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First Person Shooters (Games) Entertainment Games

GoldenEye Hackers Find Hidden FPS Level 81

Thanks to Spong for its news story revealing cart hackers have found a secret test level in classic N64 first-person shooter GoldenEye, more than 6 years after the seminal FPS was released. The developers, Rare, had previously claimed that the secret level, Citadel, "...was a very rough test level designed during the early stages of multiplayer mode. It's not in the finished game in any shape or form." However, although "rough and loosely textured", the Detstar GoldenEye Project has found the level hidden in the production version of the game, and notes that "it's possible to visit this rumored arena with Gameshark codes."
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GoldenEye Hackers Find Hidden FPS Level

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  • Holy crap (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mukaikubo ( 724906 ) <gtg430b.prism@gatech@edu> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:14PM (#8252317) Journal
    I wonder if it's on my ROM, too... gah! Don't look at me like that, I can't go two hundred miles just to get back to my N64!
    • Of course it is. And your emu might even support GS codes, so go ahead and test it. And please tell us about it. :-)
    • Re:Holy crap (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:56PM (#8252792) Homepage Journal
      I just tried to get it working emulated for an hour now in both 1964 and Project64 and recieved no success. I'm going to bring up this topic on emutalk.net and see if there the details can be weeded out.
      • Works for my in Project64 v1.5 to an extent; once you reset with the cheat selected and select the first level (Dam) the test level will load instead. Bond doesn't seem to be able to move away from ground level, however.
        • > Bond doesn't seem to be able to move away from ground level, however. Ah, as mentioned in the article - he's in "walk through walls" mode. Ahem.
  • I wonder (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:17PM (#8252344)
    Does this violate the DMCA? I don't want to get arrested for trying this...
    • Re:I wonder (Score:4, Funny)

      by mattgreen ( 701203 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @04:19PM (#8253081)
      Oh please, this has nothing to do whatsoever with circumvention of any technology protecting copyrights. Take off your tinfoil hat.

      Since this is slashdot, however, I can just see someone replying to this post:
      "Maybe it does violate the DMCA, but I'm gonna fight the MAN by cheating in a video game! It's the moral thing to do!"

      It'd be modded a mixture of funny and insightful.
    • Re:I wonder (Score:5, Funny)

      by Carnildo ( 712617 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @06:26PM (#8254333) Homepage Journal
      Does this violate the DMCA? I don't want to get arrested for trying this...

      Maybe it does violate the DMCA, but I'm gonna fight the MAN by cheating in a video game! It's the moral thing to do!
  • Drat !! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:20PM (#8252379)
    And i thought i had completed the game ....
  • by mmcdouga ( 459816 ) <mmcdougaNO@SPAMsaul.cis.upenn.edu> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:34PM (#8252569) Homepage
    Judging by the screenshots, it looks like a primitive version of some of the multiplayer levels in the sorta sequel Perfect Dark.

    Michael
    • Agreed, it does like the "villa" multi-player level from Perfect Dark a little bit. I do find it weird that in the tight confines of an N64 cartridge they would have left in this unused level. Apparently, however, they thought they had removed it, according to quotes on that page. So, how does a whole level (albeit incomplete) slip through? I understand it's not loadable and is missing huge chunks but its still there. It reminds me of the hidden military secrets from the film "Cloak and Dagger"...
      • by Anonymous Coward
        Rare always denies/denied everything. They never refuse to comment, they just deny. They denied that there were push-button cheat codes in Goldeneye, too, but they were lying. I lost a little bit of respect for them when those codes were finally revealed. I lost the rest of it not too much later.
  • bad website (Score:3, Interesting)

    by capoccia ( 312092 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:40PM (#8252632) Journal
    either slashdotting or poorly written asp. either way, all i get from the link [spong.com] is:
    Microsoft VBScript compilation error '800a03ee'

    Expected ')'

    /ncld/styleGuide.inc, line 98

    inStr( hostIPs, ", 82.43.116.78" ) > 0 _
    ^
    • more likely both: looks to me like a hastily written filter to prevent slashdotting
      • by capoccia ( 312092 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @04:59PM (#8253566) Journal
        more likely both: looks to me like a hastily written filter to prevent slashdotting

        actually, the whole site [spong.com] returns the same error:
        Microsoft VBScript compilation error '800a03ee'

        Expected ')'

        /ncld/styleGuide.inc, line 98

        inStr( hostIPs, ", 82.43.116.78" ) > 0 _
        ^
        It looks like the real problem [microsoft.com] is that they are behind on their service packs for Site Server 3.0.
        CAUSE

        When Rule Builder builds the rules file, it misconfigures the parenthesis in the condition.

        RESOLUTION
        To resolve this problem, apply the latest Site Server 3.0 service pack.

        STATUS
        Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Site Server version 3.0. This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. service pack for Microsoft Site Server version 3.0. For information on obtaining the service pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

        S E R V P A C K


        (that last line is great! -- even microsoft is into the latest technology in server load reduction!)
        • (that last line is great! -- even microsoft is into the latest technology in server load reduction!)

          It's actually to prevent that KB article from being indexed under "SERVPACK". But thanks for trolling.

    • Re:bad website (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sabNetwork ( 416076 )
      Man, what stupid developers. Look at the included file that the error reported. It's world-readable. And it has some pretty revealing information about how their "security" system works.

      I'm not going to post specific details, but anyone with more than 30 seconds on their hands can figure it out.
      --
  • FPL (Score:5, Funny)

    by thegrue76 ( 211065 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:52PM (#8252761) Homepage
    They then went on to discover the secret level of that hot new First Person Live game. Known as "the outdoors," it was accessed by passing through a heretofore undiscovered "doorway"...
    • Re:FPL (Score:5, Funny)

      by jspoon ( 585173 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @06:35PM (#8254407)
      "They then went on to discover the secret level of that hot new First Person Live game. Known as "the outdoors," it was accessed by passing through a heretofore undiscovered "doorway"..."


      I tried playing this level after I read the article, but I don't think it's finished. I couldn't find any weapons at all, nor any ammo for the shotgun I took along. Once I ran out of shells, there was nothing to do.

      • Re:FPL (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You don't need ammo to have fun in "The Outdoors". Try going into town and looking for the NPC called "the bank teller", then point your shotgun at them and input the cheat code "give me all the money". That triggers a pretty good action scene.
  • by IshanCaspian ( 625325 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @04:12PM (#8253007) Homepage
    than finding some uber-secret in an old videogame. I often wonder why we don't see more developers putting uber-secrets in their games...the search for stuff can keep people interested in a game for years. Look at that little room in echo base in Shadows of the Empire...I must've spent days running around, looking for some kind of clue as to how to get up there...
    • by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @04:28PM (#8253193) Homepage Journal
      I often wonder why we don't see more developers putting uber-secrets in their games...
      Perhaps they're there but simply haven't been found yet in other games...
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Use the debug cheat in Shadows of the Empire to give yourself the jetpack in that level. There's nothing in that room, though. It's just there so it looks like there's a control room over the hangar most likely. You can do a lot of crazy stuff with that code, like fly over the mountains in the Battle of Hoth, or take out AT-ATs Sun Crusher style (Jedi Academy reference for the fans there).

      The Rogue Squadron games tend to have well hidden stuff in them. The original Rogue Squadron for N64 had the Naboo
    • But if your still searching for hidden levels in old games then your not buying new games.

      Isn't it in their best interest to buy games that hook you long enough so you buy it, but not much longer so you'll go buy the next one soon after?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      ...for the serious geek that delights in these sorts of novelties: If you haven't already, grab a copy of MetEdit. (It's a decent Metroid{NES} editor. Zophar's Domain [zophar.net] should have it.) Read through the guy's help/faq file or just look at the map... There are actually some rooms in the game that you can't get to! (I think the devs forgot to add connecting hallways and later forgot about the rooms altogether?) It's seriously such a strange thing to discover like 15 years later! The author also solves a few
      • by Anonymous Coward
        The "hidden rooms" in Metroid were actually not rooms at all, but other things stored on the cartridge. Due to the way they stored data, you could wander into, for example, a music file, and the game engine would actually interpret that data as part of the map and draw it on the screen. It's been a while since I read about it, so the details are kind of fuzzy, but that's the general idea.
    • Someone (or actually, someone's little brother [tripod.com]) found the 'impossible bullet trick' in Commander Keen 6, more than 10 years after release (december 2001):

      When falling, keen can shoot down. Sometimes, when you shoot carefully, keen will surf down on his bullet. When he hits the ground, he will actually land on his bullet, thus standing in the air. When "standing on a bullet", keen can shoot up and, voila! Keen flies into the air. No cheating involved!

      How wonderful that for such a popular game, it took 10 y

    • If you're playing the level where you have to use the Jumblehopper to travel cross country, you can actually jump over the mountain tops, over the volcano lake, and down into the underground cavern. The neatest thing was that you could actually bounce out of the cavern, stand on the ocean and see the entire cavern system. (You have to choose a specific point on the mountain tops - somewhere to the left, otherwise you'll never make it across).

      I also tried to see if it was possible to use the rocket pack t
  • by CyberVenom ( 697959 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @04:17PM (#8253064)
    I played Diddy King Racing by Rare when it came out and finished all the levels I could find. (all the areas, plus space, plus everything again in mirror.)
    During the ending credits it lists the best times from the guys at Rare on each of the tracks, so in time-trial mode, I wenth through and beat EVERY SINGLE ONE in the hopes that I would unlock an ubersecret.
    Well, nothing new unlocked. But on the track select screen something that has always caught my eye my is that at the bottom-right, there is space for one more track, and if you move the view around fast enough close to it, you can see the corner of a frame around what appears to be another level. I always wondered if maybe there was a secret there. I never saw any mention of it online though.
    Maybe GoldenEye wasn't the only Rare game with an ubersecret?

    -CyberVenom
    • oops. I didn't even see the typo till I posted... "Diddy Kong Racing"
    • by ooby ( 729259 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @05:25PM (#8253823)
      I was trying to crack the passwords on Rock 'n Roll racing. I was unable to start myself off with loads o' cash, but I did figure out what password locations defined the characters. I was able to then start with Olaf (before I found out there was an easier way). I also uncovered a viable password that gave you an unidentified character. Its face was the shadow of the planet's boss, and when the announcer ever said anything about me (i.e. Olaf light's him up), it just skipped the name. I'm not quite sure what this bug-character's attributes were. The major downfall with this discovery was that all of my friends were buying Playstations because the price had dropped to $200.
  • ... considering that they lied about there being no push-button cheat codes in Goldeneye (and get mad when you don't believe them when they tell you there are no push-button cheat codes in Perfect Dark).
    • After looking around it seems as though after someone cracked Goldeneye and found the push button codes they removed them from Perfect Dark. To this day, no one has found the push-button codes for Perfect Dark so it may be safe to assume they aren't there.
      • Yes...and that's what we thought about the Goldeneye codes. What year were those found in? 2000? 2001?

        And in Banjo-Kazooie for the N64 - anyone else remember the day that we FINALLY learned how to get the eggs? Sure, they might not have done very much, but they were in the game...

        Let's not give up just yet...I've got a feeling that the codes are, in fact, in the game somewhere. It's just too bad that it'll take another five years to find them. :)

    • I'm going to keep saying this until everyone in the world knows. Rare NEVER explicitly stated that there were no push-button cheat codes in GoldenEye. Actually, they released one of them voluntarily - the extra characters in multiplayer code - and that was enough to allow someone to reverse-engineer a whole slew of other ones. These had been used by Rare for debugging purposes and Rare had - perfectly reasonably - assumed that nobody would ever find them, and so not bothered to remove them.

      When it became

  • this is interesting (Score:1, Interesting)

    by sbma44 ( 694130 )
    But it brings back my conflicted position on Goldeneye. On the one hand, it introduced a lot of my friends to the FPS genre, and I'm glad I can play games against them now.

    On the other hand, it's one of the worst multiplayer FPS's ever made. Unbearably slow, with ugly, undifferentiated levels, unbalanced weapons and impossible-to-see powerups, it was a miserable pain to play after having played quake 1 or even doom deathmatch. Try as I might I couldn't get my roommates in college to put down the N64 con

    • I really liked Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I think they were really the first console FPSs that you could sit around and play with friends on the same screen. Many an hour was wasted shooting eachother in Perfect Dark. In fact, I still prefer it to many other FPS games - the first player game was great and the multi-player is a great party game. But, to each his own I guess.
    • No offense, but that's insanely near sighted. You are leaving out the multiple weapon types and game types that for the time where insanely great - especially for a console FPS at the time (not to mention a license game). In many ways a far more varied and accesible game than DooM and Q1 ever were.

      And for SP, Goldeneye cranked up what the concept of mission based FPS was for the entire genre - mixing story, mission based goals and difficulty levels in new ways (and in some ways - rarely done since).
      • >> In many ways a far more varied and accesible game than DooM and Q1 ever were.

        Yet it pales in comparison to the likes of System Shock or Marathon.

        Still, GoldenEye was a fairly good game, except it was all but ruined by badly flawed technological execution. 15 frames per second doesn't cut it, and the N64 fuzzy haze was terrible.

      • And for SP, Goldeneye cranked up what the concept of mission based FPS was for the entire genre - mixing story, mission based goals and difficulty levels in new ways (and in some ways - rarely done since).

        Well thats not a fair statement at all. Goldeneye was based off the movie so they pretty much had the groundwork laid out for them (characters, plot, environments, some of the weapons, gadgets etc). This was probably the first opportunity a game developer had the opportunity (a real one, unlike Atari's E.T

        • Um no. How can you sit there and say that it was the first time anyone could use a movie license and then point out the Star Wars games - made by Lucasfilm itself? Most movie licenses now, then and probably forever, make poor use of the "groundwork laid out for them".

          As for the missions being "outright silly", it's still a far cry better than 90% of FPS to follow - which stuck to the run and gun, flip a switch method ... and games that did introduce some kind of "mission" generally didn't stray far from
    • You're insane (Score:5, Interesting)

      by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @05:06AM (#8256539) Journal
      Let me preface this by saying that I am an avid FPSer and I have played Quake 1, UT (the original) and QIII very extensively, and more recently Counter Strike, MOHAA and similar on-line games. I spend a lot of time playing QIII on a LAN.

      Let me also say that Goldeneye is, along with Quake III, the game I have had the most fun playing in a multiplayer FPS environment. With all due respect I must suggest that if you felt that it wasn't a serious FPS, it may have been due to the company you kept. I played Goldeneye obsessively for about 4 years with three other guys who were all big FPS players too. We knew every nook, every cranny, every angle to bounce a grenade, the sound of every door, the likelihood of scoring a kill with every weapon. It became too impossibly tense to play with just two people, because we were all within such a narrow band of skill and knowledge that the score would invariably end up at 9-10 or in many cases 10-10 in deathmatches. We played so many tense games with prox mines, so many crazy grenade launcher shootouts, so many RCP-90 bullet-fests that it's actually kinda disturbing.

      Granted, the single player levels were at times completely impossibly hard. Granted, some of the multiplayer levels weren't great. Granted, the graphics are poor by PC standards. But some of the levels were simply glorious - stack, archives, temple, facility - wonderful, wonderful levels with just the right distribution of weapons and spawn points. In a level like the stack, the simple graphics were actually important to the gameplay as they let you see your opponent even in blocky Nintendovision. I'll never forget the enraged screams of newbies playing with us in hideous 20-19-0-0 slaughters of the innocents; the glory of a perfect grenade lob in the temple, dropping on the victim from seemingly out of nowhere (id should learn from the Goldeneye grenade launcher, what a weapon); the joys of rampant screen cheating or shooting blind using the radar.

      I must also ask - did you play the standard deathmatch, or one-hit kills? We decided to try the latter early on, and from that day forth there was never any question of which we would play. With one hit deaths the interesting variations of the different weapons really becomes a factor; grenades and rockets become altogether more tricky; and the weapons capable of shooting through walls and doors vastly more important. In this mode the game also showed what a great controller the N64 controller really is: in facility we were able to hit specific letters in the warning signs at the other end of the corridoor using the magnum.

      As time has passed (and the original gang of Goldeneye or 'bond-age' freaks has dispersed) I play it less and less; nonetheless, I would trade Far Cry, UT2K3, MOHAA, Counterstrike, all of them, for Goldeneye. Ah, memories.

      Thus endeth the rantings.
      • Hmm no mod option for +1 Awesome, so +1 Informative will have to work.

        I can totally relate to most of what you posted above. You may have been a bit more hardcore than I, but I do recall many late-night Bond marathons. Prox. mine matches were always intense, especially on dark maps like Cave that have lots of small passages. Ahh memories.

        Right up there with Bond was Starfox 64... another great multiplayer game even though there was only really one level worth playing.
      • Yes, SINGLE-SHOT KILL (or licensed to kill mode) IS THE BEST!

        Seriously, the parent poster must have not given it a good try-- my brothers and I played golden eye deathmatch CONSTANTLY and we loved it! Whats more insane is that we never even owned the game, we just kept renting it hehe. I beat every level on 00 agent mode except for the caverns-- that level was so.. fricking.. insane.

        I used to cheat on the cradle level-- you could quickly run past all the guards and get to the bottom area where your suppos
        • There was that freakin train level, and you ended up coming into the last carriage and having about 1.5 seconds to kill the person holding someone hostage, and if you missed *bam* it was all over after one of the most insanely hard levels imaginable... and if you don't miss, you get stuck in the carriage and have to use your laser watch to escape. It took me SO LONG to finish that on 00 agent, I don't think I can ever play it again.

          The moonraker and baron samedi bonus levels were quite cool if challenging.
          • Dood your right, that level *was* intense!!! But the caverns was the only one I could never beat :( I didn't get to check out the bonus levels because I never beat it on 00 agent mode :(

            Its ok though heh. But yes, Goldeneye owned... hmm... I just found my n64 the other day, mabye its time to find a used copy for cheap and have some fun? or mabye emulated? :P
          • I'm (still) stuck on that train level... I get through those parts, get out of the train and the person you've rescued either gets shot by the guards outside the train or can't work out how to run away from the (soon-to-explode) train. Aaargh! I must have done this at least 20 times...
            • It is possible, despite how it may seem. I cracked it eventually, after reading lots of on-line walkthroughs etc. and just playing and playing and playing. At a guess it would have taken me 50+ tries. I hate that fucking level!
      • (id should learn from the Goldeneye grenade launcher, what a weapon)
        Someone should really add it to quake 2 or 3, I agree it is far superior to any other Grenade Launcher in the fps genre. Btw, the last semester of highschool, I ditched the textbooks, opting instead to carry an n64, four controllers, and a copy of Goldeneye. Nothing like challenging a punk sucka to a duel. :D
      • Granted, the graphics are poor by PC standards.

        Both really poor and really poorly designed.
        The GOOD low-res FPS games always did something to work around their poor graphics.

        Ever play Wolfenstein?
        Remember how BIG the guns and clips were?


        Goldeneye on the other hand make your typical handgun quite small. Split the TV up into 4 sections for multiplayer mode, start running around trying not to get shot and you're not going to find that gun unless you already know where it is.

        IMO, Goldeneye was poor
    • Fascinating. GoldenEye was the first FPS I ever played and for me the deathmatch mode was amazing.

      On the occasions when I've tried multiplayer Quake, Half-Life, TFC and so on, I've found the experience to be harsh, dull and repetitive. Run, die. Run, die. And few keyboards are ergonomically designed so a gamer can use one for more than an hour without feeling uncomfortable. Gimme an N64 joypad any day of the week. As a great man once said, "GoldenEye has the best control system of any game. And I don't ju

  • Most games have cheats and hidden levels that are probably never discovered... my own personal experience of this was about 10 years ago, when for my birthday as a little boy I got spiderman for the Sega Master System. I had a game gear, so I had to play the game through a third party sms to gg convertor( remember those?) . Unfortunately for me, the power cable into my game gear was the wrong size, so any big movement would make the gg short out, sort of like that way when you hold the light switch half-way

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