You may know me as a person who exclusively plays RPGs and owns way too many of them to ever possibly get through them all, but there is also a large portion of my collection that has gone virtually untouched for my entire life: first person shooters. Though most of those types of games have made their way onto my shelves when I’ve purchased larger game lots, I’ve always been anti-FPS because I don’t particularly like excessive person vs. person violence and gore, or the glorification of war through gaming. I was recently challenged by a friend on Twitch to try out GoldenEye 007 for the N64, and after a bit of teasing and egging on from other people, I hesitantly accepted the request.
(The other important part of this that I feel is important to mention is that not only had I never played an FPS prior to last night, I had also never seen any James Bond movies. I actually thought that Mission Impossible and James Bond movies were the same thing, so that’s saying something horrible. If you asked me, I still wouldn’t be able to definitively tell you the difference between the two, so it’s probably best you don’t ask!)
I read the manual and got a synopsis of James Bond lore from my boyfriend before starting the stream. At first, the entire idea of learning a new-to-me game genre in front of other humans seemed really daunting and made me feel vulnerable and embarrassed every time I made a mistake, but I was soon propped up by positive comments and great advice from the people who joined me in my stream’s chat. Though I kept shooting doors instead of opening them and have absolutely no stealth skills for this kind of gameplay, I was soon running and gunning my way through the world of James Bond with gusto, and I was honestly having a lot of fun. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard on stream, and feeling silly was the furthest thing from my mind by the end of it all. I’m really glad that I had a friendly push outside of my comfort zone and had the opportunity to share it with people who were genuinely entertained by my shenanigans.
If you’re interested, you can see a highlight reel of sorts from my 3 hour stream. I’ve cut and edited the video.
I think I didn’t mind this game’s violence too much because a) the graphics are really unrealistic, and b) there wasn’t a lot of blood. I think I’ll definitely wrap this game up sometime in the near future. Heck… I might even try something a little more modern just for kicks!
Do you guys have a default genre that you go to more than others? Have you ever felt apprehensive about trying something new? I’d also love to hear about your first time with this game if you’ve played it.
Thanks for reading!
-GG