GoldenEye 007 Speedrunner Grabs A New Record With A Sneaky Trick

It may be almost 24 years since GoldenEye released on the N64 but, in the intervening decades the game’s dedicated community of speedrunners has continued to challenge themselves to come up with the fastest times on various levels, blazing through enemy gauntlets as quickly as possible to create new World Record times.

Regarded as the game’s toughest stage, the Moonraker-inspired Aztec level has provided something of an ongoing challenge in this regard due to an awkwardly positioned piece of armour that doubles a player’s health — a boost previously thought vital to a successful run — that’s seen speedrunners feel the need to go out of their way, wasting precious seconds in order to grab it.

However, as reported by Kotaku, one nifty speedrunner named Gus Riolo has managed to set a new world record by leaving that vital piece of armour behind and using a new trick to find a quicker way of surviving the level’s enemy onslaught.

According to speedrunning documentarian Karl Jobst, it’s been one turret in particular on the Aztec level, a seemingly unavoidable obstacle sat in a duct that tears player’s health to shreds, that’s been causing all the trouble. However, a handful of speedrunners eventually discovered a trick to fool the turret that involves moving forward to get its attention and then stepping back in order to send it tracking around, giving players just enough time to clear the duct without taking any damage.

With this valuable information in hand, Riolo was able to blast through the level in a world record time of 1:34 seconds on 00 Agent difficulty, as you can see below: