GoldenEye N64 Dev Reveals What We All Assumed About Oddjob On Game's 21st Birthday
If you owned a Nintendo 64 game console, then there's a good chance you also played GoldenEye 007, one of the most popular games of its time and still a title that gamers look back fondly on. In a couple of days, it will have been 25 years since it first came out. As that day approaches, the game's developers have a revelation to make—if you played as Oddjob, you kind of cheated.
Karl Hilton, the game's lead environment artist, and Mark Edmons, gameplay and engine programmer for GoldenEye 007, stated as much in an interview with MEL Magazine. Both acknowledged the inherent advantage of paying with Oddjob, which you probably always suspected, even if you were loathe to admit it.
The thing with Oddjob is, he's a short character. Due to this, the auto-aim of weapons would shoot above his head, making him a difficult target to hit compared to the other characters.
"We all thought it was kind of cheating when we were play-testing with Oddjob, but it was too much fun to take out and there was no impetus from any of us to change it. It’s clearly become part of the culture and folklore of the game — I noticed playing GoldenEye as Oddjob was mentioned in Ready Player One, so ultimately, I think it’s fine," Hilton said.
Edmonds was far more blunt in his assessment...
"It's definitely cheating to play as Oddjob!," Edmonds said. But like Hilton, he noted it can "just add to the fun." He also noted that the development team "could have put something in to stop this blatant cheating, but why not just let players decide on their own rules?"
These comments leave little room for debate—if you played as Oddjob, you're dastardly cheat! But you also probably had a lot of fun doing it, especially against unsuspecting opponents.
Thumbnail/Top Image Source: Flickr via Brendan Bostock
