GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[PacmanPlush]

You're probably familiar with this screen:



I think it's well known that this screen spoofs the British Board of Film Classification's "certification screen." It appears before all films in Britain, and indicates what age group the film is appropriate for. Here's the real screen, if you've never seen it before.



This is a classic example of Rare's humor and forward thinking. Only recently have developers really made an effort to make games feel like more like films- Mass Effect's film grain, WET's grindhouse motif, and Day of Defeat's depth of field and color correction are all very recent examples. GoldenEye was very much ahead of its time in including this screen, even if its effect was lost on North American players.

That's all well and good, but it turns out that GoldenEye is not the first Bond game to reference this screen. Here's the opening screen of Domark's The Spy Who Loved Me, released in 1990 for many popular computer systems.



Looks familiar, no? TSWLM goes a step further by emulating an early VCR, complete with an "Adjusting Tracking" message along the bottom of the screen. You can see this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ1C0Yk1ud8

(Keep watching to hear the best rendition of the James Bond theme ever made. Truly a thing of beauty. Yes, it uses hip hop samples. Yes, the "hit it" voice is probably inspired by, if not sampled from, Rob Base's "It Takes Two." I know you want to download it. You can do so here: http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=107835)

So what I'm wondering is whether Rare came up with this idea on their own, or borrowed it from TSWLM. We know they used ideas from other Bond films besides GoldenEye (Live and Let Die's magnetic watch, for instance), so it seems likely that they would have played earlier Bond games for inspiration. But who knows?

Probably a very minor observation, but I've never seen anyone mention this before.
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[Wreck]

As you pointed out, many of us North American gamers would never have known about this. Actually, I had no idea. It's really a very interesting and fun fact, though. Thanks for sharing this with all of us here, Pacman. Excellent find.
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[EternallyAries]

Wow i never no that good find.
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There totally nothing to read here.

[radorn]

why limit it to uk and usa? I'm from Spain and this is also new to me

I'm glad to finally know what this thing was about. In recent times I was wondering about it, so thanks for the info. Another mistery solved!

[Kode-Z]

I've always been aware of this, and presumed that it was universal. Oh well, I guess that you learn something new everyday!

[acceptable67]

That's really cool.
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Rare wrote:

Perfect Dark Forever.

[SubDrag]

I actually never knew this! Very cool. Still learn things about the game every day.

[HackBond]

I thought everyone would know it.

Also President is James Bond
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Also known as Spyster or Nyxem
[Youtube]

[Decoy] Antenna | Control | Silo | Escape

[DF Ank1]

lol nice
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Alec: Half of everything is luck James.
James: And the other half ?
Alec: Fate

[PacmanPlush]

Spyster wrote:

I thought everyone would know it. Also President is James Bond

And the Vice President is the game's lead designer, Martin Hollis!

I must admit I'm a bit surprised so few people knew about this, I always thought of it as something all GE fanatics knew- like the beakers in Facility or the mirrored tower in the Dam.

Thanks for the kind comments, I'm glad you all enjoyed this little find. GoldenEye really is full of surprises, that's why it'll always be considered a classic.
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[PaRaDoX]

^what do you mean the mirrored towers in the dam?

[PacmanPlush]

BGS wrote:

^what do you mean the mirrored towers in the dam?

I was wondering if someone would post that!

Here's the first tower you'll see when you head out on the dam itself:


Here's the second.


And the third. Notice anything strange here?


Maybe it's become second nature to you by now, but I guarantee you noticed this on your first Secret Agent run.

While we're on the subject, here's another oddity about the towers. Each one is numbered. Just go down the steps inside the tower, and right past the gate you'll see that tower's number.

Here's tower 1:


Tower 2:


And tower 3:


Wait, 4? Did I get the pictures all messed up? Nope. It's been said that tower 1 is the famous one on the island behind the dam, but it isn't actually numbered. It's probably just a joke by the developers.
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[PaRaDoX]

oh cool. I never noticed those before.Mostly because I never finished or played ge on any other difficulty other than agent x3

[Dragonsbrethren]

Cool, I knew what it was based on, but I've never actually seen a real classification screen before.