During the N64 era, I picked up Goldeneye, completed the game on Agent then pretty much never went back it.

A couple of years ago I decided to go back and try to play the game on Special Agent. Unfortunately, my limited skills only permitted me to play up to the Silo level, and only one or two of the later ones.

With the release of the new Goldeneye game, I decided that the time had come for me to complete a 00 Agent playthrough. No matter how hard it got, I was going to make sure that this was done.

So for the past 3 weeks or so I've been playing through my original game, all on 00 Agent. The first quarter of the game (Dam to Bunker) were surprisingly manageable. Not to say I didn't find them difficult, but considering that this was the hardest difficulty, I was making decent progress. When playing through the game on Agent, I tended to just rush though the levels, but I found that by taking my time and being stealthy I was able to make it through.

But then I reached Silo. Silo caused problems for me on my Secret Agent walkthrough, you're given a time limit to complete the entire level - which resulted in me abandoning my more careful approach, in favour of speeding through. I died many times before deciding that if I wanted to get anywhere near the end of the level, I had to be more cautious. Thus I chose to take my time, with my eye on the clock, and after many attempts I finally completed the level.

Bunker 2 aside (which relies heavily on enemy/camera placement memorisation), I was able to finish off the second quarter of the game (Silo to Statue). I started the third quarter last week, and I found it to be pretty tricky, particularly Depot. But once again I was so determined to complete this game, that I managed to make my way to the final quarter.


This last section of the game was an utter nightmare. These levels are generally quite lengthy, and like the rest of the game, there are no savepoints. So even if you die at the end of the level - its back to start all over again. This really caused me pain in Control, Caverns and Aztec. Especially because at the end of those levels, the game starts throwing in respawning enemies, resulting in the player to make a mad dash for the finish, in the hope they don't get caught by stray bullets.

Control and Aztec in particular caused me grief because I also found them to be extremely hard, certainly the hardest of the entire game. In Control, as I'm sure others who have played the game will know, you start the level in a room full of turrets. You then have to clear out practically the entire level (including another room with turrets) to make way for some lady. Then, you have to protect said lady who just stands there, while waves of guards pump bullets into your face. If either of you dies then you must return to the start of the level. Once this part is done, you must reach the exit of the level, avoiding the endless supply of respawning soldiers chasing after you. Although by this point you'll have barely any health left and will be approaching certain death.

One time I actually managed to reach the exit door and got it to open. But as I was about to push forward on the analogue stick - I was shot in the back and died. I was literally centimetres from the finish, but nope, back to start all over again.

When I finally completed the level I found that my happiness was somewhat shortlived, because Aztec was at least as bad. Every enemy has some variation of machine gun or a laser gun, and all have pinpoint accuracy, easily shooting you from across the room. Worst of all is this giant area where all these men and turrets are all facing you when you enter, so you have to take ages popping in and out and hoping that the odd shot makes contact with someone. You also have to take on Jaws and escape another mob of respawning men at the end. Oh yeah, also no body armor, so good luck with that.

All this brings me up to yesterday, which was the day I completed Aztec on 00 Agent. This left the final level in the game: Egyptian, which was...

Surprisingly easy actually! Probably the easiest 00 Agent level, and it was quite fun aswell. Once this was done I had finally done it, and achieved my goal in completing the game on 00 Agent!

What are your experiences of the game? Did anyone else manage to complete it on 00 Agent?


tl;dr: I completed Goldeneye on 00 Agent, and I'm happy.

I don't think I completed the game on 00 Agent.

I certainly completed it on Secret Agent - as I finally beat it on the day I got dumped by my first proper girlfriend (I was 1213, so "proper" is pushing it). Watching a cubic James Bond dry hump Natalya through the credits was both rewarding and a bit ironic. I'd say he was rubbing it in but you can tell by his crouch movements that that's exactly what he's doing.

But 00 Agent? Hmm, I can't remember.

I've definitely done the first quarter of the game. As you say, this is remarkably easy (though, ironically, the shortest level - Runway - becomes the hardest on the top setting) and it is the last four or five levels that stomp you in the nuts. I think Train and Control were the two likely to have me stuck.

The problem with these later levels is that, for a lot of them, the enemies respawned. My method through the levels was usually to take care of every guard as silently and trouble-free as possible, as I kind of panicked in a firefight and couldn't handle myself. I actually rarely played GoldenEye without the Invincibity cheat turned on, as I really disliked (as in it made me jumpy and nervous) whenever Bond got hit, squealed a bit and moved forward quickly.

So levels like the Control, which had respawned enemies for most of the second half or ones that had choke points and level events that forced you out in the open, I was never very good at.

This is also why I can't do PD's Carrington Institute on Perfect Agent. I still haven't done it on the 360 version.

I only ever managed Secret Agent, my brother completed it on 00 agent and consistently kicked the gooseberry fool out of me in the multiplayer, so much so that it got to the point I refused to play him anymore, he was scary good at it. But then again he refused to play me in Mario Kart so it balanced out.

_________________
The NFL Thread!

Great thread.

Silo is the first really difficult level, mainly because of the strict time limit in place. It caused me all sorts of problems back in the day and I think still would l if I went back and played it now. I found the key to be giving myself a set amount of time to complete each floor; it put me in good stead for the end of the level and as a result I never had any heartbreaking finishes, i.e. running out of time when the final door was in sight.

Train being followed by Jungle and Control was pretty brutal. I found Train difficult because of how tight the level is – there is not much room for movement and any cover you do have can be destroyed, and I think that level's target time to unlock the cheat (Silver PP7 if I recall correctly) is the hardest in the game.

Egyptian is surprisingly easy. If one of the few levels which you can just bomb through and ignore the guards.


Don't get me started. A little while later I may just have to regale you all about my battles with Area 51: Infiltration...

_________________

#UsenetSupremacy

Facility


Amount of times I failed that because I couldn't resist killing scientists.

_________________

The Eeveelution club! \o/

Great Thread...

I completley rinsed this game at the time, I knew guard patterns, spawn points etc.

I completed it on 00 Agent and found Train, Jungle, Control & Aztec to be the most
I got all of the cheats too, some were an absolute nightmare but were well worth it. Facility in under 2.05 on 00 Agent was by far the hardest for me.

I used to await N64 Mag coming every month with new ways to extend the life of the game - their glitch sections, Blue Guide Book with challenges and new ways to play, the reader who wrote in one issue and suggested playing four player with four TV's with bits of card covering the other people's section of the screen and turning the radar off was a genius and gave us months of extra play using this method - it was f*#king great.

Then there was the finding of extra multi-player levels by using a game genie type device (forgot the name?) which unlocked Cradle and a few others I think and the whole Facility which was superb - it was a bit glitchy but that didn't matter as it was somewhere new to play.

N64 Mag back then was

I got the internet in a few years later and got addicted to time trialling levels at GE-Elite, I never got anywhere close to a World Record but it was bloody highly addictive.

I miss those times.

I'm impressed you managed to get all the cheats, I didn't bother with those - my times were pretty bad!

N64 mag was indeed awesome.




I thought that level was a great way to end the game, especially after the frustation of Aztec! It was also gorgeous.

When I was younger I'd only get games from my parents at Xmas/Birthday so the games I got, I tended to play to death.

I have all the cheats on my copy of the game, though I admit I didn't get facility - one of my friends eventually got it. It was such a bastard, as you had to hope that doak was spawned in one particular place or it was undoable. I also remember tips about throwing mines and manually exploding them to clear enemies.

archives in 1 minute or so was hilarious, making a mad dash to the nearest window to launch yourself out of.

_________________

Yeah for Facility I'd leg it through the level shooting any of the doors that were locked, the guards behind them then open them, kill them then use your mines near the science labs to kill anyone hanging around or chasing you, you'd then need Doak to spawn in the labs or preferably by the last door to the Bottling Plant then your pretty much home and dry. Very tough though.

Aztec.

Great game. I remember getting all the cheats apart from 1 or 2. Though multi-player ate most of my time on this game.Loved golden gun and pistols.

_________________
Use of deadly force is authorised

Facility is my favourite level. I remember seeing James Bond walk on the screen at the very start and being amazed at how real it seemed. My favourite sound effect is that of guard's bones crushing underneath the tank. CRUNCHSQUIRPSQUELP.

Facility. It was really fun to play normally and even more fun to play with cheats turned on. I used to kill Ouromov with Golden PP7 before he executed 006, this allowed you to keep popping soldiers with 006 until I got bored - one day I clocked up 15,000 kills. I was a sad 14 year-old...

I also killed 006 for Ouromov and with the invincibility cheat I was able to follow Ouromov after he ran away, strangely enough he runs right back to the toilet cubicles.

I was going to vote Facility obviously, but as everyone else already has I went for the second best one... Archives.

Train is probably my second fave. RCP90 + corridors of guards

Yeah Frigate and Archives were good for that as well.

_________________
Use of deadly force is authorised

One of my favourite home made mini-games was the following:

-Turn on All Weapons, Invincibility, Invisibility and Paintball Mode.
-Plant a bunch of remote mines near a guard and then detonate to see how far you can send the hapless bugger flying.
-Shoot on the floor to mark your further shot.

This was really fun on other levels for other reasons too. On Frigate, for example, there were lots of spots where you send guards flying down flights of stairs.

_________________

#UsenetSupremacy

When I was a kid I would set up a One-Player game on Runway, use a two-pad scheme, and pretend it was co-op. We'd go into the tank and just cause mayhem for an hour. It made for surprisingly relaxing gameplay.

_________________

Was so chuffed when I finally earned the Invincibility cheat

_________________
14/16