I love reading ‘oral histories’ of things , where a reporter gathers recollections of events or cultural phenomena and weaves together a story that becomes more real than a single perspective or more formal analysis. They can be slightly contrived, but when they’re done well they’re hard to beat.

A great example is this retelling of the filming of Predator, which is hilarious.

I really admire Arnold because he knew exactly what he was playing. I remember there’d be rewrites every morning, and one morning Arnold steamed out of his trailer straight up to John and grabbed him by the collar and said “John…” and John said “Yes?” “There are four words here; I’ll do three.”

Today I read a slightly more low key one about the making of Goldeneye, the classic Nintendo 64 game that (almost accidentally) reinvented - or more correctly invented - the multiplayer FPS on a console.

Doak: The multiplayer mode, which is now seen as critical for its big success, was for a long time just a wish-list thing, not a thing that we were definitely going to have. The N64 had four controller ports so it invited the idea that you’d have four-player split screen, but we were only going to program a multiplayer mode if we had time.

The story has some great images of hand drawn level maps and faxed bug reports. Amazingly the 21 year old game still has a vibrant and dedicated community playing it, largely due to the rise of speedrunning, and the support Goldeneye included for that activty before it was a thing:

Doak: We inadvertently invited speedrunning from very early on, because we had the timed unlocks. Clark: Finishing the level faster than the target time unlocked a cheat. The harder the target time, the more awesome the cheat mode: Turbo mode, Bond invisible, invincibility, unlimited ammo — essentially keys to enter God Mode, a means to explore the game in unimaginable ways. Personally, the challenge itself got me addicted: It was a very dynamic game for speedrunning, and the target times were a clear invitation to prove yourself. Facility 00 Agent’s target of 2:05 was the legendary measuring stick. The elite.net, the home of GoldenEye speedrunning, has been tracking records since 1998. Remarkably, the game has more active speedrunners right now than at any point in the past.

The speedrunning detail reminded me of an amazing video I stumbled across last year, which showed Australian (represent!) streamer Karl Jobst beating a 15 year old record as it happened. It takes 52 seconds and his reaction when he realises is incredible. From a completely relaxed start - and probably his billionth attempt so he’s not expecting anything - to an emotional wreck.

Watching that led to a rabbit hole of trying to understand what I was watching. The aforementioned The Elite Rankings has a huge history of speedrun times, and such esoteric concepts as tied vs non-tied world records. From there I found a YouTuber RWhiteGoose who has a channel where he talks in great detail about the lore of Goldeneye speedrunning. Some of the epsiodes run for hours talking about a 60 second level, discussing the records and how they were achieved and then bettered.

I was fascinated to see he’d posted an analysis of whether ‘Dam 52’ was even possible 10 months before Jobst proved that indeed it was.

All of which led to one of the most entertaining gaming videos I’ve ever seen. I kept seeing references to Ryan Lockwood’s legendary run on ‘Streets 1:12’, and eventually found Goose’s 2h40m analysis of that run, including the full video and audio. 2 and a half hours on a 1:13 run might sound excessive - ok it is excessive - but sit back, skip to 1:37:15, and enjoy.

Language warning!