GoldenEye 007's 'Impossible' Record Was Just Achieved

helloyou absolute legends goldeneye double-oh-seven has twenty levels and each level is playable on three different difficulties agent secret agent and double O agent this means that in total there are 60 individual world records available to compete for but not every record is equal in terms of difficulty as some levels are intrinsically more complex than others some records are considered to be so challenging that only a select few people would ever be capable of achieving them no matter how much effort they committed on the other hand there are records that are universally accepted as being so easy that as long as the appropriate time was put in anyone could match them by 2017 there were four such records that was so simple to achieve they were even given a name the boring four named as such because grinding for them was seen as a chore attaining them was a mere formality but the process of doing so was a time sink that offered little mental or physical stimulation the boring four were the oldest records in Goldeneye speedrunning history archaic remnants from the early days easy enough to achieve with primitive knowledge and ignorance of today's advanced techniques these records were so old because they lay on the cusp of being beatable but the levels were so simple it was hard to eke out enough time to take them down to the next second the boring four were comprised of the following records damned agent in 53 seconds set by Brian ba sod in 2002 archives agent in 16 seconds also set by Brian ba sod in 2003 bunker one agent in 17 seconds set by a vow to Hanson in 2003 and run way agent in 22 seconds once again set by Brian basa in 2004 in December of 2017 two of these ancient records fell with the damn agent 52 and archives agent 15 being achieved eight months later in September of 2018 a third was broken with a run of sixteen seconds on Bunco one agent this left only one remaining but while dam archives and punk who were obviously beatable as evidenced by the new records people were unsure about run way the feasibility of completing runway agent in 21 seconds was not certain at all by most accounts it was monstrously improbable that it could ever happen perhaps even impossible by 2020 it had become the longest lasting world record in Goldeneye history and in the opinion of many was in no danger of being beaten any time soon but shockingly seemingly out of nowhere relative unknown Erik Bergman stunned the community when he uploaded a video showing a run of 21 seconds on the 18th of February this is one of the most groundbreaking records of all time and in this video we will take a look at how this monumental accomplishment happened so sit back and relax as we examine the history of runway agent and learn how Erik Bergman did the impossible and completed it faster than anyone had before I hope you enjoy before we go on this video is sponsored by rich Wallace now I am a minimalist and I've always hated traditional wallets they are too big and bulky and I just don't need them personally I prefer my wallets to be a small and sleek as possible as I only ever take a couple of cards with me whenever I leave the house rich wallets come in a variety of colors and materials and they just feel great they are exceptionally well made and come with a lifetime warranty yes that is a lifetime warranty and a 45 day money back guarantee if you don't love it get 10% off today with free worldwide shipping and returns by going to Ridge comm slash legend that is rich comm slash legend Ang's code legend the link will be in the description runway agent is one of the simplest and shortest levels in Goldeneye double-oh-seven it has only two objectives find plane ignition key and escape in plane the ignition key is housed in a small building near the starting position and the plane itself is sitting out in the open near the end of the runway in theory it really doesn't seem like there is much to it it takes about five seconds to collect the key and then the vast majority of the run is spent running in a straight line to watch the plane but there is one key element that gives this level enough complexity to make it interesting for speedrunners and that element is right next to bonds starting position is an MOA case containing ten grenades grenades are useful in Goldeneye speedrunning because explosive damage can provide bond with a damage boost if used correctly with everything else equal a well-timed grenade boost can save up to 0.3 seconds a pretty significant gain players were well aware of the value of grenades since the earliest days of goldeneyes speedrunning one of the oldest videos we have of the level being played comes from all the way back in 1999 here sterling niblet achieves a time of 24 seconds the quality of the video is obviously pretty bad but the strategy itself can at least be decoded for the sake of demonstration I'll switch to a run that came out a year later with a much clearer video this time it is Mike Martin who also achieved day 24 using the exact same strategy after collecting the key and running partway down the runway an unexpected explosion occurs boosting him forward this type of camicazi boost was achieved by priming the grenade and then holding it until it detonates this does achieve its goal of boosting bond forward becomes at a heavy price eliminating all but two bars of health this could only ever be performed once as a second time would result in certain death in Goldeneye the further you are away from an explosion when it hits you the less damage it will inflict in order to get more boosts speedrunners had to find another way to get a grenade to detonate close enough to cause damage but far enough away to not end the run throwing a grenade straight down to the ground is an option though this has to be timed well when a grenade hits the ground friction will cause it to slow down and lag behind if you prime it for the right amount of time before throwing it you can get a boost that does little damage even today this style of self boost is used on the harder difficulties to boost while preserving health it's also one of the most consistent ways to self boost as long as your timing is accurate but its effectiveness does have its limits because the grenade fuse lasts for over 4 seconds and you have to prime the grenade for several seconds before throwing it you could only boost yourself with one grenade at a time getting damaged while priming a grenade causes you to throw it immediately so you had to wait until the previous grenade before you could start to prime the next one this limits your boost speed to around one every five seconds the other alternative is to throw the grenade directly upwards bond can throw objects impressively high meaning that the majority of the fuse is spent by the time the grenade hits the ground inertia and goldeneye causes thrown objects to keep their speed in the air meaning that for the most part the grenade will keep in line with bond until it hits the ground upon bouncing friction with the ground will cause the grenade to fall slightly behind allowing it to burst bond without inflicting run ending damage ultimately this method is ideal because you don't need to hold a grenades fuse as it's airtime is sufficient to spend the fuse without the grenade lagging too far behind bond before it detonates it is for this reason that you are able to throw several grenades into the air and if everything goes well get a boost from each one this is called grenade juggling and the technique to do it optimally is more involved than it would appear on the surface in these earliest 24's players were already trying to do this though in a much more primitive form than what we see today there wasn't much method to the madness they more or less looked up and threw three grenades as fast as they could things aren't as simple as they seem though and there are a couple of reasons why this is tricky to pull off than you'd think the first is that there is some randomness to how grenades behave when they hit the ground this randomness means that there is quite a decent amount of luck involved in having grenades be placed at the correct distance from bond to boost him efficiently the other factor is that as bond receives boost from the first one or two grenades he gets pushed further ahead making it harder to get boosted from the third as the years went on players found two new ways to try and solve this problem which we'll get to a bit later in my kin Stelling z' early twenty four star seed two total boosts from grenades one from the initial grenade they held onto and one from the grenade juggle Mike also received a boost from a guard just before the plane and while guards can definitely boost you the odds of them doing so drop dramatically the more grenade boost you get it really isn't something you want to rely on with twenty four being set with only two boosts it was far from optimized and the general strategy was further optimized late in the year 2000 which 'we 223 being achieved in december the oldest video that exists of 23 was actually a run that I performed in February of 2001 I can only apologize for the quality but again at least the strategy can be made out we were still using the suicide style of grenade burst but now it was being performed much earlier this gave time for two sets of grenade juggles as we ran down the runway each juggle consisting of two throws this made it relatively easy to get four to five boosts which saved almost a full second over the previous runs some players were also attempting juggles of three throws as well in theory this might allow a total of seven boosts but the art of juggling hadn't been perfected so getting more than two boosts from each set of throws was exceedingly rare in early 2001 the very first boost was optimized instead of holding the grenade until it exploded he threw it on the ground outside of the building housing the key if you timed it well you could barely make it past the grenade on your return catching a boost this was far superior to the suicide method as it saved much more health the old method caused you to die pretty often and meant that getting more boosts was faster but also deadly this new strategy definitely made 23 easier but there was still one glaringly obvious blemish to these early runs at the very start of the run players would left strafe to the ramp that leads outside at which point they would switch to right strafe they would then write strafe to the key building and then switch to left strafe as they passed through the door it doesn't seem like a big deal at face value but this is definitely a problem the exact details weren't yet figured out at that time in Goldeneye history but changing strafe directions is actually slower than keeping the same strafe direction and simply turning more precisely it's around 0.2 seconds slower this is why it minimizing strafe changes is a huge part of the strategy in Goldeneye between the years of 2002 and 2004 there was one Goldeneye speed runner that essentially ushered in a new age of movement optimization and that was Brian boss art Brian realized the existing movement for runway was imprecise and set his sauce on improving it on the 9th of March 2004 Bryan achieved this run [Music] [Music] [Music] with Brian's movement innovations there was only a single strafe change used in the run taking place at the key being in left strafe made the very first grenade boost a little bit trickier as you now had to look completely down but once you got used to it it became relatively easy Brian's grenade juggling was much more nuanced on the third throw he would change the angle at which he was looking up by looking down slightly this gives the grenade more forwards momentum which allows it to keep pace with bond even after getting the first couple of boosts despite being the very first 22 Brian's run is still really really good in total he received seven boosts one from the initial boost just after the key 5 from grenade juggles and it even had a burst from a guard which is extremely rare it took over two years before anyone would match the time a testament to how strong it was for many years it was considered a very tight time to achieve often requiring six or seven total boosts but a discovery in 2010 would make things a lot easier a runner by the name of DL 237 discovered that you can save time by using the 2.4 control style this control scheme uses two controllers instead of one and is notoriously difficult to use it had already been known for many years that you can use the 2 controller schemes to shoot while the opening and ending cinemas were playing but what was learned is that you can even build momentum as well usually it takes a few seconds for bonds to reach full speed from a standstill but with the 2.4 control style you can achieve full speed even before the level begins in total this would save just over 0.3 seconds it doesn't seem like a huge amount of time but in goldeneyes simpler levels this makes a massive difference run way agent immediately went from a simple yet challenging record to one of goldeneyes easiest in 2012 brian boss hart even achieved 22 on secret agent on this difficulty you also need to destroy a missile battery this added objective eliminates your opportunity for the second set of grenade juggles and is also slightly out of the way as the years went on people even began achieving 22 seconds with only 5 boosts given that we had already seen runs with seven boosts this made it seem as though one more boost putting the total at eight might be enough to secure a 21 one potential strategy that was conceived was a doubled boost outside of the key building instead of throwing just one grenade you could throw two for a second boost Brian basa demonstrated this as early as 2011 a theoretical technique that he thought may help make 22 seconds easier on secret agent this was ultimately discarded by Brian as it was just too difficult to execute consistently realistically no progress was made with a strategy for many years and as time went on more and more people tied the record by December of 2017 over 80 people had achieved 22 seconds for all intents and purposes 21 was still considered unrealistic if not impossible but the fall of goldeneyes to oldest World Records had some people reevaluating this belief the boring four were the oldest records in goldeneyes history remnants of an earlier more primitive era a lot had changed over the previous one and a half decades but because these levels were so simple it was hard to find a way to improve them the more complex a level is the easier it is to find new ways to improve the existing strategy this could either be through a new discovery or a fresh perspective lighting the path to more optimized techniques the first to fall was damn agent 53 on the 2nd of December 2017 after having stood for over 15 years by this stage 52 was widely considered to be achievable on an optimal run though some people thought that it may not realistically happen the second to be beaten was archives agent 16 two weeks later after having stood for over 14 years this time was considered somewhat overdue as runners had been excruciating ly close to beating it in the year or so prior but had missed out due to some bad luck with two of the four being beaten only Bunker one agent in 17 seconds and runway agent 22 remained from the early days of the game's competition in early 2018 people had already begun trying to beat bunker one agent in 16 seconds an event that seemed somewhat in but people was still more or less clueless about how to approach runway agent 21 really did seem out of reach but in May of 2018 one runner decided to take on the challenge and that was Erik Bergman he was a relatively unknown speedrunner being ranked well outside of the top hundred still he was committed and began the task of trying to fit in as many boosts as possible he would implement the to boost starting strategy that was concocted years earlier though he would use a slight variation he would begin doing a juggle of four throws for the first set of grenades instead of three this is a lot trickier though it definitely doable the goal would be to try and get four boosts from the first set and three from the second set of juggles in theory this would produce a total of nine boosts on a perfect run surely this would be enough for 21 in practice though it was seemingly too difficult to get everything to come together the runway just seemed too short to have enough time to fit in every boost by the time you were expecting your final boost you were already at the plane in September of 2018 the third of the boring four fell when bunka one agent was beaten in sixteen seconds now all that remained was runway it didn't seem any closer though something new was needed and in late 2018 Erik Bergman did devise a new strategy the problem with the existing runway juggles is that there is a very large gap between each set this downtime was previously thought to be unavoidable because it was deemed impossible to keep juggling grenades while being boosted simultaneously however Bergman realized that it is indeed possible to continuously juggle grenades it was far far more difficult and the timing is extremely precise but it is something that can be learned with practice with this new uninterrupted juggling style it was now possible to fit in seven boosts on the runway before getting to the plane when combined with the double boost outside of the key building this meant that a total of nine boosts could now be feasibly achieved all of the pieces needed for 21 seemed to be in place now it was just a matter of time until Erik pulled off the magical nine boost run and in early 2019 Berkman achieved this run he had a master total of nine boosts but it was still 22 despite the disappointment he continued pushing forward and got even more runs with nine boosts and each time it wasn't enough for 21 this really didn't seem to make sense if you can't get 22 seconds with five boosts surely nine is enough for 21 Eric began testing runs with a gameshark that would show the in-game timer on screen this would allow him to analyze runs and try to identify where he may be losing time what he discovered was something shocking he compared runs that used the double boost near the key with runs that only used a single boost and interestingly they were both the same speed whether it was because of the different line that you needed to take to get the second boost or the extra lag the two explosions created it didn't seem to produce a noticeable time gain this meant that even though he had been getting nine boosts it may as well have been eight as some minor consolation at least the single boost strategy was much easier so now he would get more runs in but after countless runs with eight boosts 21 was still evasive it seemed as though there was no way this strategy could still be improved but in February of 2020 another key was discovered Bergman was sent a video from Ryan is Ron the current Goldeneye champion showing a very interesting run it was on secret agent it contained only four boosts but it was still a 22 this was extremely surprising as four boosts shouldn't be quick enough to achieve a run of 22 seconds especially on secret agents where you need to lose a few frames throwing the grenade to destroy the missile battery obviously there was something else we didn't yet understand about the level the fact that it was on secret agent and not agent was very interesting this seemed to reinforce a hunch that Berkman had that runs on secret agent tended to be faster on agent it was actually pretty rare to find runs of 22 seconds that had only five boosts but on secret agent they were very common Berkman analyzed rayons for boost 22 extensively and tried to emulate it as accurately as possible to see if the results were he had also recently acquired a never drive along with a specifically designed rom that would allow him to see various splits of each run these splits would be visible on the end screen meaning that he could extract much more information than before ultimately he did find out why rayons run was so fast behind the desk the plane keys sitting on our two guards I haven't mentioned them before because they really haven't been relevant until this point they were almost always ignored at least on agent secret agent is a bit of a different story though on secret agent guards have better accuracy and increased damage and this does become a potential problem the plane that we're attempting to reach is actually destructible and those two guards have a habit of destroying it before we can get there while they may have a hard time hitting bond from so far away all of their missed shots can still cause the plane damage in order to mitigate this issue players would throw grenades inside the hut to kill the guards this seems to have another benefit though Goldeneye speedrunners had known for years that the more guards you leave alive the more the game struggles to render on some levels killing extra guards is even part of the strategy but generally it's implemented where the difference is evident while playing if the game is running noticeably smoother with less guards it becomes an obvious choice to get rid of as many as possible but runway is a short level and whether or not you kill the two guards standing by the key it seems to play and feel the same there is no way you'd be able to detect a difference either way unless you were using very specific tools as Bergman did have one such tool he was able to test the difference and it was actually pretty surprising it seemed as though killing these two guards saved a total of 0.15 seconds considering how close he already was to pacing 21 seconds this small gain was surely enough to put Eric over the edge more determined than ever Eric began grinding furiously he was so close to completing the goal he had set almost two years earlier and on the 18th of February 2020 Eric Bergman achieved this run [Music] Runway agent in 21 seconds is a monumental achievement and is something that I certainly didn't predict would happen for a very long time when it was achieved over 150 people jointly held the world record of 22 seconds it was the most tied record in goldeneyes history and with this the boring four was no more it is honestly surreal that this record happened and with all of the ancient records destroyed we have now truly entered into a new era of optimized runs thank you so much for watching you legends I hope you were having a fantastic day and I will see you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Karl Jobst

Views: 921,206

Rating: 4.8915882 out of 5

Keywords: karl jobst, goldeneye, goldeneye 007, goldeneye speedrun, speedrun, speedrunning, new world record, speedrun world record, n64, nintendo 64, nintendo, james bond, world record progression, speedrun documentary, runway agent 21

Id: TWPGpeXpMhQ

Length: 25min 10sec (1510 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Professor_Moist]

Great vid, really interesting.