Theoretical GoldenEye Record Finally Achieved After 20 Years!

hello you absolute legends something truly monumental has happened in the world of goldeneye speedrunning over the years some pretty insane strategies have been found in the game strategies that shocked everyone when they were discovered techniques like warping straight through walls and doors throwing objects across entire levels by our leaning and even shooting objectives through solid walls and terrain you can never truly know when the end of these crazy discoveries will come but sometimes it's not the new strategies that have the potential to break the game open and cause new world records sometimes it's the old ones ancient knowledge that has existed since the dawn of time that for whatever reason has never been realized generally this is due to the strategy being unrealistic something that might be theoretically possible but too hard or unlikely to ever actually happen of goldeneye's 20 levels there is one in particular that is generally accepted as the most challenging to complete it's the first of the two bonus missions called aztec guards on this level carry extremely powerful rifles and lasers which are the most damaging weapons a guard in the game can possess and it's on this level that a known strategy has existed since as long as i can remember it's simple much faster and isn't difficult to execute in theory but until now it had never been completed the strategy can be summarized in three short words body armor skip and the name is pretty self-explanatory as previously mentioned aztec is a challenging level but it's even more so when you're trying to speedrun it on the hardest difficulty double o agent it's almost impossible to survive and that's even after you've gone out of your way to collect some body armor which loses several seconds in fact surviving aztec on double o agent is so infeasible that no speedrunner in history had ever done it without getting the body armor that is until now on the 30th of july 2021 the speedrunner gus riolo was the first person in history to skip the body armor and live to tell the tale in the process setting a new world record completing the stage faster than anyone had before in this video we will take a look at why this simple obvious strategy couldn't be done for so many years and what happened recently that made it all possible i really hope you enjoy oh and by the way i've started a podcast check the description and pin comment for the link now before we go on a big shout out to this video sponsor nordvpn and i will quickly show you what i use nordvpn for so last week i really wanted to watch quentin tarantino's first masterpiece reservoir dogs but of course when i searched for it on netflix it wasn't there but that's only because it's not available in my country after a quick search i found out where it is available changed my location through nordvpn and bam there it is in all its glory i'm already paying around 15 a month for my netflix so for just a few extra dollars i'm getting access to over 5 times as many movies and tv shows and this is on top of the other nordvpn standard features like extra security and the ability to browse the internet anonymously using nord is really easy they offer a money back guarantee and if you use my link in the description you'll get a really great deal plus four additional months free just click the link in the description i know what some of you might be thinking aztec double o agent isn't that hard i've beaten it before without getting the body armor in fact if i was really careful i might even be able to do it without being hit well we aren't talking about a casual play through here we are talking about speed running where the goal is to reach the end as quickly as possible any time taken to kill guards or play safely is time lost and won't result in a new world record aztec is littered with well-equipped guards and you just don't have the luxury to remove all of them you will inevitably be hit and you'll be hit a lot the objectives on aztec are fairly simple you need to reprogram a shuttle and launch it into space the general strategy has changed significantly over the years but the climactic second half has remained the same since the very beginning after reprogramming the rocket speed runs always finish with a dramatic run through a heavily fortified room in order to reach the mainframe that launches the rocket once this mainframe has been activated players then seek shelter and try to survive the 30 second countdown this final room is extremely well protected you are faced with four highly trained moonraker guards wielding lasers plus four extremely powerful drone guns both of these adversaries do insane amounts of damage and not only that but in order to reach this room you need to run past two additional drone guns located in some vents it's inside these vents that the coveted body armor lies which doubles your health after entering the vents instead of turning left which leads to the final room you can turn right and head towards a small alcove containing the armor in total it loses around 4.5 seconds to collect the armor which includes the time loss suffered from getting back boosted by one of the drones realistically four and a half seconds isn't a huge amount of time which is why it's much faster to grab the armor rather than try to clear out the final room but even if you do grab the armor you're still not certain to get out alive especially on the hardest difficulty on the easiest difficulty agent skipping the body armor was always a feasible option in 2001 walter janssen skipped the armor to achieve a new world record of 1 minute and 56 seconds and apologies for the terrible quality on agent enemies have less accuracy and inflict much less damage allowing you to live more often grabbing the armor on this difficulty hasn't been seen in top runs for at least 20 years the medium difficulty secret agent is a different story secret agent is much tougher than agent and therefore going for the body armor was standard practice for many years you also have to keep in mind that it's not just the final room that poses a threat speed runs require you to run past multiple guards on the way there meaning that you'll be hit at least once almost every single time by the time you reach the end you no longer have full health unless you were seriously lucky secret agent was always in this weird position where if you did get the body armor you had plenty of health and survival was relatively easy this meant that you could play things super risky early on and simply ignore most of the guards in october of 2005 hillary piccolo set a new record on secret agent of one minute and 44 seconds you can see in the first room he runs straight through and in the process takes some damage playing like this ensures you'll take a few extra hits but as long as you can make it to the armor you should be okay but this changed in 2006 when brian boshart decided to play the earlier rooms more safe by killing guards he preserved his health and by the time he came to the vents before the final room he had so much health that he decided to go left instead of right in the end he barely survived with literally zero health left brian did ultimately end up saving time by skipping the armor on this run but it's plain to see that taking the earlier room slower cost him time as well since 2006 secret agent has been a delicate balance between safety and speed some relatively recent world records still involved going as quickly as you could in the early stages and grabbing the armor to make up for it in 2016 david clemens achieved a time of 1 minute and 31 seconds with the armor which is still only one second behind the current world record david's 131 will likely be the last ever record using the armor though as current strategies have made survivability in the early stages of the level slightly easier which enables players to get more attempts at surviving the final room three people have attained the current record of 130 without the armor but in all likelihood this time will be taken lower sometime in the near future double o agent on the other hand has always been a different story even with the body armor surviving this monstrosity of a level is terribly difficult personally i've always hated levels where health was a concern so naturally aztec is one of my least favorite levels and my times are generally slow out of every level in the game aztec double o agent is easily the toughest to live through and most runs simply come down to the final room and the question of will you make it out alive aztec is also an interesting level because the objectives are the same for each difficulty literally the only thing that changes is how accurate the guards are and how much damage they inflict but this ends up having huge consequences for how fast you can complete the stage skipping the body armor on double o agent has always been a theoretical strategy and if you were to take the best parts of all of the completed runs you could easily prove it's possible for example we know that provided we have full health we can definitely survive the final room drone guns and laser guards deal two bars worth of damage so if we have full health that means we could theoretically withstand four hits generally the luckiest runs see players get hit three times this is the lowest you would ever expect to go just this year david clements even managed to complete a run with only two hits in the final room but in all my years i can only recall seeing this happen a single time so it's probably not a realistic target three or four hits is definitely doable though so why hadn't a run been completed well because the problem isn't just the final room you are almost certain to get hit multiple times before you even reach it the first room of the level is fairly simple we eliminate the guards to remain safe and collect ammo but the second room is where the problems start we need to reach the secret door on the other side but standing either side of the central bridge are two guards with ar-33s we really don't have the luxury of stopping to take them out so we basically just run past and hope for the best almost every single run will contain one or more hits from these guards in the next room we need to lower some guards to open up the large glass doors which are otherwise locked this room can be cleared and the guards lured reasonably safely but once the door opens things change we need to run out and reprogram the shuttle but because we have the guidance data equipped we are basically unarmed during these vulnerable moments we are at the mercy of the two guards we just lured again most runs will result in multiple hits here both during the reprogramming and also while fleeing you are basically just hoping for the perfect guard animations to allow you just enough time to get in and out then we run past even more guards who can hit you if their reaction time is quick enough after this we reach the vents before the final room and this is where a final breakthrough made surviving without the body armor more possible than ever before the two drone guns in this vents pose a major threat running down this tight corridor will result in multiple drone hits and this was a major reason that body armor was such a necessity generally most of the armor was used just to offset the damage taken by these two drone guns that being said there was a strategy that was developed for a secret agent which allows you to destroy one of the drones therefore avoiding any hits but it involves an extremely precise almost frame perfect technique in order to get through the computer console that blocks entry to the vents it's important to point out that in order to launch the shuttle and start the final countdown you need to pause to equip the launch protocol and where you stop to pause becomes vitally important the most logical place to pause is immediately after you blow up the console blocking the vents as the resulting explosion takes several seconds to dissipate so you are not really losing any time here this explosion does a ton of damage so it needs to be avoided the only problem with this is that you won't have a weapon equipped while you are in the vents so you have no way of shooting the drone however it is possible to get through the console explosion without taking damage if you time it absolutely perfectly this is because in goldeneye explosive damage occurs in waves it's essentially a frame perfect window but it is possible to squeeze through the first and second wave of the explosion now with your weapon still equipped you can perform another extremely precise burst to destroy the left drone gun as you run past you can then pause afterwards just before running into the final room on secret agent even if you do get hit by the explosion it's still not game ending due to the decreased damage but double o agent is once again a different story this technique is so difficult it's almost never seen but it has been tried in early july of 2021 former golden eye champion luke sklas did manage to execute the strategy perfectly and make it through both the console and the drone without being touched up until this point in the run he had only been hit a single time this meant that in the final room he could afford to be hit a maximum of three times if he did survive it was certainly quick enough for a new world record but the odds were low and he barely made it halfway through the final room before succumbing the strategy just seemed too difficult to actually do but several weeks ago on the 7th of july a breakthrough was made [Music] the runner ilari piccala was streaming while attempting to figure out any possible ways to help deal with the drones in the vents david clements who was watching at the time made an interesting suggestion ilari tested david's idea and this was the result that was pretty good they had found a way to trick the drone gun into turning around to face the opposite direction giving them just enough time to make it to the end of the vents before it hit them this idea works by initially alerting the drone gun and then quickly going behind it forcing it to start turning around and then making a run for the next corner bear in mind this obviously loses a second or so to the other strategy but it's far far easier you can now do the standard strategy of pausing while waiting for the console explosion eliminating a ton of risk this was game changing and multiple runners began racing to see who could crack the level first on july 15th speedrunner ryan white would have his chance heading into the vents he had only been hit once again this meant he could only survive three hits in the final room and this happened oh my god a truly crushing defeat aztec had now snatched a new world record from the clutches of two speed runners who was going to be next two weeks later speedrunner gus riolo had the perfect run he had made it through the second room and the guidance data upload without taking a single scratch pausing for the launch protocol he had full health which meant he could survive a total of four hits in the final room and on the 30th of july 2021 gas riolo achieved this run [Music] [Music] for the first time in history a speedrunner had completed aztec double o agent without the body armor setting a new world record in the process finally the theoretical strategy that had been prophesized for over 20 years was a reality one minute and 34 seconds is by no means perfect but the strategy is so crazy that it's not a guarantee that it will be beaten anytime soon on the other hand now that the body armor skip has actually been achieved this might also inspire others to put the time in to create their own history now for those who like minecraft i have created the legends snp for those who enjoy this channel it would be epic if we had some more people join all you have to do is jump in my discord for the link as always thank you so much for watching you legends i hope you're having a fantastic day and i will see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Karl Jobst

Views: 482,894

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, aztec

Id: pZmbB43b3zk

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 13 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/jazz_flipside]

Great video, but one thing that wasn't mentioned was what spurred all of the activity on the level recently. In June, a post was made by Yendis on the Goldeneye forums detailing every method for opening the glass (a very complicated trick with a variety of setups) on Aztec. Shortly thereafter, it was realized that an obscure method commonly called the Reverse Illu Mainframe was just the perfect blend of speed, consistency, and safety that it could potentially be used to survive fast runs on SA and even 00A. This allowed players to get tons of runs to the 2nd half of the level, allowing them to begin to attempt the strategies outlined in this video.

[u/ZenkaiZ]

'Just don't get hit 4Head'

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joking aside, I love that turret strat cause i love outside the box solutions like that. Like hey, turns out shooting isn't the answer to ALL your problems.

[u/RevelacaoVerdao]

Always quality content, thanks Karl. GE just keeps the surprises up!

[u/Harvest_AO-AI_MACK]

What’s up you absolute legends

[u/kevino14]

A new Karl video about Goldeneye, yes please!

[u/Hexonloire]

Congrats! Thats awesome!