(Had originally posted this on the regular GoldenEye page, but then the Xbox version got its own entry)
Cleared the whole game on 00 Agent and unlocked all the cheats, something I'd never done before! It was great to finally do this two and a half decades after having played GoldenEye for the first time, and some of these levels really gave me a run for my money!
- Facility on 00 Agent in under 2:05: This is to unlock the Invincible Bond cheat. I barely scraped by after about an hour and a half of trying, only to realize that you can do the move+strafe speed doubling on Xbox if you change your D-pad to "Move + Strafe". WHOOPS THAT WOULD HAVE MADE IT EASIER
- Archives on 00 Agent in under 1:20: This is one where you have to absolutely nail the optimal route. Is this what speedrunning feels like??
- Control on Secret Agent in under 10:00 and again on 00 Agent: This legitimately took me over 3 hours of play time to beat these twice. The speed isn't a concern, if you manage to survive and don't screw around, you'll definitely make it in under 10 minutes. What really surprised me is that the issue wasn't Natalya dying. In fact, she only died once! Blowing up the downstairs mainframes right away will open up holes in the bulletproof glass panes that funnel the enemies to a smaller general area than if they break through themselves. The problem was just staying alive long enough for Natalya do get all the computer work done (accomplished this 80% of the time) and then making it to the elevator without keeling over. The saddest moment of this playthrough was making it to the last section with plenty of health, but accidentally throwing the last remote mine on the ceiling juuuuust far enough away from the mainframe behind the last door, softlocking the level. I killed every guy in the whole place, no one had a grenade or anything I could use! GAH
- Caverns on 00 Agent: I didn't realize how much of an ammo decrease there was on 00 Agent until this playthrough. If an enemy drops 30 rounds on Agent, they'll only drop 10 on 00 Agent. Caverns was the level where I really had to nail headshots and conserve ammo, because I kept running out and then encountering a large group of enemies. Definitely use the timed mines on ammo crates when you see them!!
- Aztec: I had never played the two secret levels before! It was wild going into Aztec and Egyptian, not knowing a thing about what I needed to do. Egyptian ended up being a pushover (if you look up the pattern of tiles to walk on in the Golden Gun room), but Aztec kicked my butt for a couple hours. What was incredibly satisfying was that it wasn't luck-dependent like the waves of enemies in Control, I got legitimately better with each run, ultimately beating the level on 00 Agent with health to spare. Quite possibly my favorite level in the game now!
But OH NO! It turns out the only two achievements I'm missing (complete story on Agent and Secret Agent) require you to not just get a checkmark on those missions, you have to beat each level on each difficulty. That's 3 different playthroughs. Guess I'll be logging this two more times this week! I CAN'T GET ENOUGH GOLDENEYE BABY
EDIT: Instead of a fourth review of GoldenEye, I'm gonna do a P.S. here. It turns out that if you've beaten everything on 00 Agent and gotten all the difficulties checked off, you can complete the Agent and Secret Agent achievements with cheats on! I turned on all weapons for the Agent playthrough, but the most enjoyable experience I had with this rerelease was turning on RC-P90s and Paintball Mode and blasting through the Secret Agent difficulty. What a delightful victory lap!
Cleared the whole game on 00 Agent and unlocked all the cheats, something I'd never done before! It was great to finally do this two and a half decades after having played GoldenEye for the first time, and some of these levels really gave me a run for my money!
- Facility on 00 Agent in under 2:05: This is to unlock the Invincible Bond cheat. I barely scraped by after about an hour and a half of trying, only to realize that you can do the move+strafe speed doubling on Xbox if you change your D-pad to "Move + Strafe". WHOOPS THAT WOULD HAVE MADE IT EASIER
- Archives on 00 Agent in under 1:20: This is one where you have to absolutely nail the optimal route. Is this what speedrunning feels like??
- Control on Secret Agent in under 10:00 and again on 00 Agent: This legitimately took me over 3 hours of play time to beat these twice. The speed isn't a concern, if you manage to survive and don't screw around, you'll definitely make it in under 10 minutes. What really surprised me is that the issue wasn't Natalya dying. In fact, she only died once! Blowing up the downstairs mainframes right away will open up holes in the bulletproof glass panes that funnel the enemies to a smaller general area than if they break through themselves. The problem was just staying alive long enough for Natalya do get all the computer work done (accomplished this 80% of the time) and then making it to the elevator without keeling over. The saddest moment of this playthrough was making it to the last section with plenty of health, but accidentally throwing the last remote mine on the ceiling juuuuust far enough away from the mainframe behind the last door, softlocking the level. I killed every guy in the whole place, no one had a grenade or anything I could use! GAH
- Caverns on 00 Agent: I didn't realize how much of an ammo decrease there was on 00 Agent until this playthrough. If an enemy drops 30 rounds on Agent, they'll only drop 10 on 00 Agent. Caverns was the level where I really had to nail headshots and conserve ammo, because I kept running out and then encountering a large group of enemies. Definitely use the timed mines on ammo crates when you see them!!
- Aztec: I had never played the two secret levels before! It was wild going into Aztec and Egyptian, not knowing a thing about what I needed to do. Egyptian ended up being a pushover (if you look up the pattern of tiles to walk on in the Golden Gun room), but Aztec kicked my butt for a couple hours. What was incredibly satisfying was that it wasn't luck-dependent like the waves of enemies in Control, I got legitimately better with each run, ultimately beating the level on 00 Agent with health to spare. Quite possibly my favorite level in the game now!
But OH NO! It turns out the only two achievements I'm missing (complete story on Agent and Secret Agent) require you to not just get a checkmark on those missions, you have to beat each level on each difficulty. That's 3 different playthroughs. Guess I'll be logging this two more times this week! I CAN'T GET ENOUGH GOLDENEYE BABY
EDIT: Instead of a fourth review of GoldenEye, I'm gonna do a P.S. here. It turns out that if you've beaten everything on 00 Agent and gotten all the difficulties checked off, you can complete the Agent and Secret Agent achievements with cheats on! I turned on all weapons for the Agent playthrough, but the most enjoyable experience I had with this rerelease was turning on RC-P90s and Paintball Mode and blasting through the Secret Agent difficulty. What a delightful victory lap!