Goldeneye 007

Goldeneye was a pretty good movie, for what it was. The N64 video game made a much stronger impression on me.

The year was 1997. Well, that's when it came out, but that doesn't span the length of the memory. I was in 8th grade when I started playing. The game was legendary. It was an enthralling FPS that wasn't stupid (okay, yeah, the single-player plot sorta was) but that wasn't the enthralling part. The multiplayer feature wasn't groundbreaking but the level of polish in it made it "the new thing" my friends and I did. For at least a short while, I think I actually played it at least once a day with at least one friend.

Now, I'm not the best at video games and oddly enough, for someone as winning-obsessed as I, do not cheat in video games. When my friends and I first started playing, we were pretty evenly matched. I think my 3 best friends all had an N64 and a copy of the game too. As time went on, we all get better at Goldeneye. However, one day, I overtook them all.

I don't remember the exact second it happened, but the game clicked for me. The single-player mode was accessible to all on it's easiest difficulty. The harder difficulties ramped up the difficulty in a pretty even way. By the time you finished the game on Agent, you'd be up for trying it on Secret Agent. And once you were done that, it was time for the no-nonsense Double 0 Agent. Added on top of that, there were unlockable cheats available under some pretty gruelling time limits. I believe I was the only one of my friends who completely unlocked everything in the game by myself. (If memory serves, however, I did beat the untenable Facility level on 00 Agent for my best friend to unlock the cheat.)

Soon afterwards, mutliplayer games weren't an even contest where the four of us vied for the lead. It was pretty much an effort to just beat me. My weapon of choice was pistols. I recall coming up victorious in many matches of 3v1 where I was pitted against my friends. After awhile, I never lost a pistols match despite the odds.

One day, I challenged my best friend to a simple duel. We'd march ten paces away and turn and shoot. He'd have a PPK, with 7 bullets per clip and I'd have the Golden Gun, only 1 bullet in the chamber. He'd get 7 shots to my 1 before having to reload but we both had one hit kills. I didn't always win, but I usually did.

It's entirely possible that I've spent more time on Goldeneye than I have in psychology lectures. Well, I'm not a master of all thing psychological, but I know my fair share of stuff (particularly the things that I can use in everyday situations). Goldeneye, though, no man of woman born can defeat me. (For the record, no woman has ever defeated me either, but the sample size might be too small for statistical significance.)

Yeah, I'm perfectly comfortable with the decisions I've made.