In an interview with Mel Magazine, GoldenEye 007 gameplay and engine programmer Mark Edmonds confirmed that playing as Oddjob in multiplayer is “definitely cheating.” Edmonds went on to explain, “We could have put something in to stop this blatant cheating, but why not just let players decide on their own rules?”
Since GoldenEye 007 only has local multiplayer, this makes sense, as players are free to play the game with their friends however they want. Of course, if the game had any kind of online connectivity, the community would likely take issue with Oddjob, which would result in the character either being banned from online play or reworked to be more balanced.
Letting players choose their own rules when playing GoldenEye 007 is something that’s actually built into the game itself. There are a number of game modes that alter the rules, like Slappers only, for instance, which removes all firearms and leaves players to karate chop each other to death.
Besides game modes with custom rules, GoldenEye 007 players could also unlock and activate cheats that would alter play as well. For example, one cheat would make players invincible, while another, DK Mode, made it so all the characters had especially large heads. Since headshots did more damage, this meant that everyone was much more vulnerable when playing in DK Mode.
A lot of this customization was lost when GoldenEye 007 was remade for the Wii, and perhaps that’s part of the reason why that version of the game wasn’t as well-received as the original. Licensing issues mean we may never see a proper remaster or remake of GoldenEye 007, but players can always dig out the old Nintendo 64 if they want to revisit its classic multiplayer.
GoldenEye 007 is out now for Nintendo 64.
Source: Mel Magazine
