GoldenEye 007 Rumor Mill

Alas yes, there seems no end to the obsessive GoldenEye questions, so we’ve finally hassled the designer into scribbling out some answers for us. Could you stop sending them in now? Please?

Q: What is the island across the far side of the Dam for?
A: It was originally planned for Bond to have to go across to the island to complete an objective. It didn’t go into the final version of the game, and the graphics are all that remains. But don’t they look interesting?

Q: What is the chemistry set doing on top of the ducting in the Gasplant?
A: Little details like this were put in the game because we always appreciate seeing little details like this in other games. They could be there for you to shoot, in the vain hope of activating the final cheat slot (qv) but they’re not. Sometimes, things just are.

Q: What’s the final cheat slot for?
A: Nothing. Well, that’s not strictly true. It does fill in what would be a disturbing gap in the television screen. Another one of those ‘ran out of development time’ moments for you to sigh at. Just think how fantastic the game would have been if it had had one more cheat.

Q: Where are Mayday and Oddjob in the single player game? I can only find them in the multiplayer game.
A: Sadly, none of the single player missions feature either of the two stars, so I think there you have answered your own question.

Q: How can you play as all of the Bonds in multiplayer?
A: By going down to your local tux hire shop and practicing a variety of British accents. Yes, it was the hope of the team that they would be available to play, but for various reasons they weren’t. You might be interested to know that the team played a memorial deathmatch before they were removed, with the goal of one hundred kills. The winner was… well, maybe I’ll tell you later.

Q: ‘AC:-10’? What on earth does that mean?
A: It is a term derived from role-playing games, which a couple of the designers are interested in. In a particularly old game system, the better the class of the character’s armour got, the lower the number went… to a maximum of -10. AC -10. Obscure? Yes.

Q: Why do the soldiers’ arms stick through the doors?
A: Er, because they are talented people. No, in all honesty, it was a particularly annoying problem (or ‘bug’) that would have taken a very large amount of time to fix. Players still seem to have fun in spite of it, and it will, we hope, be very absent in the next game.

Q: I saw a guy in a white tux with a rose corsage in some promo stuff for GoldenEye. Where is he in the game?
A: He isn’t anywhere in the game anymore. That character was wearing one of the outfits designed for the Bonds that were removed from the game.

Q: Where is the ‘Spyder’ gun?
A: The ‘Spyder’ was turned into the ‘Klobb’, which, as aficionados of the game will know, was named after Ken Lobb of NOA.

Q: What is the point of Ourumov’s briefcase and key in the Silo?
A: It was (as if you couldn’t guess by now) another almost-objective, that in one of the plotlines drafted up for the game, would have carried plans for the Pirate helicopter, and in another would have data inside useful if not imperative for stopping the satellite from firing, later in the game. The key was so he could get about in the Silo.

Q: What’s the room for at the end of the radio car in the train?
A: It’s for you to wander into if you manage to kill Trevelyan and Xenia unusually quickly to outwit the programmers, who didn’t think it was possible. It was modelled for the sake of completeness, and proved to be unnecessary for the mission. The door at the end of it is locked so you can’t open the door. That’s usually why doors are locked.

Q: What’s the monkey in the train for?
A: You are clearly in need of professional help. No wildlife in this game, sir.

Q: Why does everything blow up? I’ve never seen a wooden chair blow up.
A: You have now. Not the answer you may have been after, but hey.

Q: Where is the TazerBoy in the game?
A: The TazerBoy is only available when you activate the all-weapons cheat. Yet again, it would have been in the single player game, but time constraints blah blah blah…

Q: Where are the Proximity mines in the game?
A: You can get them in the Depot level, if you go into the warehouse with the weapons in (and fail to shoot everything first).

Q: I can rip off Bond’s arm and use it as a club.
A: Lucky you. Presumably it was by jiggling around with the weapon select button when you have the ‘All Weapons’ cheat activated. Note the excellent material from which the sleeve is made.

Q: Were you going to put a motorbike in the Runway level to chase the plane with?
A: We might have been. Are you saying you’d rather have a motorbike than a tank? And surely two vehicles on a level would have been an extravagance? Well, if you’re not satisfied by that answer (and frankly who would be) you can see the motorbike model on a table in a hut in one of the Severnaya Exterior missions.

Q: Why do the guards fade when you’ve shot them?
A: Because the game would eventually stop if they didn’t.

Q: What’s all this about a hidden ‘Citadel’ level?
A: ‘Citadel’ was a very rough test level designed during the early stages of multiplayer mode. It’s not in the finished game in any shape or form, and Oddjob and Mayday wouldn’t be in it if it was.

Q: Is the 24th cheat a line mode/pen and ink mode?
A: No. The cheats were devised to try and make the game more fun in both the single and multi player games. How a line mode would have done this eluded us, so we kept it out. It might possibly be activated using a GameShark or similar device, and though it is a useful debugging tool, as a gameplay feature it is a bit lacking.

Q: Is GoldenEye 2 going to use soft skin technology?
A: I’d be very surprised if the next game to use the engine (qv) didn’t use ‘soft skin’, since GoldenEye did.

Q: Are you doing Tomorrow Never Dies for N64?
A: No. We were offered the licence several times, but the team chose to exercise its creativity and come up with some original characters and scenarios featuring no inbuilt restrictions. The game will still run on an updated version of the GoldenEye engine, however. Keep an eye on the site for more details on Perfect Dark as they’re released.

Q: Does this mean you won’t be doing another Bond game ever ever?
A: As a wise man once said, ‘The future is like a big box of stuff, and you don’t know what it is, and it’s not open, or anything’. So let’s not rule it out. Equally, let’s not get all speculative and let our imaginations run away with us. Because at this point in time, Rare is not making, nor has it any plans to make a game based on a Bond film past, or present, or future. So there you go.

Q: In the Control Center, if you go to the small dugout room where you can get the remote mines and look up, there’s a small vertical shaft leading out of the room. What is this for?
A: Not everything has to have a reason. Take corduroy waistcoats, for instance.

Q: Why does that one roof in the Silo open? Is it one of your “little secrets” that means absolutely nothing once you’ve found it?
A: It opens because it is not locked. If it helps to think of it as one of our little secrets, then you should do that. Or, if you prefer to be smote with sarcasm, how do you think the rockets get out? Could it be meant as a little reminder that there is a job to do?

Q: Were all the one-player levels originally open in multiplayer mode?
A: No. Multiplayer mode was a last minute addition which got put into the game when we realised we were having fun. But we tested all of the single-player levels before throwing out the slow ones.

Q: Were the Caves and Stacks multiplayer levels once included in single player mode?
A: No. And yes. But not in that order. The stacks/library/basement levels were added due to the single player library being fun but too slow. The caves section is a cunningly reworked slice of the Jungle level, with a couple of loops put in. And a mind-scrambling texture pasted on.

Q: On the Frigate, if you read the briefing it says “Xenia is rumored to be on the ship”. Is it there for no reason, or is there actually a secret on the Frigate level?
A: Hey, we only said ‘rumoured to be’, not ‘waiting for you to find her’. If you run around the ship for days on end and starve yourself into hallucinating badly enough, then you’ll see her. And other things besides.