Ancient GE and other N64 'records' in magazines for the historians :)

[WMJ]

Hello all,

As this is my first post I'll briefly introduce myself. I am WMJ and I guess several of you will know my for speedrunning F-Zero X (and several other N64 games) or meeting me at AGDQ '14 and '15. I have always been interested in Goldeneye speedrunning but never took it beyond a casual level myself. My buddy Arjen is still on the Perfect Dark rankings I see. We used to play a lot together back in the days (2001 ish).

As a fellow N64 speedrunner I got inspired by Goose's latest video to dig up some old gaming magazines I had laying around. Most of these contain some... 'remarkable'..  records. I have made scans of the most interesting ones: N64 magazine April '99 with Steven Zwartjes, 64 magazine July '99 and 64 magazine August 2000.

I have shared them on Google photos for everyone to see here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6dDZoVWZ8epSSviw8

Also I'm a former housemate of Patrick Wessels and KVD. We used to play Goldeneye multi quite often. I heard many stories about a player named Steven Zwartjes. Myself and KVD could never quite beat Wessels in multi and he used to tell me he got good by playing with Steven in the late 90's. As I have never personally met Steven I will remain neutral on the topic if all his records are legit or not. I did however find N64 magazine April '99 where Steven won a prize for his Goldeneye and F-Zero X times. For Goldeneye they required full video proof via VHS so I have no reason to doubt his times (F-Zero X are typical beginner times too). Looking at the other magazines top times they really should have required VHS proof for everything though....

64 magazine July is similar to what Goose showed in the video but with some screenshot 'proof' of our pal Richard Dunn for his claimed Facility times. Interesting is that Stacy Needham won a prize for his DKR times. He's still active and a top player for that game. Richard Dunn has all the F-Zero X records. As an F-Zero X speedrunner this very page is actually what first got me going speedrunning the game. His times are all very typical beginner times for NTSC (a bit curious for a European magazine). His Death Race time with accompanied screenshot is not and would still be a rank 2 time today.

64 magazine August 2000 is where stuff really got outrageous. Some notable claims with accompanied screenshot 'proof' are Surface 1 agent 57 seconds, Luigi Raceway time attack 36 seconds and Mario Raceway time attack 18 seconds. My guess is for GE they used gameshark for no clipping on doors and didn't even hold back. For MK64 probably Moon Jump would be my guess. The DKR times are really noteworthy as well. Stacy Needham has some insane times like Ancient Lake 32 seconds. These times are faster!? than his current records on the DKR site.... Not sure what's up with that.

Anyway enjoy!

[TheFlash]

This magazine from 1997 has a long section on GoldenEye on pages 38-47:

https://archive.org/details/N64_Magazine_Issue_009_1997-12_Future_Publishing_GB

There is also a Mario Kart 64 ranking including SZ:

https://archive.org/stream/N64_Magazine_Issue_009_1997-12_Future_Publishing_GB#page/n69/mode/2up

[JDBlack21]

LOL at the "proof" for those s1/jungle times. You can obviously tell it was game sharked due to no shots being fired, which you literally are required to do on both levels.

[flicker]

LOL at the "proof" for those s1/jungle times. You can obviously tell it was game sharked due to no shots being fired, which you literally are required to do on both levels.

Timer shows 00:02 so clearly they just quit out to show off the best time... which still is also obviously gamesharked..

[Wuldntuliktono]

Aztec agent 108 and facility agent 39 in 99! No way walk through doors was used! Plus a streets 112 in 1999 eh!

[Wuldntuliktono]

The entire 5 times on aztec 108 to 118 couldnt even be tased, i dont even think with a gameshark 108 would be possible, not to mention 2 archives 16s and a control 340!

[Stacy1199]

Hello.

This is Stacy Needham (MK/DKR player, seen in the magazine here), it feels weird seeing the pages of this magazine so many years after it was published and there is something I'd like to add to everything here (quoted from a post I'd made on the MK forum)

I have some information I'd like to add here. The charts on Diddy Kong Racing looked fairly legit in issue 29 (besides Ancient Lake), but there were definitely a ton of times sent later on which were just balloon races done with magic codes like this (but in a 2 player race so you could get a photo of the exact time). In later issues, I sent a bunch of these times myself (32.21 Ancient Lake and 58.26 Fossil Canyon being the main ones I remember) and I actually won that trident pad and controller pak. The controller really wasn't nice to use and the controller pak never fit in the controller right, so I kept having my dad pry it out with a knife whenever I wanted it taken out (and even doing it myself as I'd held on to it into my adult life).

I knew that a ton of submissions on those pages were with cheats even back then. I did play GE as a kid, and I quickly came to the conclusion that everyone just used turbo mode (maybe even gamesharked it so the times would save). The MK64 times couldn't even be more obvious (with what I assumed to be with a moonjump code back then), but I did have the top time on Yoshi Valley for a bit (without cheating). I'll openly admit that the times I sent in for DKR were just balloon races with magic codes, but I felt like the charts were already fucked by the time I started doing this myself.

[WMJ]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I knew back then a lot of records weren't legit for sure as well. At the time of issue 28 I believed most of them but in issue 40 it was very clear it was gamesharked. Facility 00 agent 56 seemed plausible enough to me back then someone could get the time with an incredible run for instance. I even gave a lot of these a shot myself to see how far I could go.

It's a good example of what happens if no clear boundaries are maintained on rankings and there is a lot of incentive for people to cheat (prizes). The more people get away with the more it seems ok to also cheat because everyone that has played Mario Kart 64 5 minutes knows 18 seconds Mario Raceway is ridiculous.

Gamesharks and other cheat carts were very much around. Adds for them frequently appeared in the magazine as well. I even remember a feature on gameshark cheats with a Dam agent results screen of 49 seconds. Nobody was crazy enough to actually submit that but I thought it was quite suggestive (hey look what you can do if you buy our device).

I think most of the GE times were done with the 'walk through objects and doors' code. That was around for sure and I think even printed in the magazine at some point. You could just walk straight through the security doors on Facility and through the doors and glass on Aztec. On control too you could instantly walk through the door behind Natalya and start the hacking sequence right away making 3:40 possible. Surface 1 you would instantly fall through the gate with locks. Some times are fast even with that so it's possible they used turbo mode with some moderation (as going all out with that would result in much more insane times).

[Wuldntuliktono]

What was the standard of proof for these magazines just a picture of the end screen time?

[earfolds]

What was the standard of proof for these magazines just a picture of the end screen time?

Just a photograph, and it didn't have to be a good quality photograph, just enough that the time was legible.

[Stacy1199]

Little update here, I decided to bid on a listing on ebay that had 6 issues of this magazine which I won (32, 38, 39, 42, 48, 54). When these magazines arrive, I'll provide pictures of what will be even more insane times than seen in the link in OP (which only had issues 28 and 40).

[RWG]

omg that sounds amazing!

[Stacy1199]

My magazines arrived today, gonna reveal everything in there later on. But I'll leave a sneak preview of how GE looked as of issue 38 here for now.
https://i.imgur.com/bgYqUG8.jpg

Edit: Got all of it uploaded now
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ySKqruW5lQdPWnYs4Kr0bwj1LS99aiFU

[Retrix]

I feel this information should be posted to the internet archive if it's not already there.

[OHMSS]

Could you maybe scan those pages or use a decent camera?

[Calle W]

Funny seeing Jan-Erik Spångberg's name in these magazines. I met the guy when I was a little kid during the Swedish Nintendo Championships. He won the title twice if I recall correctly. His brother was also a finalist a few times.

Also, sup Stacy.

[PerfectTaste]

Funny seeing Jan-Erik Spångberg's name in these magazines. I met the guy when I was a little kid during the Swedish Nintendo Championships. He won the title twice if I recall correctly. His brother was also a finalist a few times.

Also, sup Stacy.

For one of my first trips ever, I took the train to spend two weeks in the south, in Växjö, with Jonathan Rydström (some admin edit his flag), Jan-Erik Spångberg, and his brother Winston. Jan-Erik was one of the most talented and diverse gamers I've ever met. He won the first real Swedish Nintendo Championship, and his brother won in 2005. We used to send VHS tapes to each other with N64 PRs. In fact, I might still have a tape of his at home in Sweden I'd be willing to capture for those who are interested.

[Blue Khakis]

I can't actually believe this, I had all 59 issues of N64 Magazine at the bottom of my wardrobe and I threw them out a couple of months ago

[Stacy1199]

Sorry for bumping up an old thread, but I found something interesting recently.

What you see here is what they considered acceptable proof (this particular photo was not sent to the magazine, most likely due to me getting a better time on the same roll of film, so I didn't mail this one after I had the film developed). This particular photo seems to be dated to 18th October 2000 going by what is printed on the back side of this photo. All of the photos I sent were took in a dark room like this and poorly in focused (but at least somewhat readable).

[Fantasm]

I've found one of the oldest files I have saved on my computer (carried over from many-a-previous computer): a video captured some time at the end of 1998, featuring an unknown person, which was posted to Ben's Goldeneye site (one of my favorite places to visit as a 13 year old kid who just got his own Compaq Presario & 100 KB/s AOL DSL connection) as a tutorial of sorts for people like myself struggling to achieve the cheat.  I'm sure it was never a record of any kind, but I've uploaded it to youtube for the purposes of preserving what I'm sure is one of the earliest recordings of the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSj2k-4w3YM

[Penta]

Thanks for sharing; that is cool to see.