.
But there are plenty of other really great and hilarious
examples of sort of like real life animals or objects on those
covers. And lately he's been going for a
more stylized, which I think looks equally great, sort of
more more graphical looking art. And in the case of the hardcover
of my book, something that was hand drawn by our wonderful
cover designer. Yeah, it's it's it's really
cool. Yes.
Like even like the the real life ones, like the Resident Evil
ones as a typewriter, like that's great.
I love. Yeah, yeah, like that.
That's really fine. Like a really old school
typewriter, too. Like, it looks like it's from
like the 30s or something. So that's awesome.
The paperback. I should just, I should just say
in case people can't see it, the paperback of Goldeneye.
I just think it's the funniest thing.
It's it's a guy in a boulder hat with his back to you and a
little. Like a little crosshairs right
above his head. So it's supposed to be odd job,
you know? He's like just just too short
for yours. So that just cracked me up that
we were able to do that. I was like, this.
This is everything. I always agree.
They definitely know what. They're doing when you know you
know, right? Like, you know, you know, OK, so
let's, let's talk a little bit. Let's talk about the game that
you mentioned. Obviously you've been playing
games your whole life. Let's talk about like the 64.
You know, for certain consoles kind of hit people at a certain
age and they just sort of stick with them, right.
And the 64 has this great like, you know, nostalgic feel of
getting people together from. I would say that the the
standout games unless it's, you know, Zelda or even Mario 64,
like yeah, you could swap controllers and all that kind of
stuff. But you know, sitting down,
playing Mario Party, sitting down, playing this game, what
was your experience with the with the 64 as you as you grew
up? It came out when I was 9, and
this was a perfect age because I had grown up on the NES and
Super NES and fallen in love with games like Mario and Donkey
Kong, and I loved adventure games and platforming games.
And so when the N64 came out, I was sort of maturing into the
those more complicated games like Mario 64, you know, Star
Fox 64, Shadows of the Empire and of course Goldeneye.
And then going into, you know, middle school and high school
and then even on to college, it was just the perfect golden eye.
In particular, the perfect game to to play with your friends, to
play at sleepovers. Of course, we've all had these
wonderful experiences of playing with our best friends and our
siblings. In my case, my my college
boyfriend and his roommate and my roommate.
It was just such a great party game and I think the N64 in
general, you know, really facilitated that.
We also played a lot of Mario Kart, a lot of Super Smash
Brothers, and it's just. You know, actually I have some
friends from out of town from from North Carolina right now in
my house. And last night the four of us
were all in our like 30s and 40s, gathered around my old N64.
Sitting on the floor. And played Goldeneye slappers
only and we were just laughing so hard.
My wife like one, she's never beat a video game in her life
and she beat all of us and slappers only.
So I do think the N64 is you know that as as you talk about
on your show a lot is just it's the ultimate like party
friendship. OK.
Just just going off that, so multiplayer, were you good?
No, OK, OK. No, absolutely.
Not like to ask because I suck. No, it's very hard.
I think that I was always the one, sort of like launching
grenades and then blowing myself up by them or walking into my
own minds. I was like, decent.
Like I would never be last, but I would definitely never be
first. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. That's true for.
That's true for all the games. I'd always try to gear
multiplayer things back to Smash Bros because it could dominate
in Smash Bros, but. Yeah, you know, we gotta, you
gotta, you gotta have variety. But I'd like to win.
Totally. I mean I've never been a super I
I talk about this in the Super Mario book, but like I've never
been a super competitive person around.
Like beating other people. Like that's never been a thing
that gives me a lot of a lot of joy.
I am very self competitive. So anything that's going to be
like those timed missions in Goldeneye or the the single
player campaign, like wanting to level up past agent to double O
agent or you know double 007 and all those extra objectives.
Like I like long distance running and not sports with
balls and points. Like it's always just kind of
like about endurance and completion for me.
So I did. I did really love the single
player campaign too. Yeah, I mean, and that's the
thing. And he's just, it's some of the
notes that I that I wrote down as I was reading the book to
where it really is the single player is what we'll get more
into. We'll probably be jumping all
over this game and stuff because there's just so much to talk
about. And like I said, we you're here,
so we're going to talk about everything we can.
The single player is is something that for whatever
reason, when I was saying like even telling myself when I
started the show, that you know, when we get to gold and I have
this distinct feeling that I'm going to have this nostalgia
more for the single player than I do even for the multiplayer.
Not that obviously everybody seemed around this time to to be
playing multiplayer on this, whether it's 2-3 or four people.
But the sort of create your own fun type of thing that is like a
really big thing you can do in open world games now or even
other FPS games that have come out since then.
Like Halo is a prime example of games like that, I think because
of the mechanics. And this is one of those games.
But it's clear that in the book, as I'm as you're you know,
writing about all the experiences and how these guys
made this game and how this, how Rare made the game, that's
exactly what they wanted. In some ways I think I grew up
thinking like, oh, we're breaking the game quote UN quote
breaking the game. Or oh, we're we're just messing
around with the mechanics. And they didn't really want us
to do that with the Minds or they don't really want us to do
that with the Rockets or whatever.
But that is what they wanted. And they it seems like they just
left things in there to have fun with.
And they left things in there that were goofy, like things
that we thought were funny, they thought were funny, and that's
why they were in there. And I love that.
Absolutely, absolutely. They were so motivated by fun, I
mean, it was 8 guys, only two of whom had ever worked on a game
before. So they were all these rookies.
Crazy. They were just going based on
what they loved and they were playing games with each other
the whole time. They were playing Super
Bomberman and Doom and so they they lived and really worked in
an environment of play all the time and they play tested
everything with each other just to see if it was fun so.
That really comes through and they talk about how there are
these sandbox elements of Goldeneye, that some of them are
intentional, some of them are unintentional messiness they
left in. Whether it's sort of like you
know little things that you just noticed that are little Easter
eggs that are super fun or the ability to like shoot a soldiers
hat off of his head and they the hats can start stacking and you
can do weird things and juggle hats and that.
Like the the kind of multiple routes through a level, multiple
ways to beat a level. All that kind of like low fi,
open world concept was super influential on the game, being
as fun to choose your own path as it was.
Yeah. One of the things that I
remembered as I was reading was, and as I picked up the game
again was everything explodes. Like everything.
Yeah, everything. Everything.
That's the.
Chair. You should have chairs.
Yeah, yeah. It's just, oh, OK, you know,
Yeah. And some stuff that makes sense,
makes sense. So sure, the computer's.
Going to be right. You want to know what I picked
up right away? I was like, oh, I remember this
drawing pictures on the wall with the bullet holes.
Yeah, and I was like, you can write your name.
Yeah, I wasn't writing my name. I definitely drew a penis.
And it definitely was like a thing that like immediately.
I'm like just. You have to do it.
It was like all this takes me back.
You absolutely have to, Yeah. Yeah, it should have been like a
cheat code or so. It could have got you, could
have got you one of the cheats. It gives you a special gun.
That would be funny. Remember the prison level that
you start in, There's definitely like urine stains on the wall.
You can see it like they've drawn that into the art and
they're very. They were very prurient
themselves. There's quite a few things in
there that are like naughty schoolboy humor as they call it.
Like the DD the DD Destovi pistol was named after double D
bra size slappers. Only is actually slapper is a
reference to prostitutes. It's a British slang for
prostitutes. And then that line where
Moneypenny in the pre mission briefing says she says like.
Be careful with that chopper, James.
And she's she's referring to the helicopter.
I never got that joke as a kid, but it's because I guess an
England chopper is slang for penis.
Yeah, I I think so. They had.
I rewatched the movie. I think there's a line very
similar to that because they sort of do a back and forth in
the one scene that they're together.
There's something similar to that.
Yeah, but but that's the other thing too, right?
It's very easy as a kid to just skip over those, like mission
briefings, but they're written really clever, you know, like
there's there's some stuff like that I easily would have missed.
I don't know, chopper. I knew a chopper was a
helicopter. That's what I Even now.
Honestly, until until I read that in your book, I never would
have. Made It's very British.
I mean, I didn't, I didn't get it.
But yeah, they put all kinds of really, really silly little
things like that in there. And they a lot of the time they
were literally they told me in interviews just trying to see
what they could get away with. And sometimes, and sometimes,
like in the case of David Doke, including himself as a character
in the game, they were told no, The developers told them, or
even just the inclusion of a multiplayer option, that their
bosses at Rare said absolutely not, you may not do this, and
then they just did it anyway. I love that.
So just like looking at the beginning of your book, talking
about the history of Rare, the history of the game, I love that
they didn't want to talk to James Bond.
They were like, no, no, we don't want to do a license game.
And I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, that's instant money grab
cuz you get auto recognition. But they were like, no, it's not
original, like it's not something we wanna mess with.
And I'm like, that's so interesting to me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think they were.
It was rare, kind of at the height of their powers.
And they were getting cocky and they were for good reason.
They were making beautiful games and they were really, really
interested in aiming high and only taking on really high
prestige projects. And so they, you know, that's
how that's how I end up giving the project to these rookies,
because they were like, what? I guess this will just be
something for the new guys to cut their teeth on.
It's not gonna matter. It's a it's a movie license
game. That's like a kiss of death as
far as quality. Those games are always so bad.
And still, and honestly, that's still a stain that that sticks
around, right? In a way, yeah.
It really doesn't. For it's not, I don't think it's
as evident as maybe it used to be, but fair enough.
I mean, I feel like I would question it too.
We say this and then I just like I remember that stigma of movie
tie in games, and I remember there were a lot of them.
But I also remember a lot of good ones that were so much fun.
Spiderman Two comes to my head. I was like that game was so much
fun. I was going to bring that one
up, yeah. I like there were a couple
Matrix games that were really fun.
Yeah, there was just like, it wasn't it, You know, it's a
stigma because the bad ones that were bad were really bad, But
there were gems out there, like, you ever played The Incredibles.
I know that that's a little more Disney Pixar.
Slaps. I did play a Peppa Pig on the
Xbox with my 4 year old the other day and it did not slap.
It did not slap for me, but it slapped for her and that's what
matters. Yeah, that matters.
When that Next up is apparently a Bluey game too.
And Bluey's, you know, that's great.
So that that could be kind of cool.
Bluey's fun. I don't even have kids, and I've
watched a few episodes of my officials, which is fabulous.
Blue is a show for any age. I'm coming.
Really. Yeah.
I love that game. The bite the.
Bite size episodes, everything. It's great.
It's actually so sweet. So sweet.
Also to the in the development of everything to which I didn't
know this at all. So I was just like checking off
boxes. I've learned something today.
You know one of those things every time I got to a new couple
pages of your book, I was like, I didn't know that.
I didn't know that I have all these like how?
Great, this is amazing that this was this was originally.
Similar to what Virtuo Cop was, which was, which is constantly
brought up in the development that this was an on rails
shooter at first, which I had no idea.
I guess it makes sense based on technology and time and
everything, but like I just can't even imagine that being
this game or even a game like that on the 64 at that time.
It feels like it was like that for so long in development too,
which is so crazy to me. Totally.
Yeah, it was real. This was the one thing about the
development process that I got really mixed answers from the
guys about. They really had trouble
remembering when it came off the rails.
Some of them said we always wanted to put it off the rails
and others said, you know, we didn't decide for sure that
we're gonna take it off the rails until after Super Mario 64
came out and we saw how fun and open world was on the N64.
I mean, part of the problem is they didn't have an N64.
For the vast majority of the development process.
They didn't have the controller. They didn't know it was
possible. They didn't know what the
consoles really be able to do. But yeah, they were so committed
to the virtual cop model that they would go to the arcade and
bring big bags of coins and sort of sit there and feed the
machine coins and really learn. Virtua Cop one of the the first
artists hired on the game, Carl Hilton, was giving some advice
to his friend Brett Jones when Brett was applying to be the
next the second artist on the game.
And Brett Jones had never played a video game before.
He was a real talented artist and he knew a lot about James
Bond. He was a huge James Bonder, but
he didn't play video games. So Carl Hilton told him, listen,
in your interview, just make sure you talk a lot about Virtua
Cop. It's really important to Martin
and Brett did and the child. So, yeah, yeah, there's,
there's, I mean, I mentioned this book, but there's, there's
footage of it on the rails still all the way up through, I mean
like within maybe 6 to 9 months of it coming out.
Yeah, I think I wrote down that it was yeah, last minute it was
E 396. It's you can wrote in the book
that that it was still technically on rails and that's
when Mario 64 and Gold and I were shown and it's like that's
just crazy. I don't that's crazy.
And there's still, there's still, there's still levels that
show that influence, right. So like the train level really
feels like a Rails level. It's very linear.
You know, you're very tight shooting guys, they pop out.
But the fact that then you can also have levels you get lost
in, you know maze like levels or levels where you can really have
a different strategy approach depending on, I mean it just it
it made the game, the fact that it's open world and so yeah,
huge, huge decision. Yeah.
I can't believe that. I can't believe it.
I just can't. It blows my mind, yeah.
What blows my mind is the fact that they didn't have a dev kit.
They didn't have any. I remember reading that I'm like
nothing, like no, nothing. How do you design something for
something you have no idea how it's like?
Now that's wild. Yeah, it's it's wild.
And it definitely led to a lot of challenges in their process,
whether it was the the musicians trying at the last minute to,
you know, basically they were, they were told the N64 could do
a lot more than it ended up being able to do.
So that meant the artists were screwed on.
You know that the size of some of their images and files they
do a lot of work compressing and cutting and shrinking things.
Same thing with the musicians. And I do think that you know the
the thing about the N64 controllers that you know it's I
guess like according to legend the controller was really
designed for Mario 64. It's it's a that plays really
well for that game. But then the Golden Eye guys you
know it's it's a horrendously sort of horrible controller for
a first person shooter. However, if you play with one
controller in each hand and and you know you have one control
stick for Amy and one for moving, it technically is the
first dual analog control stick. Sugar.
Right. Which is also, I honestly, I
don't know. How long have we have, you know,
nerds like me or us. Been on the Internet?
I did not know. Nope.
That was a thing. Until, I think, less than a year
ago. I had no idea.
So crazy, so awkward. And I I I feel like now that the
game has been re released for Xbox and Switch, which it wasn't
at the time that my book came out, there were rumors about it,
right? But it hadn't happened.
Now you know, I don't know about you guys if you've played it on
on those consoles, but I cannot get used to it.
I cannot get used to doing so cold night with dual analog.
I kind. Of hate I have.
Yeah. I have my Xbox controller still
sitting beside me because I just.
I opened it back up and played like the first two stages again.
Cool, cool, cool. How did it go?
Today so I. So I have I have the cartridge,
I have a Switch and I have it on on Xbox cuz I have Game Pass.
So I I dabbled in all of them, but I think I'm just too
tailored to playing with dual, dual sticks now, So really,
yeah. Yeah, So I think, you know, I'm
kind of the, the, I'm talking about this game that's 25 plus
years old and yet here I am playing it with an Xbox and an
Xbox controller, I I think. For me I just my mind now works
where I have a separate joystick to constantly look around as
opposed to you know, not relying on auto aim.
But auto aim is obviously something that is that is big
and in the in the original and and on the switch as well.
It works almost exactly the same and having to press R and look
around and stuff is is fine because you don't always have to
do it. But I found I was like looking
like I was doing this and I was walking weird directions and
stuff, which is cooler. Yeah, it just feels a little bit
awkward, and I don't know if that's because it's what it
always was, but I don't remember it feeling that way.
But it's interesting because me and Jiggy just played Jeff Force
Gemini and it works almost exactly the same, except that's
technically third person. Yeah, and that's where I was
going to go with this. So I started playing the Switch
version and set it up for dual dual stick in it.
Okay. And so I'm playing dual stick
and I'm like, okay, this is cool.
But because we played Jet Force Gemini and I went back to this.
So I initially like my replay since the last time I played it,
which who knows how many years it's been, I was like first
replay, dual stick, modern, more modern controls.
And then I went back to the 64 and I'm like, this feels really
good, like I was. I was almost surprised at how
much I enjoyed playing it on the 64.
I'm like, this works really well.
And yeah, it's so true. Yeah yeah, I think I'm the same.
I mean, I I I love having a dual control stick for everything
modern. But for whatever reason my like
Goldeneye muscle memories are tied to the N64 controller and I
don't know how to function if I'm firing with my right finger
instead of my left finger and but yeah that that that R button
aim was such a pain in the ass because you did have to do it on
the higher difficulty levels the auto aim was less intense and so
or in multiplayer you know it's really helpful to use that R but
it is terrible and especially if your control stick if you're if
your N64 controller is like a little old and the control stick
is a little sticky you're in big trouble.
Yeah, because it's true when you're aiming at the cameras or
the turrets on the on the ceiling and stuff you yeah,
there's no auto aim with those none.
So those those and it's not super subtle.
No. And it's it's not.
Yeah. And and those turrets are are
relentless. They they can find you from a
couple of pixels. You know, like they just beat
the crap out of you. I just, yeah, I was like, are
you kidding? I thought I was good at this
game. Totally destroying those cameras
is one of the tensest moments for me.
Because like, as soon as it you know you you.
As soon as it's easy, you're screwed.
But it takes forever to aim with the stupid thing.
And so it's it's. Very yeah, I I found in.
And not to jump ahead into levels, but the jungle level
with the the drones that come out of the ground, they're like
hiding in the bushes. I'm like Mother Grabber.
I was getting mad. Yeah, it's just brutal.
It really is. And yeah, I still struggle on
that level every time. Yeah, when I when I played that,
I was like, I honestly, I only sort of forgot about some of the
levels because like I mentioned earlier with the like.
Sort of make your own fun type of thing.
It seems like a lot of people repeated same levels, whether it
was dam or whether it was whatever.
Usually jungle wasn't one of those.
I think maybe because it was just like turrets and then what
would you could call a boss fight, right?
Essentially. And there's just less
experimentation with that. There's less.
How about this? There's less tables and chairs
to blow up. So there's, you know, like.
Yeah. Yeah, less reason to fill a room
with minds, I guess. True, those levels are
especially interesting for me to watch.
One of my favorite run throughs to watch is the beating
Goldeneye with like only one bullet.
You can do it. So people have done it and they
the only bullet you need actually is to shoot the lock
off the gate in dam oh everything else that you can do.
And it's incredible, especially on levels like that because
you're thinking how, how, how are you gonna get through how
can you do a defense only approach and cross the bridge
past Zenia? How can you get past those
turrets that are so, so less, so much less forgiving than the
guards that you can kind of sneak fast because they're
stupid and slow? Yeah.
Purpose is stupid, which which I don't mind.
That's totally fine. That's why you can shoot their
hat off. That's why you can just, you
know just shoot them in the butt and like you know the little
animations that they have and everything.
Yeah, that level actually with the Jungle was actually kind of
cool when I when I went back to like oh this, you know, it's you
mentioned the music earlier and like the the music in this.
You know when it's a licensed game or when it's such a
recognizable property, especially a Bond theme and
based on a movie that came out years before they did a great
job of the music. And and somehow this is one of
those games where like the fog of war works in in this level
because you're in the jungle or whatever.
And I was like. I feel this level.
I like it. I like it.
It was. I actually enjoyed it more than
I thought I would or more than I remember enjoying anyway.
Right. You got that kind of turrock
effect in the in the jungle. But it's it definitely makes
sense. It's it's earned.
They were, you know the one of the things that developers were
always so self-conscious about when I talked to them was, was
the frame rate and and the fog and the things they were doing
to kind of cover some of those issues.
They're still very embarrassed about it.
And I was just like guys, like it was 1996.
Like what? What are you gonna do?
I mean, you you did beautiful work.
And they're they're so British. They just refuse any
compliments. They absolutely hated being
complimented by me. And I was like, I have to
compliment you. I'm writing a book about how
beautiful your game is. And they, they would just, like,
wince every time I said something nice and oh, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no. The most humble humbles.
And it sounds it comes through in the book for sure.
Humblest, sweetest guys. Good.
But do you were mentioning to me, I think when we were talking
about playing it like last week or something like that, you said
that you ran into some of the frame rate stuff, but none of
it, none of it bothered me. I don't know did it cause any
problems for you or? OK, so yes, and I have a very.
I have a very. High tolerance for frame rate
dipping like like my favorite, my favorite game of all time is
Banjo Tooie and the frame rate is locked at a solid 24 and it
often dips below that, you know, So I'm like really accustomed
but I'm trying to think it's one of the it's one of the beginning
levels where you have to go like it's right when you meet Trevlin
for the first time. It's that level and like the gas
canisters and everything. So in there, I triggered an
alarm. And then you get like, I don't
know how many guys coming at you, like, they just load like
to the point where your game is like, like stuttering, right?
And I'm trying to power through it.
I'm just firing, firing. My game froze.
And this happened not once but twice for me.
And I was mad because it's like, it's not at the beginning, it's
not at the end. It's like midway through the
mission and I just have to start over.
Yeah, and and all that stuff's blowing up and everything.
I think when all the explosions went off is sort of when I
noticed it. I think that might have been one
of the stages. But like, I I don't know.
I mean, I was just like, all right, I'm just gonna kill
everybody, get out of here. Like I just sort of did it quit
and it was it was fine. It didn't stop me.
I still exactly. I was just like, it's not like
collecting a bunch of tribals to complete the game.
Jetforce Gemini. My.
God, no, it's definitely not that.
Thank God it's way worse. I mean, it is way worse on the
multiplayer. I think when you have four, cuz
we had this afternoon, the other night when I was playing with my
buddies, When you have four separate screens and they all
have explosions going in grenade mode, it's just terrible.
It slows down to like 10, you know, you're like, OK, I can't.
But I did think it was way worse as a whole.
I think the framer issue was way worse in Perfect Dark than in
Golden Eye, which is a real one of the biggest reasons I never
could get into Perfect Dark. I just.
Yeah, I remember that being the case.
But I never. I don't have a ton of
experience. The perfect dark, but I do
remember that being the thing. But it's like also.
This and a lot of games that came around this time.
I was like, well, if you had that expansion pack it would
have, you know, really boosted things or whatever.
It wasn't out yet. They didn't know it was coming.
Probably at that point like all of that stuff in a in a similar
way, I find it. OK, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm
gonna do a little maybe, maybe you look this up maybe you have
a note on it at least. But so the entire game was 12
megabytes the entire game. That's first of all, insane that
it's just that size, right? You wrote the way you describe
it in the book is. And I'm gonna preface it by
saying kids these days might not know what 12 megabytes is,
right? Yeah.
How many copies of this game could fit in a 64 gigabyte cell
phone? Do you remember what that number
is? I'm I'm.
I'm looking at my own book because I forgot it's it's OK.
Crazy, I know that is. 5333, that is that is only 64 gigs
which which at this point this point sitting in the middle of
2023 is is yeah is very easy to get.
You know 64 is almost nothing at this point right.
I just and then and then it goes.
It just it goes back to your point of being like.
Yeah. So what if there's a little bit
of slowdown? Look what you had to work with,
right? These guys were masters.
One of the masters like they did.
One of the themes that came up in talking to the Goldeneye guys
and the Super Mario Brothers, three people, was that these
designers really like they missed this period when you
could design A AAA title on a team of under a dozen people
working really, really closely. And where the constraints led to
creativity and the constraints was a was a fun obstacle for
them that that made them come with their best ideas.
And now they they they sort of sound a little cynical about the
fact that you know most, most textures in modern games are far
larger than 12 megabytes. And you know, every but
everything got bigger. And so teams got bigger.
For these AAA, AAA games, the teams got bigger.
You may never know all the people working on the game with
you. And so they definitely kind of
refer to this as like a golden era of game design for them.
Yeah, well, I can imagine even some of the pictures that you
that are in your book about just, you know, a small little
office of them, just, you know, working around these tiny little
computers and having TV's and just books and resources and
things just everywhere. It's like it feels like they
were. On their own little college
campus you know like that's really what it would it look
like and each like team which like you said under a dozen
people you know probably on average around around that you
know rare campus was could fit within a couple rooms and they
just that's like that's where this game was made that's it's
just. So, so that yeah.
That aspect of it, like what you said, is almost verbatim
something I heard our NUMA. Who is the director of Zelda and
Tears of the Kingdom that just came out and switched.
He was talking about how he appreciates that when people,
whenever people bring up like, oh, Nintendo hardware, so like
last Gen. it's out of date. It doesn't have enough.
He said that exact thing. He's like, I love when we're
limited by that because that's when we get creative.
That's when we come up with new concepts to utilize those
limitations in a way that makes a fun game play style, and there
is definitely truth to that. Yeah, as a writer, I use this
concept in teaching writing all the time.
You need the constraint of a sonnet to write a beautiful poem
because it forces you to be concise, to be careful, to be
intentional. It forces you to think of not
the very first word that comes into mind, but the one that will
rhyme with the word that you need.
All of those constraints, yeah, are super important for
creativity and they're what creates fun in the process.
So games are fun because they have rules.
Games are fun because they constrain you when you're
outside with your friends and you're like, what should we do?
And it's like, I don't know, like it's not fun.
But when you're like, let's play this game and there are rules
involved, that's what creates fun.
So it's super interesting. It's a very Japanese.
Idea too, and I guess a British one too.
That smallness and and and tightness and miniatures, you
know, are especially exciting. But I definitely, you know both
in terms of how close they felt as a small team and in terms of
how they felt creatively inspired by their constraints.
It was amazing to me to hear how nostalgic these guys were about
their experiences making the game.
Because, of course, I'm writing this book because I feel so
nostalgic about playing the game.
Right, right. Which is which is wild.
Yeah, Well, yeah, I know, right. Is that is that why I'm doing
this? Probably that's why we have it.
Right. So I yes, I I love that and I
love the fact that I that that it's 1212 megabytes, right.
That's the size because I I had to look it up because I'm like
OK, rare. Like I know conquer was more
conquer Rep and conquer. I know conquer was more.
I I just wanted to talk about my shirt.
That's why I'm bringing this up. Conquer.
It was like the end of the 64 life, you know, the end of that
era. And I was like, I wonder what
that cartridge size kind of got to.
And it said conquer maxed out at 64 megabytes.
So you think even that I remember having a, you know, a
flash drive that was, I don't know, 256 megabytes back in the
day. And I'm like those like all of
that, all that content squeezed into that small little package.
But 12 megabytes is even more impressive.
Like that's it's golden eyes, not short.
It's a decent size game, that's the thing.
Yeah, yeah, I was going through it.
And yeah. And kind of like what you
mentioned earlier at least, where you said like you want to
sort of have those goals for yourself or you're conquering
the different. Difficulties, for example, like
playing it in single player and stuff.
Yeah, where you're conquering the yeah, that'd be a cool
mashup. And so I started on the middle.
The regular difficulty, I don't remember offhand exactly what it
was. I think it's just Secret Agent,
I think, and I ran into a little bit of a wall in the difficulty
and I want to find exactly what stage it was.
I think it was. One of the last ones maybe
caverns or control Control I think maybe.
Control is very, oh, control. OK.
So it's not just me. No, no, no.
OK, that. That's where she has to, like,
you know, she has to go. She's on the computer and you
have to kind of save her or keep her alive or whatever.
Yeah, I don't know how many times.
I was frustrating. She got, she was killed.
And I'm like, I can't. I can't do this.
I can't. What am I supposed to do, like,
jump in front of a bullet? I don't even know that's there.
Like, how am I supposed to do this?
So I. Find that you do?
Yeah. Well, that's what I ended up
doing. I just instead of you know,
standing by the stairs where the guys were coming around coming
down and stuff, I just ended up standing.
I I took the hits. I I stood in like on either side
of her. I just went left to right and
just did a half circle around her while she was, you know,
doing her her fist. Smacking of the keyboard and
yeah, actually the funny. The funniest thing of the
animation is yes, there's lots of animations that they had fun
with, with the with the guards and everything.
When you shoot them, you shoot them in the groin, you shoot
them in the butt, you hit their hat, their arm, their leg.
All that stuff is amazing. The funniest thing to me is when
she's typing. Sometimes when the and any
characters typing, sometimes when they type because they
don't have fingers, they can't really, they couldn't really
pull that off which is fair enough.
It's just what it is. She kind of like flip flips her
wrist up. She kind of, she's typing.
She just goes up like this, as if she's like giving the
computer the finger. But they can't animate the, you
know, the little finger. That's what it looks like.
It's almost like she's going. Such a great catch.
I hadn't thought about that, but you're totally right.
Bond, you saved me. You.
Oh, you did such a great job. And then it looks like she's
going. You know what?
Fuck you. Like that's what it looks like
she was. Doing, yeah, it really does.
So yeah, so that stage got me and then I bumped the the
difficulty down 1 notch. And then I forgot that if you
don't beat it in one difficulty, you can't continue on the next
level on that other difficulty. So I was like, do I have to go
back and do this? That's why I did it and the
easiest mode possible. Yes, it gets incredibly
difficult in those later levels, especially once you.
Yeah. Well, no, I mean even the
difference between dam on agent and dam on 007 is pretty
extraordinary like. Yeah, yeah.
And that's just the start. That's the first stage.
I couldn't do it. I mean, I can still beat Super
Mario Brothers three, you know? No problem.
Like with work whistles. Give me 10 minutes, I'll beat
the game. But, but, but Goldeneye when I
was, when I was replaying it to write this book, I couldn't beat
it on 007. I couldn't finish it.
I got to controls and I couldn't pass that.
It was just OK. All right, so it's not OK.
You get. You guys are making me feel
better. It's not just me.
It was that stage and it was that.
All right, All right, cool. OK, Yeah.
Well, that's all we need to talk about.
As long as I feel better about myself, that's it.
Full ego best. All right, great.
Amazing. Do you have at least you have a
standout level that you remember either replaying or one that
when you replayed you're like, oh, that's the one that I really
appreciate. Like I know those might be two
different things, but if there isn't we can go 1st and
whatever. Yeah, I just thought I would.
Jump into that. I actually like control.
I actually like control a lot because I write about this in my
Mario book. But I have, I have complicated
feelings about like damsels in distress because I know that
they can be, you know, a little bit regressive and all of that.
And I want women to be saving men and saving other women and I
want all of that. But I also, you know, I am a
lesbian. And so I I like a good like
tamsel to take care of and to to to, you know, to protect and to
do this chivalrous, you know, like.
Taking bullets for her, just like you explained, so that that
levels a bit of a thrill, you know, narratively for me maybe,
but I think gameplay was my favorite, is the sneaky bunker
level, where you need to break out of your cell and sneak
around when you're playing that on.
A higher difficulty level. It's just wild.
I mean, you can't make any noise.
You have to slap people. You have to use the throwing
knives. It's very unforgiving to any
kind of noise. And I love that the game offers
us these like run and gun macho levels, but also these very
sneaky, quieter strategic levels where I, you know, I probably
played it like three dozen times just trying to figure out, OK,
if I get my gun first with the silencer, can I, you know, I
hope that I have to be too loud to get that.
So where should I? It's just a very fun, like
cognitive. Causal Add it on to your kind of
twitch reflex skills. Yeah.
And that's one that you can get overwhelmed in pretty quickly
because. And they just kind of keep
spawning out of, I guess, keep coming.
Yeah, they just keep coming, right.
So regardless of what difficulty you're on, you could be mowing
down enemies if you make too much noise like you said.
For days, if you survive, yes. Like right, right you you can't
think for one minute that you can just kill all the bad guys
and keep going. They they will keep coming and
so I love that. What are you and?
That's another and that's another one with the with the
camera and stuff as well, right. We have to take the cameras out
and everything, so right. I really like that, I mean.
Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I think that's one that I
definitely remember replaying a bunch.
I don't know. Why?
That was the one that I went back to.
But I wouldn't be surprised if as a kid, as someone who's, you
know, 10 years old or 12 years old, that's the one I go back to
because the enemies kept spawning, because I could put in
the cheats and I could have a bunch of mines everywhere, have
12 of them all in like a staircase and just see the
explosions go nuts like it. I think that's probably why that
was one of them. And then I do remember playing
the train quite a bit. I remember playing that a decent
amount. I really appreciated this time.
Surface surface is the one where.
Oh yeah. That's you're in this, you're
it's pretty open. It's not that long of a level,
but it's open. You're in the snow.
As far as I remember re watching the movie, that is not something
that happens. It's one of the additional sort
of stages, or at least an expansion of the movie.
And I just, it felt, it felt ahead of its time.
When I'm sitting there playing this again for the first time in
like, you know, probably 17 years or something, I was like,
oh, they, you know, talking about the fog of war and all
those types of things in jungle. This was that, but in one sort
of like large circular area. And you could kind of do things
in any order you wanted. And, you know, enemies kept
spawning, but it never felt like you were in a tunnel.
You were literally out in the open and like.
All that stuff was a lot of fun, so I think that's the one that
stood out to me and also had gave me a good chance to use a
sniper. And I always love sniping in
games, so yes. Oh yeah.
For sure. Yeah.
I I personally, First off I love Dam.
Like the Dam is just it's so much fun it's it's iconic it's
got it's got so much going for it.
And I I hate to be a one note song because often when I think
of games like the first levels tend to be my favorite.
And I don't know if that's like, I don't know if that's a me
thing or if that's like me just thinking like, wow, this is when
they were fresh. This is when they were like,
this is the idea, let's hit it hard.
And you know, because there's so much, there's so many elements
in DAM that you can go through like they have the alarm system,
It's like disable the alarms. There's the whole, like, shoot
the lock to get through the thing like you were mentioning
earlier. Yeah, that's a lot of fun.
And feels very spy. Like, yeah.
And it feels giant. And there's even the the extra
mission that you put the modem in the, you know, in the in the
in the thing, in the PC or whatever.
But it's like there's so much going on and there's like, it's
the level that really made me feel like a spy rather than run
and gun kind of a thing, which I appreciate.
And plus, it's also got that dope cutscene at the end when
you bungee off the dam, which is awesome.
So great it's it's. Fun if you mentioned that.
Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. I was just gonna finish.
I also like streets because you can hop in a tank.
And I I I wanted to bring that one up because I I watched the
movie. Like I rewatched the movie just
for this. Yeah, me too.
Yeah, I gotta watch the movie because I haven't seen it since
I was a kid or since I was really young.
And then he gets in the tank and goes, and I'm like, yeah, I
forgot about that. And then I'm playing the game.
I got to that level and I was like, I got to get in the tank.
I was like, I don't even like, you don't even need to give in
the tank. I just, I was like, whoa.
Right. Yes.
It's such a great level. The guy, the guys were joking
with me that they they they feel kind of embarrassed of that
level because it was a little thrown together at the last
minute. And they and they they're very
conscious of the fact that like the way the graphics work in the
first person's perspective like Bond becomes a tank.
Like it's. You could, you know, be Bond,
but you just your weapon is a tank.
And I love that. I love that.
It's funny that you mentioned. That the tank be the tank you.
Know Yeah, you are the tank. That's why you mentioned you
like those early games because it's while they still had the
idea. But what's really funny is like
in both Mario Three and in Goldeneye, the first levels were
the ones they designed last because they wanted to leave
them. Last.
So they could make sure that they were introducing all the
mechanics at the beginning of the game the way they wanted to.
And I just love that because it's something I it's advice
that you've had students all the time.
Like, write your introduction to your paper last when you once
you know what you want to introduce, you know.
It completely makes sense because at that point, I mean,
especially with the way, like we talked about, the way things
change so much in that last year leading up to release,
especially with a game like this or with games at that time.
Absolutely because now you know the basis of of the rest of the
game or at least you know the vast majority potentially and
all that and and it's it's that you know that that level is is
great because just like a lot of stages in this because I I after
I I read the book and after I played the game I watched the
movie and I just wanted to compare notes on that and same
thing. I haven't watched it in years.
It's been I don't even know how long, probably even longer than
than since I've played the game. And I just love the expansion of
what they did because it's sort of like I wrote this down
because it reminds me of I have some friends and Mike, I'm sure
you're listening, I disagree with you, but I'm gonna, I'm
gonna call you out just a little bit, You know, there there's
talk that, you know, the, like Rogue One in Star Wars is sort
of an expansion on. One sentence that said saying
like, oh, these are the secret plans and that's it, right?
You don't need to know that story.
I I disagree with that completely.
I think it's a great movie. I think the story of itself, of
of the plans and how it all works is interesting, even if it
wasn't in that movie, even if it was in a novel or whatever.
That's just my opinion on it doesn't have to be everybody's
obviously. Is your friend saying that he
doesn't like Rogue One? Because that's a great movie.
He he's, I think he's your. Friend, I for exactly the reason
you I totally respect. I totally respect that it is a
really good movie. It's just not a movie I enjoy,
but it's. But it's because I think if you
love Star Wars, some people are really more drawn to like the
light sabery stuff and some people are more drowned like the
Han Soloy stuff. And I'm just more of a
lightsaber. Like I want to see people using
the forest. I want to see lightsaber duels,
like I want it. I'm not as into, like the
espionage, like I'm not a huge fan of Pandora.
So that's the only reason. It's like, it's funny you say
that because I feel like it gave us one of the most badass Darth
Vader scenes in a movie. It did.
I personally, it's true. Yeah, it was pretty.
Awesome. Very bad ass sort of fader
scenes, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
That's no. And the reason why I bring that
up is because, yes, that's a much larger expansion of a
singular idea for sure, but. When you start a movie with a
guy jumping off a dam, yes, you suspect that it's James Bond,
but the fact that they show you how he gets there and you you
are him getting to that point. Like you spend let's say 20
minutes, half an hour if you're messing around whatever it might
be like or speed running it and just using one bullet.
You're James Bond in that moment and then you begin the movie and
I love that that's how they started.
They could easily, yeah, you are, you are holding the gun.
They could have easily started this with the ending of that of
that stage of dam Jumping off of the dam could have just been the
start of the game and it would have been totally fine.
It would have been great. But they created a game that,
like you said, introduces a bunch of mechanics.
Alarms, sneaking, you know, going behind the truck I think
is such a fun. Way to start things, yeah.
And it. Totally right.
I mean, it feels like, almost like a prequel, like you're
they're immersing you into his. Because those opening James Bond
action sequences before the plot of the movie actually starts are
such a wonderful tradition of the genre and of the series.
And my my grandfather's favorite thing to say is after that
opening huge action sequence that they have in every movie,
you always will turn to you and go.
It could happen. That's like, that's our
tradition. And then the movie starts,
right? Like after the big music, music,
credit scenes. But yeah, it's fun that you get
to participate in that in the game, for sure.
Yeah, those are those are little additions.
So we talked about favorite stages or favorite ones that we
remember and stuff. Any guns in particular that that
are your favorite? You know, I mean I love the
laser. I cuz I'm kind of a scifi fan
and so I thought that was a really fun thing to do in that
little bit on this level, to have the laser.
Yeah, that that's up there for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. RCP 90 The RCP 90 is really fun.
So that's the one that always stood out to me as a as a kid
for sure. So when I finally picked it up
in the game, I was like, yeah, I got it and it's funny, it just
shoots super fast. It was it's it's really cool.
But I like. But I actually found this time
that maybe because it's very all around, it's strong, whatever,
maybe it's just overpowered, I don't know.
But the assault rifle is kind of that.
I found that to be very effective because you do have a
yeah, you have a zoom on it and everything.
So in single player at least it was.
It was really good multiplayer. I feel like.
I feel like even the club was good, even though it's like, you
know, a spray machine. Legendarily bad.
Yeah, exactly. Jiggy What about you?
Am I the only one that loves the original?
Like just the PPK? Because no, not at.
All yeah, honestly. Honestly.
Like, it's. I found myself playing through
levels and when you start with that, I would often just keep
using it because it's you get up.
It's especially with the silence around it.
You go up and you're like pee. Pee.
You know, it's not only the sound effect, but it's also like
it's pretty powerful. Like, it only takes a few hits
to down pretty much any enemy. I mean, it's not ideal for every
situation, but I found myself using it more than I thought.
I would like a base weapon, like you never stick with the
standard, but I was like this is a pretty good standard.
It's it's a good go to. It's a good thing to always have
and I Love Actually that reminds me two things.
Just reminded me of what we're talking about the guns is the
with the pistol. I love the sound effect of the
silencer of that and the sniper and stuff.
They did such a good job with that.
And then I think it was, I think, yeah, in the movie, I
realized some of the sound effects in the game they took
from the movie. So like when some of the bullets
are hitting off the wall and stuff, like the ricochet of the
bullets, yeah, those sound effects are in the movie.
And I'm like, Oh my God, I thought that was just a game.
This is amazing. So that little things like that
were really like fun touches because they, I guess they kind
of had some time. In order to to to implement
those things. But those little touches I
thought were great. And then because I mentioned the
club, I know at least we should talk about that a little bit
because the club was something that has a like a little bit of
a story to it because like you said it's like infamously weak.
But that was the thing that the team knew about like they that
that's. They did, yeah.
They did that to us on purpose, for sure.
They they just thought it was really fun to have.
A big range of weapons, right? They they've kind of muddled
this after Doom, but we're able to talk about all these guns we
love now because they all have their own sort of feel and
personality, and that's that. Those differences are created
by, of course, how the gun looks and sounds, but also the sort of
rate of fire, the the speed of reload, the accuracy, the amount
of damage inflicted by each bullet.
And so that those created a really unique feel for each gun.
And so they did want to have a gun that kind of was a little
bit wild and sprayed everywhere and and was a little bit.
Duncan Batwood describes the club as chattery and just having
like a. Yeah, I read that and it was
like or I've seen that in other places too it before this.
And yeah, they were my that's that's what it sounds like.
Like the plastic chattering teeth wind up teeth thing when
you shoot. Yeah, and it kind of feels like
cheap or something like lightweight.
And it might just be because it's so inaccurate and it
inflicts so little damage. But they always do point out
that on licensed kill mode, one hit kill mode, it's the best
weapon because it's got such a widespread and so it's the
amount of damage inflicted doesn't matter at all.
But yeah, I think the thing to keep in mind about the the guys
making this game is they were. They were British guys who had
never been around weapons before and never had ever fired a gun.
So they had a big picture book called Firearms of the World and
they were just looking for the the guns that looked cool.
They were really inspired by the movie Heat and John Blue action
movies and they wanted the the guns that were in those movies,
of course the the weapons that were in Golden Eye, the movie
they included. And so yeah, they were.
They were just kind of going off what they what they thought
looks cool and and sounded cool and when they when they ended up
making the club, they. They need to give all these
games, all these guns alternate names because the Nintendo legal
people were concerned about copyright infringement on real
gun names, so they named the Club.
The club was modeled after a gun called the Scorpion and changed
the name to the Spider. And then, after 800,000
instruction manuals were printed with the name Spider as the club
in them, they found out that Spider is the name of a
paintball gun, and so they had to change it again.
And this time they decided to name it Club after Ken Lobb, the
Nintendo of America employee who had really gone to bat for the
game and really kind of pushed for them to be allowed to
include the multiplayer at the last minute.
And now, now all the guys feel sort of guilty that they named
this terrible weapon after after Ken Lobb.
And he's super happy. He's he's like, no, I love this.
It's great. I, you know they kind of joke
like or Ken Lobb will say yeah, it's it's really loud and wildly
inaccurate. That's me.
These guys are good sport about it.
That's great. It's I mean it's just sounds
like all these guys are just having so much fun.
You know like you mentioned before it's amazing how like the
fun that they had and the camaraderie that they had and
all that stuff, it shows in the final product.
I mean, like there's this is just like such a monumental
game. Because yes, there were, there
were first person shooters available before this, But
unless you had a PC, which, you know, some people did, and
unless you had one that could run Doom or unless you were
allowed to own Doom as a kid, like, yeah, right.
I never, I never owned it. It was always at a friend's
place. And I don't know, I feel like,
you know, it was, it was shareware and stuff, right?
So it's easy to get a hold of. But I also never had Internets
until I was in high school. Like all that kind of stuff was
just not available to me. And yet this, this is what
stands out as that. Like Doom is obviously iconic
cast. Castlevania Wolfenstein is is
obviously, you know those games are there, but there's something
about this game that is just ingrained in gaming and just
culture in general and I just, I it's insane.
It's just insane that these guys did this in such a small, with
such a small team in like a tight space.
I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna throw this out there because we
were talking about how how much fun they must have been having
and stuff. So the book has pictures.
And you get those, those pictures of, like, I'm looking
at Martin Hollis right now, convinced David is a doke.
David Doke. Sorry, I'm.
Yeah, my fonts small. Any glasses?
But, you know, you just look at the pictures and they're sitting
there, they're smoking a cigarette.
You know, long ponytail, like, yeah, you know, drinks.
If you look at the table, there's just drinks everywhere.
And it's like, yeah, you know, they were having a good time.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Absolutely. They have all kinds of stories
about sneaking off campus cuz you weren't allowed to smoke it
rare. So they would sneak across the
street to a little church, church, backyard or something.
And they. Yeah, they were just so young.
And, you know, honestly, they were.
They were quite close to people. My students age now and I teach
people who are trying to create their own art.
And so I've found it to be really.
Inspiring reminder that if you're making something and and
you are genuinely enjoying it, you are having fun.
You are being true to yourself. You are being honest and and
it's and it's moving to you, then it will be meaningful to
someone else. We we get so focused on.
Like imagining what our readers or our viewers or our listeners,
I guess in y'all's case, want. But then at the end of the day,
like you have to you were your own first audience and I think
those those guys like you described it with how much fun
they were having really stayed true to that.
Yeah absolutely. It's it's it's just a fun time.
I just, I I was, I was worried it was going to be I mean maybe
it's like maybe it's you know using the Xbox controller and
sort of like ended up working out for me a little bit more.
I still felt totally fine playing it with the with the 64
controller. It didn't bother me at all.
But like I, you know, there's enough chatter online.
It's very easy to be cynical, very easy to be like, you know,
mean on the Internet behind a username and stuff.
So there's like chatter there that that spreads, that's like,
oh, this game doesn't hold up and oh, it's it's trash now or
whatever. And I just do not agree,
especially after revisiting it. Like, yeah, it's, it feels like
it was made when it was, but that's not a bad thing, you
know? That is a positive in my mind.
Totally. I mean it's like when you when
you see a picture of like your grandfather when he was like old
and and kind of hot and kind of like good looking and like
you're like oh, you must have gotten all the girls and like if
you could go back in time and like throw down with him, he
could throw down, you know, and now he's.
Old he's older and he but he throws down in a different way
and he you know he's got kind of bad knees and and maybe he can't
always remember things. It's like, yeah, this game shows
its age for sure. That's that's not there's no
debate. Right there.
It's not as perennially great as Super Mario 3, I don't think,
but it still throws down now and for its time, it really, really
threw down and was incredibly new and innovative.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's like so so this is so
that's my cat. She just Full disclosure, my cat
just scared the crap out of me because she just like jumped.
She jumped. I had the door closed.
She jumped on the door and like, threw it open and like, reacted.
So if anybody sees the video of this, they're going to see me
like React at some point. Amazing.
But anyways, so my my YouTube channel, I actually started
because I saw a video about someone bashing Donkey Kong 64
and I was like, I love Donkey Kong 64.
And so I started my YouTube channel.
I was like, I love it, here's why.
And I made a video about it. And so I'm so like, people
online say they don't like a game.
I'm like, that makes me like it more.
At this point, yeah, I'll show you.
Seriously. No, there's something to it.
Like a game and one of those, the game's really good.
But it's not necessarily always the case.
But that's why we like something.
I mean there it could be nostalgia.
It could be that it hit you in the in the fields just because
of who you are or because of where you're at with your life
or whatever. But yeah, we shouldn't, we
shouldn't be trying to. Yuck anyone's Yum.
I'm big on that. Yeah, absolutely.
And and just just to just to just to wrap up with just how
many copies were out there of this game.
I believe this is worldwide, but it is the third best selling
game on the console. Yes, it was bundled with some
consoles, but as we know, you didn't have to get it then in
order to get this game, right. 8,090,000 copies according to
the Yeah. So yeah, a little Austin Powers.
Which, by the way, we haven't brought up Austin Powers, but I
could. Not help.
Think of that. Yeah.
So it was gonna bring it up. That was me.
So not. For you have to I set it up,
yeah. Austin Powers was one of those
movies that I watched a little bit too early.
Or at least the first one anyway.
Just constantly, constantly on. I mean really as a yeah, I was
like 1213 year old. I probably shouldn't have
watched the first one, but it was like always so especially
the second ones. But you know, it's it's funny
because you know, it's they're not they're not fantastic
movies, they're just goofy or whatever.
But watching Goldeneye again, playing through it and all like
just small things, small hints here and there.
I was like, oh, that's awesome, Powers or oh, you know, like I
knew it was riffing on on James Bond at the time, but I didn't
really understand what they were riffing on.
And it's just this is one of those movies because the movie
was so big, it's easy for them to, for him, for Mike Myers to
have to go and and grab from a movie like this, not just, you
know, the Sean Connery days for example and stuff, so.
Yeah, I don't know about y'all, but I'm definitely one of those
millennials that, like, saw, like played the game before I
saw the movie. In fact, I don't think I'd ever
seen a James Bond movie before playing this game.
It introduced me to the entire franchise.
And so one of the arguments I make in the book is that.
Goldeneye, the game I think played a major role in in saving
the Bond franchise. And then you know, in terms of
like your your show at large, I think Goldeneye played a really
significant role in saving the N64 and therefore saving
Nintendo. And I know that's a huge claim
and I know that it's not 100% accurate, but we have to make
fun, big claims. But yeah, I I think the Nintendo
64 would have totally flopped if it weren't for Goldeneye.
We know that from sales numbers and just from, you know, the way
people were writing about it online.
Like I guess I have to get an N 60.
Now so that I can play this game and without the N 60, I mean you
know the insects were just kind of scraped by and and that's
that's how no live to fight another day with the GameCube.
Yeah yeah no kidding. But but it's true like that it's
yes there's other there were other games in development at
this time and yes there were things that came out 9899, two
thousand or whatever. But I don't know that like late
99, mid 2000, like those last couple of, you know, years of
the console really would have happened unless you have this.
Because even just looking at the top, like sales charts quickly,
if Goldeneye was out in 97, the closest one that has high sales
is Diddy Kong Racing in 97 and Star Fox 64, which came out just
before everything else is Mario Kart, Super Mario and then
everything else is 9899. Two thousand, right.
So yeah, so a lot of those games, you know, I'm sure Donkey
Kong 64 was being, you know, at least early stages that when
this game was being made, but also also rare.
But maybe they wouldn't have been given the same leash.
Or maybe they wouldn't have as much money or as big of a team.
Whatever, right? And Goldman was meant to reach a
different audience than than folks who would have been
playing Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo, too.
We, of course, Conquer and and Goldeneye were kind of in this
adult gaming category. And we're yeah, we're really
still trying to fight that console war that they had kind
of been. Losing to to Sonic and this
edgier, more more grown up vibe and so they were really
experimenting with it. I think they obviously came back
full circle and now they're still your your cartoon family
friendly company, but the the the 90s and and odds are really
interesting time for Nintendo experimenting with more adult
themes and more, you know grittier, less family friendly
games and so I I find it a super interesting time in their
history. Yeah, and your your claim about.
Goldeneye saving 64. I mean, like you, you can make
an argument for the game, but you can't.
You can't make an, I must say, can't argue.
Can't. Yes, you can make an argument
for the game, but you can't argue with the fact that Rare
definitely saved the N64 with their library so and that just
that Goldeneye and that really kind of catalyst everything
because. Like, even Donkey Kong 64 had
influences from Goldeneye. That's why Donkey Kong had the
gun. Yeah, you know, like really
great. I'd talk about that, yeah.
Great point. I mean there's just, there's so
many good ideas rolling around in that you know in that campus
or in that workplace or whatever, right.
And they just sort of. Totally, yeah.
I think Donke Kong sees you first for the example of how
they meshed a lot of their ideas together, you know?
And a lot of it work together, but some, you know, as we've
discussed, as we've discussed in the previous episode, some of it
works really well and some of it just feels like too much.
But there's something about about Goldeneye where it has
like this perfect balance and you know, and and that's
honestly the perfect balance could even just be like you
said, I think towards the beginning of of a recording of
how like multiplayer was sort of they were told like don't do it
and they still did. But all of this stuff we're
saying I think could be true if multiplayer wasn't in this game.
So add that on top of it, which is what a lot of people remember
because it gets you either at that age, perfect age to get
together, perfect console, the first one with four controllers,
like all these things that came together, it has this perfect
middle ground and and if someone hasn't played it, they're scared
about the way it controls on like the Switch for example.
Or if you have Game Pass, I still think you absolutely
should play it, even if you're not playing multiplayer.
Agreed. Yeah, I do think that it's a fun
one to play now, and it also is so important for a very specific
generation of humans because of exactly what you said.
Those of us who have grown up with Mario on the NES or Super
NES, or played, played on the Genesis.
Then we're starting to want a little something, a little bit
more mature. Then we got this game and it
kind of feels like the console grew up with us.
Yeah, in a really fun way. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. At least I just wanna say thank
you. I wanna say thank you for
taking. The time thank you, no thank you
it was. So much fun.
I've really enjoyed chatting with you and I've learned so
much and I've just really enjoyed getting to think through
all this with y'all oh of course and and you know what, Not not
only thanks for taking the time, but thanks for writing like a
book and books like this because I honestly I think that they are
are valuable resources for people that are either are
either don't know the history of games like this or Super Mario
Brothers Three or any of the other boss fight books games
like there's a lot to dig into you know and.
There's a lot on 64 titles, so yeah, there's, there's put.
If you're an N64 fan, there's plenty plenty to read from boss
fight. Yeah exactly.
And they have physical and digital copies of stuff which is
great. And yeah, I I just you know
thanks for taking the time to to talk with us and and our goofy
little nerdy 64 show here and. And I will say all.
Day. I will say that your book is
very well written. I don't know that we said that,
so it's very well written. I was trapped in an airport the
other day like last weekend, and I passed the time by reading
your book. So.
No, I'm honored. Thank you for spending your time
that way. That's that's.
I I was. Like thank you.
I was like, I gotta read this. I was like, I this is perfect
timing. And then I pulled it up and then
I was just like. So I helped you feel like you
were escaping a little like. Yeah.
Oh, I love it. I love diving into the history
of rare Like that to me was like, that was so cool.
I love the history of it. That was just awesome because
obviously Rare's a big part of my life.
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
And the street, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and the shirt and the
Cocker shirt. And so yeah, it was awesome.
It was great. I wanted to bring up two things
before we end this and the first is have you guys seen the ROM of
Golden Eye with Mario characters?
Yes, I. Don't know that I Mario.
Yeah. It's pretty funny.
It's amazing. Like Koopas or enemies you've
got like Natalia is Peach, Daisy is Zenya and Luigi is Trevlin.
And like they they like change the dialogue and things.
So like Luigi, I wrote this down because I was like it was pretty
funny. He's like running away from
Mario and he's like finish the job.
Mario, if you were Cam. I just love that the game has
this continued life with with people modding it and there's
some mods that are really fun. So I just, I just opened it up.
You're gonna? Recreate like World War 2 areas
or OOP. Give me one second.
Yeah. Yes.
Oh my God. Who this is?
This is one of the scientists, and it's Yoshi.
Yeah, it's Yoshi Body and the scientist.
Yes, it's awesome. Disable the a security.
I know it's something so. Sweet.
Something for viewers to look up that's that's excellent, That's
so funny. I never saw that before.
And you can play them. I mean, you can download all
this. You can play them if you if you
want more Goldeneye. You know, like there's lots out
there by really creative people and their hearts middle levels
are very hard and super engaging.
Yeah, yeah, it's super cool. That's that's the cool thing
about 64 right now. Just the mod scene.
Creating. I just love that people, people
can put these and actually have them run on physical hardware.
It's not just, it's not emulation, it's it's you put it
on a cartridge, you can put it in your 64 and you can play the
game. And I just absolutely adore that
there's tons of banjo modding. That modding scene is huge.
Goldeneye. It's like a lot of rare stuff,
which is just so cool to me. And then the other thing I just
wanted to bring up because I I told Dave I would.
Fam Kay Jensen She's hot, so yes.
Yes. And she.
Yeah. And she actually, she's Xenia,
right? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So she lived up to her name
because I don't know if I was able to put this in the book or
not, but during filming. So okay for anyone who's not
familiar with the movie she does.
She's named Xenia on the top and then she does kill a man by
straddling him during sex and and like strangling him.
Yes, with her thighs. So incredible.
Classic one boned girl. But.
She actually, the actress sent a stunts guy to the hospital
during filming. She really.
Yes. Yeah.
She she actually really did hurt him.
So she's she's fierce and she's amazing.
And yeah, the 90s were. I touched on this a little bit
in the book, but the 90s were a super interesting time for
gender in the Bond movies because.
They were like really concerned like is people are people too PC
now will they not like that we have these Bond girls.
So they they tried to emphasize that they have a computer
programming Bond girl doing this kind of traditionally male role
and she's super smart. And you have Xenia who's super
badass. Yeah.
So you're trying to pitch this, you know, purpose?
Right, they did. And what's funny though, it's
like they had even have M in the movie, said Judi Dench.
Say to Bond, you know, you're a misogynist dinosaur.
Then you've got Pierce Brosnan on the publicity tour for the
movie was saying the most horrible thing.
He was like, he's a show, he's a chauvinist and he's proud of it.
And if a girl gives him any lip, he's gonna slap her around and
you're like, Oh my God, you have to imagine the movie executives
were like, Pierce, shut up. Like going for.
It OK. Yeah, they couldn't control it.
Say whatever you want. You know what, Maybe he just
didn't actually. He didn't know what was else was
said in the movie. So he's like, Oh yeah, no, I'm
just basically Sean Connery. This is basically 78 like for
sure I could say. Yeah, yeah.
That sound very Sean Connery. Yeah, that's nobody like.
It seems like that's what he was playing when he was doing
publicity. It's like, dude, that's not,
yeah, what was happening here, right.
That's not the vibe at all in the movies that he just, yeah, I
don't know what got into him, but it's very.
Funny. And and and it's and that's like
one of the first things that. That is said to him by M2,
right? She's just like, I don't want to
hear your misogynistic, yeah excuses or something like that's
like, yeah. Right there.
And and of course it's her too. Like Judi Dench.
Just saying anything like that to someone is like that first.
Hell yeah. I mean love it.
It's it's a very cool. Yeah, it's hard to remember
that. You know when that when that
movie came out, it had been a long gap between the last Spawn
movie and the next. They were worried about the
franchise. They were worried that like,
hey, the, the Soviet Union's kind of over, or is our
franchise even relevant? Who's he gonna fight?
Who's, you know, now they're computers, they're cyber
attacks. What are we gonna do?
So going I represents a big a big transition, not just for
gaming, but also for the film industry and film narratives as
well. Yeah, that franchise took and
like you said, I think, but I think the combo like, yeah, the
game came out just just you know what year and a half roughly
after the after the movie, which usually doesn't happen.
We know that that's part of development and the console and
like all these types of things, but like.
You know, they they perfected a lot of things.
And between the movie doing really well and then just enough
to, I feel like it's just enough time.
Because movies had so much life on VHS and stuff at the time
that like just when you stopped maybe pressing play on the VHS
17 * a week, the game came out and then you were ready to to
play the game. And it just sort of like somehow
that year and a half, whatever, 18 months, whatever it was, just
extended the life of everybody loving.
James Bond and the game, like you said, I think played that
part for not only the console Nintendo, but I think, yeah, for
the franchise too, for sure. Yeah.
It's just, it's just one of those titles.
So once again, Elise, thank you very much.
I really, really appreciate it. Thank you all.
I really appreciate it. So much fun.
Thank you. We will hopefully be able to
touch base soon and anytime you want to talk another crazy N64
game, let us know. We are.
We know where to find us. Anytime.
Count me in. I love.
Gigi and I are so very grateful that you joined us on this
episode of Remember 64. And of course.
Very, very happy and grateful to welcome on Elise Nora to
Remember 64. Be sure to check out the
Goldeneye 007 Boss Fight books and her book as well on Super
Mario Brothers 3. All of those are available at
bossfightbooks.com. There are paper, ebook and
hardcover editions of many of the books, including these ones.
All are pretty affordable prices.
You can check the link in the show notes.
I will link to the books there as well and make sure you check
out Giggy's page as well as got some.
Really cool stuff, including some Toy Story videos, digging
into some Morden, Donkey Kong 64 and we are going to continue to
be doing more things together. We're expanding sort of
different ideas like streaming and playing games together,
doing special edition episodes that aren't just like this with
special guests, but doing different kinds of things and
different videos and all that. So stay tuned at our YouTube
page at Remember 64 or at Jiggy. Look back as well on YouTube.
But other than that, I just. I really want to say thank you
everyone for again for joining us on this journey of the show.
Your support, whether it's on Patreon or not, allows us to dig
in and do more fun, exciting things like this.
I really enjoy doing this. Whether the game is a home run
or not, whether it's Goldeneye or whether it's something else,
it really doesn't matter. Taking this journey with you,
with Giggy, with Luigi, with people like Elise and all the
other amazing guests that we've had have been just honestly a
joy. So thank you everyone for
listening. Thank you everyone for being a
part of the show. And of course, thanks again to
Elise for being on this episode of Goldeneye 007.
If you do want to support us to help us continue to grow the
show, do fun, cool things like this and expand on those ideas
that I was just talking about. patreon.com/remember 64 show as
little as a dollar a month. Everything helps just like every
other Patreon out there. But I will say we do are doing a
little bit of a giveaway. If you are a new sign up, we
have Holographic Remember 64 stickers available for free to
you. You can sign up if you feel
comfortable giving me your address.
I will mail those out and get them to you as soon as possible.
All right, everybody, talk to you next time.
I remember 64. Yes.