Trigger Happy
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a satellite; rescue Natalya from a speeding train; and so
on. Such sections of the plot generally happen at the
end of a mission, and they happen
to
the player. The
game does not let the player change the plot: for
instance, to the dismay and fury of many addicts, you
cannot decide that vulnerable, annoying Natalya has
outlived her usefulness and shoot her in order to make a
quick getaway. The game signals failure and forces you
to play the mission again. Such plot nuggets, therefore,
mean little more in the videogame context than excuses
for the action of the next mission to move elsewhere.
But Goldeneye’s strength is that it manages to cut
and paste all its filmic influences—the faces of actors
Sean Bean, Robbie Coltrane and so on are digitized
and mapped onto the in-game characters—onto a
mode of action that is pure videogame, with the accent
heavily on stealthy shooting, and nothing in the way of
sipping Martinis or seducing Russian women.
Particularly successful is the way in which locations
from the film, such as the main satellite control room,
have been not just represented but fully recreated in
three dimensions in the game. This fully investigable
architecture is what the videogame can uniquely offer.
When watching a movie, you cannot go and look
