GoldenEye Speedrunner Beats Game With Only One Bullet
GoldenEye 007 players have managed to beat the game in a number of interesting ways. But one speedrunner set himself an incredibly lofty goal when playing through the Nintendo 64's most famous first-person shooter: record a completion without firing a single bullet.
Unfortunately, the title gives it away here. According to Nintendo Life, speedrunner Goose wasn't able to run through GoldenEye's campaign without firing any bullets. But he did manage to beat it using only one. And there's a very interesting story for why that is.
The game's opening Dam level is the culprit here. You might remember — at least, if you ever played GoldenEye 007 yourself — that you'll reach a portion of the Dam mission that requires you to shoot a lock off of a gate. Try as Goose did, he simply could not figure out a way to have the lock destroyed by any other means. There are no mines to pick up in the level, for example, nor is there any way to glitch past the gate. Goose had no choice but to shoot the lock, thus firing a single bullet in the very first mission of the game.
From there, however, Goose beat GoldenEye 007 without ever using his gun again.
How did he do it? As he explains in his YouTube video, Goose relied on a bit of trickery. He was able to simply run past a lot of enemies in the game, progressing without the need to engage in gunfights. And when enemies did need to be downed — say, those carrying key cards, for example — Goose had a few different options available to him. He could use mines if a mission provided them. He could trick enemies into pulling out grenades before killing them, which enabled him to pick up the grenades himself and use them elsewhere. Or he could simply slap.
Yes, the unforgettable GoldenEye slap. You can eliminate just about every hostile in the game using it, right down to Trevelyan himself at the end.
We're sure someone in the speedrunning community will figure out a way to get past that gate. In the meantime, hats off to Goose. He didn't get the bullet-free run he wanted, but he got pretty darn close.