"Well. You had to learn about Goldeneye sooner or later, didn't you? Your dad, he wouldn't tell you. He only ever got the knock-offs, the ones that were almost there but never quite matched it. But, then, what could? No, what we had was special. We didn't know it yet--we were just kids, no older than you. But we'd lose whole hours, days, weekends of our young lives. Lost in the grip of Goldeneye.
"I don't have a lot of specific memories of the wars--it's mostly a lot of little images: an unaware target running across my screen with nary a crate to hide behind. Or the crisp, satisfying sound of reloading my KF7. Sometimes I still see a pixelated explosion, setting off a thousand other, equally beautiful, explosions until the whole screen is nothing but yellow and orange pixels, killing us all before respawning us, back to square one.
"Some of the memories, though... They're with me even when I don't want 'em. Especially when I don't want 'em. I shout, 'Get out! Get out of here! I'm not in those Caves no more!' But all I see is the winding tunnels of the Caves. The big, open rooms of multiple levels coming out of nowhere, leaving you open from every conceivable angle and from others you didn't know were possible. Those Caves had the kind of rock formations that don't appear in nature--neat, sloping ramps and horrifying, hexagonal columns. Some people thought they were programmed by demons; I don't know much about demons or devils but... I think those people might be right. And then there was the black. The endless black, broken only for a second by... his face... his hand.
"It was always so dark in them Caves. So dark and so endless and so, so cold. Like the Temple but... so much more circuitous. No matter how dark it got in the Temple, an experienced player knew where he was, where he was going. It wasn't the Complex, neither, which had all that light--all the subtle clues giving you some idea where you might be. Give me the Facility anytime. That was a clean layout. Always knew where you were, where others might be. And those doors, all those doors. You could always hear them opening and shutting--there was an adrenaline boost for you, whether you wanted it or you didn't: when a door opened in earshot and it wasn't you who did it. Some said, if you made it far enough through the Caves, you'd come out into a jungle--a jungle that traded endless black for endless green--but we never found it.
"None of my crew ever liked going to the Caves much. But, sometimes, when you set your destination for 'random,' well, that's the kinda place a man can end up. That was a risk we all took. Even little Rhodie--he always played as Boris, shouting "I AM INVINCIBLE" every time he notched a kill--he knew the risks, and I think a small part of him died every time we looked around and found ourselves in the Caves. Little guy always wanted to go to the Stacks--said he liked the big open spaces: better for watching the explosions. He was a remote mines kinda guy. That was a point of contention between him and me. See, I liked proximity mines. You lay 'em and get the hell out of there. Maybe set the buggers up near an ammo cache or, better, a respawn area. Rhodie used to say that was cowardly--told me over and again 'that's gay!' back before we stopped using that as a pejorative. 'What's the difference,' I'd shout back, maybe a little more defensive than was needed. 'What's the difference when we're going License To Kill?' Because that was how a man went to war, son: License To Kill. When any second you'd be runnin' high, but the next you'd be on the receiving end of somebody's cheaply-found Klobb. Where body armor meant nothing and every time you picked it up, you snorted a little; yeah, you pretended it was funny, but in that abbreviated breath there was more fear than bemusement--because you knew nothin'--nothin'--could save you.
"One time, totally punch drunk, somebody suggested we do Slappers Only on LTK. 'It'll be fun,' the bastard insisted. It wasn't fun. Dull, at first, maybe. But when the suck set in, the war we experienced wasn't contained in the Stacks. Not even the Temple could've held the contempt we started feeling for each other. We had each lost a thousand lives in Goldeneye. But that day, it took our innocence... our friendships. I wish I... I wish I could tell Rhodie now that it didn't matter--that it never mattered. Proximity, remote, who cares? He wouldn't... I never got to... I don't know how many wars he had after that. But I like to remember his last round--in the Stacks, where he was always happiest...
"I was almost out of the Caves. I had to be: I had been running so long. So long since I had last heard any gunfire, any explosions. As though I was the only one left alive, and yet the round wouldn't end. Stuck in my own little purgatory. And that's when I saw him--the little Asian guy with the bowler hat, jumping out of the shadows. We had a code, our crew: no one gets the little Asian guy. But there he was, plain as day, and he was coming for me. I tried shootin' him; used every last round in my PP7--the only gun I had left with ammunition, the only friend that hadn't let me down. And I swear to this day: I got the son of a bitch. I got him, sure as I ever got any man. But them bullets just kept... flying right over his head. By the time I understood what was happening, before I could even think to lower the gun, I fired my last and he was on me, hand stretched forward. Slappers Only. 'That cocky little Asian man,' I thought to myself, just before the blood dripped down from the top of the screen--the wars' way of telling you 'You're Done.'
"Anyway, I don't remember a lot, son. But I do remember that I earned my Longest Innings medal. And dammit to hell, I earned Most Deadly, too! But no one remembers the awards. What are they even for, anyway? We couldn't figure out how we got some of them. One of my crew--big fat guy, used to play as Trevelyan--he once got Most Honorable and Most Dishonorable in the same round. The same round! Explain that to me, God!
"But that's... that's not fair. For God or for any man. I'm not sure there is an explanation for the hold that game had on us. The memories it carved. The friendships it forged... and ended. I don't know if your generation will ever know the likes of Goldeneye, boy. But I hope you get your own. And I hope, when you do, that your controllers are easier to hold than the ones they gave us."
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