DGC Ep 345: GoldenEye 007 (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64. We talk about story accommodations, enemy AI, NPCs, and level design concerns and questions. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Roughly up to mission 10

Issues covered: talking to the people who set up the mission, Moneypenny and representation, changing up the briefing, objective structure, "the Dark Nintendo," how Rare got bought, the challenges of adapting a film where Bond isn't in every scene, objectives in a first-person shooter, interpreting the objectives, confusing visual language, arcade action with waves of enemies, feeling simulation-y, pressure on the player, the impact on the game, technical achievement in the level design, non-linear levels and the problems with landmarking, spy fantasy locations, wanting a boat chase, bad telegraphing, blowing people's minds, enemy animation and location-based hits, blood effects, shooting off hats, smoke and mirrors, asking the team what to do, what the player brings to the game, the AI missing you, putting your money in the enemies, projectile speed, being the fantasy guy vs being the guy, pegging the easy difficulty right, superheroes vs realism, finding objectives that aren't objectives, escort missions, using your one verb and puzzling, making mountains out of molehills, what games opened things up for you, the impact of specific MMOs, walking simulators, haikus of stories.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 4, GameCube, Microsoft, Quake, Half-Life, Duke Nuke'em 3D, Hitman 2, War Games, Monolith, No One Lives Forever (series), GOG, National Lampoon's European Vacation, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Shadows of the Empire, Quiller (series), Sean Connery, Starfighter, DOOM (1993), Rainbox Six, Soldier of Fortune, Shigeru Miyamoto, Last of Us (series), Mark of Kri (really Rise of the Kasai), Collin "The Shots" Tsougas, John Romero, Super Mario World, Devil May Cry, Chrono Trigger, Destiny, Elden Ring, Diablo, Metal Gear Solid, EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Gone Home, Dear Esther, Proteus, Firewatch, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Dark Souls, Kingdom Hearts, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.