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00:00Welcome to Russia. MI6 has given us the go-ahead on a mission.
00:04Let's wait until the last truck passes.
00:06Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we're taking a look at 25 things you may not have known about the 1997 N64 classic, GoldenEye 007.
00:17Before we begin, we publish new videos all week long, so be sure to subscribe to Mojo Plays and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
00:36Dimes are forever, and ever.
00:39Initially, GoldenEye 007 was never meant to be a first-person shooter.
00:43It wasn't even on the table when pre-production had begun.
00:46Rare actually had plans to approach the 007 IP the same way every other video game company approached licensed games.
00:54Make it an action platformer!
00:56Literally every game company was doing this with every license they could get a hold of.
01:01Jurassic Park, The Lion King, Home Improvement.
01:05No movie or TV show got anything super unique, and the idea of a 3D FPS didn't strike Rare
01:11until Martin Hollis was brought in to direct what would become GoldenEye 007.
01:26For our eyes only.
01:28It's important to note that at the time of GoldenEye's development, 3D FPS games weren't much of a thing.
01:34Well, at least on console, it wasn't.
01:37Most FPS games were developed with 3D backgrounds at the expense of 2D character models, weapons, and other assets.
01:44To find ways on how to approach GoldenEye, Hollis and the team looked at three different games.
01:49Doom was to help with the level design and basic gunplay,
01:52while Super Mario 64 was the inspiration in graphics and figuring out what was possible with the Nintendo 64's technology.
01:59The third game that was the inspiration for how aiming would work was Virtua Cop,
02:04the on-rails arcade shooter from Sega.
02:15The Living Dev Kits
02:17It is critical for developers to have dev kits as soon as possible,
02:28so that customers can buy games on new hardware early on.
02:32However, Rare made the decision to start work on GoldenEye before they even had their hands on an N64 dev kit.
02:38This is the equivalent to building the plane as you're trying to fly it.
02:42So, how did they even manage to get any work done?
02:45Well, by estimations, basically.
02:48For a while, Rare only used an SGI Onyx and whatever custom software they had received from Nintendo for previous projects.
02:56And this was not the only self-inflicted handicap that they would face during development.
03:15Monochrome Eye
03:17Development for GoldenEye proved to be more challenging once Rare had received the dev kits.
03:22The Nintendo 64 was still new on the market, so developers didn't know exactly how powerful the console was.
03:29Spoiler alert, it wasn't very powerful.
03:32To be on the safe side, Rare had spent quite a bit of development time rendering GoldenEye completely in grayscale colors.
03:39The reason for this was because rendering RGB colors wound up demanding a ton of processing power.
03:46Putting in too much color would cause the game to chug to the point where framerates got as low as 2 frames per second.
03:53And that is why you see a lot of white, gray, and black throughout GoldenEye.
03:58And very, very few colors anywhere outside of character models.
04:02A view to possibly kill?
04:10During the N64's lifespan, Rare had a tendency to try and find ways to turn Nintendo accessories into new mechanics or features for games.
04:20One concept they wanted to try involved the Game Boy Camera and the Nintendo 64 Transfer Pack.
04:26Rare thought it'd be cool to give players the ability to use pictures of themselves, friends, or family as faces for in-game enemies and NPCs.
04:34The idea was swiftly thrown away when concerns arose about certain individuals using the feature for nefarious, much darker purposes.
04:43It didn't help that politicians and parents were having intense discussions about violence in video games during GoldenEye's development.
04:50And so, the idea was scrapped entirely.
04:56Saturn Raker
05:02As if GoldenEye's time in development couldn't get any more bizarre, you may not have known about how the controller was being handled.
05:10As we mentioned earlier, the N64 was still new with a lot of aspects still being untested.
05:16On top of some of the time being spent without a dev kit.
05:19To mitigate risks as much as possible, Rare didn't even bother testing GoldenEye with a standard N64 controller,
05:26until later in development.
05:28Instead, a good chunk of the game was tested using a Sega Saturn controller.
05:33This was likely done to make general tests easier before fiddling with Nintendo's awkward trident of a controller.
05:39Dr. Notendo
05:51Speaking of Nintendo, there was a bit of pushback from the house Mario built.
06:03The company was deeply concerned about GoldenEye after they had seen just how violent the video game was.
06:10A major concern between Japanese politicians and gaming companies has always been the effects of violent acts inflicted by the player.
06:17And for decades, Nintendo has tried to maintain a somewhat squeaky clean image.
06:22To remedy Nintendo's worries, Rare threw in an end credits sequence that showed off the characters in the same way a movie does with its actors.
06:30But that wasn't the only time Nintendo had issues with GoldenEye.
06:34Casino Royale Pre-Casino Royale
06:37GoldenEye was originally supposed to be far more violent than it wound up being, arguably.
06:50Granted, it was nowhere as close to the likes of, say, Mortal Kombat or even Doom.
06:55However, there was supposed to be more blood left behind from bullet wounds and whatnot.
06:59While the end credits sequence helped reframe the violence, Nintendo still pressed Rare to tone down the game's violence overall.
07:07And so, the blood was removed from everything except for when the player dies.
07:12Rareware never dies.
07:14By now, you're probably thinking about the character Dr. Doak, the double agent you meet up with in the facility level.
07:29As many gaming enthusiasts know, Dr. Doak is based on Rare staff member David Doak, who had worked on GoldenEye throughout its development.
07:38But that's not the only character based on a Rare staff member.
07:41With the exception of key characters from the movie, every enemy and NPC you come across has the face of other Rare developers and are even unlockable characters in the multiplayer mode.
07:52You could say they have been forever immortalized, just as so many other people have been.
07:57Average and famous.
07:59The man with the killer instinct.
08:01Fight ready!
08:02Would you believe that GoldenEye has some connection to Killer Instinct, the 1994 fighting game that was also developed by Rare?
08:15Indeed, it does in a few different ways.
08:18For starters, director Martin Hollis was a programmer for Killer Instinct before working on GoldenEye.
08:24Composers Robin Beanland and Graham Norgate had created the music for Killer Instinct prior to composing for the 007 game.
08:31But the connection goes just one more layer deeper than that.
08:35When wandering around the outdoor levels, KI fans may notice that the skybox in GoldenEye is the exact same skybox used in Killer Instinct.
08:44The only thing we're missing now is a random Fulgore head hiding inside Dam or Egyptian or something.
08:51Rumble Another Day!
08:52As we mentioned earlier, Rare really liked to mess around with Nintendo products in hopes of turning accessories into new ways to play games.
09:07The most famous example of this was the stop-and-swap mechanic that was removed from Banjo-Kazooie due to Nintendo's fear of the cartridge swapping, screwing up N64 consoles.
09:18A similar idea was explored for GoldenEye, where players would use the Rumble Pack to unload and reload weapons.
09:26Once again, Nintendo stepped in to tell Rare, hey, you probably shouldn't do this, likely out of fear for the unknown ramifications.
09:33On Her Majesty's Secret Stealth Mechanics.
09:46While GoldenEye 007 has some stealth elements to it, it's almost hard to call it a stealth game in the same way that you would describe Splinter Cell or Sly Cooper.
09:57However, despite the technical limitations, it did implement a system to give players room for stealthy approaches.
10:03Whenever you fire a weapon, a certain radius emits to detect if there were any enemies within it at the time the shot was fired.
10:10If the player fires immediately after the previous shot, the radius grows in size.
10:16This is why some moments may feel like enemies from the other side of the map are suddenly starting to hunt you down.
10:23The Truth About Multiplayer
10:35One of the most memorable aspects of GoldenEye is, without a doubt, the multiplayer.
10:50We've spent so many nights playing Deathmatch, Golden Gun, and more with friends.
10:55It's almost hard to imagine that GoldenEye almost never had multiplayer in the first place.
11:00And it didn't!
11:01It wasn't until programmer Steve Ellis began messing with the game's code to get 4 player split screen working when multiplayer became an idea for the game.
11:09Rare managed to get multiplayer working in GoldenEye roughly 6 months before launch.
11:14No Time For More Bonds
11:24For the longest time, it was rumored that GoldenEye was once planned to have an all-bond mode.
11:29It was initially a hoax created by gaming magazine EGM, but that changed in an interview with Hollis and DOAC.
11:36In a 2020 interview with The Independent, it was revealed that there were plans to include the 007 versions of Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, and Roger Moore, each with their own individual tuxedos.
11:49Unfortunately, Pierce Brosnan was the only actor who approved the use of his likeness for the game.
11:55Oddly enough, Hollis implied in the interview that Connery seemed to be the one that made MGM squeamish about the idea of all four bonds being in the game, stating,
12:05quote, I think they were worried about him getting litigious, end quote.
12:21A legacy to never be shaken or stirred.
12:25So we all know about how GoldenEye 007 was this revolution in FPS games for consoles, and how it was one of the best N64 games ever made.
12:34But rarely do you ever hear about the numbers to really get a sense of how big of a deal this was.
12:40During its entire run on the market, GoldenEye 007 managed to sell more than 8 million copies,
12:47a number many AAA game companies struggled to reach in their lifetimes.
12:52Not only that, GoldenEye became the third best selling game on the Nintendo 64.
12:58What could have possibly beaten it?
13:00Well, a certain plucky plumber, and his kart racing spinoff.
13:15Minefall
13:22Every once in a while, you see fans briefly entertain the idea of James Bond being in the next Smash Bros., likely because of how important GoldenEye was for the N64.
13:32There's heritage there.
13:34Unfortunately, the rights are so entangled that it'd just be a nightmare for any legal team, even for Nintendo.
13:41The closest we've gotten to a nod from Smash Bros. is the motion sensor bomb in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
13:48The weird part about this item is how the bomb's trophy description says the game it's from is top secret.
13:54Look, Sakurai, the similarities between this and GoldenEye's proximity mine are way too close for us to believe that this was an original design.
14:04Just saying.
14:05Just saying.
14:18Quantum of sequels
14:20Another question that crops up every now and again is, why didn't Rare make a sequel?
14:25That's an understandable question considering how well GoldenEye sold, and Rare did begin work on a sequel almost immediately.
14:33The next game was going to be based on the next 007 movie, Tomorrow Never Dies.
14:38Unfortunately, MGM wanted to look for other companies to sell the video game rights to.
14:43Rare tried their best to secure those rights, but they were ultimately outbid by publishing giant electronic arts.
14:50Unable to work on Bond, Rare wound up taking whatever assets they had and reworked them into their own spiritual successor, Perfect Dark.
14:59For Activision, for Nintendo, and for friends?
15:16We've got 19 minutes till those terrorists make the pickup.
15:19It should be enough, so long as Urimov hasn't spotted us.
15:22I'll take the fuel tanks.
15:24I'll get the weapons cash.
15:26The way GoldenEye's Wii remake came about is a strange and somewhat disheartening tale.
15:32Nintendo of America's president at the time, Reggie Fils-Aimé, had talked about bringing GoldenEye to Wii for just a little bit.
15:39Rare could not work on the game as they were about to become a factory of Kinect games.
15:44And worst of all, Activision had the rights to James Bond.
15:48Plans for the remake started out promising, as Activision was in talks with Free Radical Design to remake GoldenEye.
15:55At the time, Free Radical consisted of former Rare staff, some of which had worked on the original GoldenEye.
16:01But just when the team began fiddling with prototype builds to pitch to Activision, the publisher found another studio to work with.
16:08No warning had been given.
16:10And to think we almost went from 007, to Perfect Dark, to TimeSplitters, and back to Bond.
16:16Thanks, Activision.
16:17Role of Dishonor.
16:29We meet again.
16:31You called in the distress signal, didn't you?
16:33Yes.
16:34Who are you?
16:36A big complaint about the 2010 remake was how the game felt more Call of Duty than the original game did.
16:42But what really infuriated fans, and one we've covered for years on WatchMojo, was how Alec Trevelyan had the political commentary written out of his story.
16:51In the movie, Trevelyan was a traitor to MI6 because the UK refused to allow him and his parents' asylum and sent them back to the Soviet Union.
17:01This story was retained in the original N64 game, but in the remake, Trevelyan turns on MI6 because,
17:08Wah!
17:09I hate the UK's economy and want to steal all the money in the global stock market.
17:14Wah!
17:15Yeah.
17:16He became a real Saturday morning cartoon villain.
17:19My boys here are doing a hell of a job.
17:22You'd have to be insane to pull off a heist here with all this firepower.
17:26Octopussycat Doll.
17:28Bond to MI6.
17:31Do you read me?
17:32Roger.
17:33I'm inside.
17:34It's a control center.
17:35Investigating.
17:36Need to get to the main server room.
17:37There is one thing that the 2010 remake did well despite all of its flaws in design and narrative.
17:43Rather than reuse the song from the movie, Eurocom and Activision decided to record a brand new rendition of the song, GoldenEye.
17:51In addition to bringing in David Arnold to score the soundtrack, they also managed to get Nicole Scherzinger to provide the vocals for the song.
18:00For those who don't know, Scherzinger is widely known as one of the members of the pop girl band, the Pussycat Dolls, but has since made a name for herself over the decades with songs like Whatever You Like, Baby Love, and Supervillain.
18:13At the time of this video, Scherzinger is currently venturing into the grand theatrical world of Broadway.
18:20Nice trick, doing it without a parachute.
18:24From the Ishimura with Love.
18:26GoldenEye's connection to Killer Instinct was something truly bizarre for us to discover, especially in the ways that the whole thing unfolded.
18:33But would you believe that the 2010 remake managed to establish a connection between James Bond and Dead Space?
18:40It's nothing narrative or even related to staff members.
18:43Really, the connection comes from the game's engine, as the 2010 remake used a modified version of the same engine that was used to develop Dead Space Extraction, the rail shooter spin-off that was released for Wii in 2009.
18:57The game was co-developed by Eurocom and Visceral Games, the studio behind the original Dead Space.
19:03The game had used a game engine called Engine X, which Eurocom had used for even more games prior to GoldenEye 2010, such as 2003's Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, and even 007 Nightfire.
19:16Lex? What happened? Eckhart's dead. Goddamn traitor killed the dog. And you were right. He was Unitologist.
19:26You only play twice. What may be the biggest offense in regards to the 2010 remake is when you look at what we almost got in its stead.
19:36In 2007, rumors began circulating about a GoldenEye remaster being released for Xbox 360, and it was a remaster being worked on by Rare themselves.
19:46It was to be the original game with brand new character models and texture work to make the game fully realized in visuals while retaining the classic game feel.
19:55Unfortunately, this game never got a reveal, let alone an announcement. It wasn't until 2021 when a playable build of the game was suddenly leaked online, effectively confirming that the game had once existed.
20:08The only caveat to playing this is that you need a somewhat beefy computer to run it.
20:13The indie dev who loved me.
20:25No glib remark. No perfect comeback.
20:29As 2022 quickly approached, one group of fans were dead set on giving GoldenEye a proper remaster, dubbed GoldenEye 25.
20:38Fan games are cool and all, but one thing people don't realize is that you run the risk of attracting unwanted attention.
20:44In this case, that attention coming from MGM, Microsoft, and Nintendo.
20:49Just as GoldenEye 25 was finishing up, this group of fans received a cease and desist from MGM, forcing them to rework the game.
20:57They wound up forming a studio called Sweet Bandit Studios and turned the game into Deceive Inc., released in 2023.
21:05Today, Sweet Bandits is no more due to Deceive Inc.'s poor commercial performance.
21:11Never say never, except this one time.
21:23It's almost safe to say that no one will ever capture the magic of GoldenEye ever again.
21:28While most indie devs are trying to capture the spirit of legendary IPs like Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie, and Resident Evil,
21:35almost nobody has attempted to replicate the success of GoldenEye.
21:39At the time of this video, only two indie games have been showing promise in their aspirations.
21:44Dangerous Connections is an FPS set during the Cold War and sports gunplay similar to GoldenEye,
21:50while taking advantage of the visual fidelity possible with modern tech.
21:54The game is scheduled to release sometime in 2026.
21:57On the flip side, Agent 64, Spies Never Die, is focusing on cramming more ideas in design while retaining a polygonal look reminiscent of the Nintendo 64.
22:08We will definitely be keeping an eye on both of these titles, and we highly recommend you do the same.
22:13And lastly, the legalities are never enough.
22:17So why does it seem so impossible to simply port GoldenEye over to modern hardware?
22:35The easy answer is, well MGM makes it difficult, but that isn't entirely the case.
22:40There are more legal webs to video games than just who owns this IP.
22:45The problem for a game like GoldenEye is that all sorts of companies hold certain rights and licenses over the game.
22:51Not only do you have to worry about contacting the owner of the IP, you have to get approval from the party that holds the video game rights,
22:59the company who owns the console that emulates the images for that game,
23:03the company who made the engine that the game runs on,
23:06the company whose product you used to program the physics,
23:09the people who signed their likenesses for use in that version of the game in particular,
23:14the party that may own the music that you used for the game,
23:17the company who may now own any of the parties of any of those groups that we just mentioned.
23:22You get the idea. There's a lot of people involved.
23:25And just from that list alone, if you want to get GoldenEye just re-released,
23:30you will have to contact Eon Productions, the Broccoli Family, Nintendo, Microsoft, MGM,
23:37Pierce Brosnan's agent, along with the agents of all of the other actors who lent their likenesses to the game,
23:43and whatever company Rare bought plugins from to make GoldenEye's custom engine.
23:48And we know that there are likely several more companies, or several more parties in general, involved than the ones that we just listed.
23:56It is that big of a pain.
23:59Did any of these facts about GoldenEye surprise you?
24:09Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos every day.
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