Poll Did You Know That GoldenEye Had A Dual-Analogue Control Option On N64?

My goodness! I will be digging out the N64 soon to try this out! I had no idea this an ep1 racer had twin controller support. I'm sure there were a few Wii games that used (or at least planned to use) two Wii remotes instead of Wii remote and nunchuck but I can't think of what specifically.

Any other games able to use two n74 controllers for one player?

I'm guess most people saying no either never played it or were just handed a controller for MP. It's not like it's a hidden feature or anything and was a general control style Nintendo suggested for the N64 that was barely used.

I knew and finished the game this way. I had only one controller, but I took one from a friend who did it before (and had 4 controllers, one for him, each brother and one for guests). But I didn't finish in the last difficult (I stucked in "Control")

Please never change NintendoLife

Didn't know about it and, back then, I didn't speak English so my knowledge on game options were kind of limited to difficult settings mainly.

I knew, but beat it on all difficulties with one controller as nature intended. As mentioned above, this wasn't kept a secret. At the time it looked and felt strange to try playing with two controllers at once. I'd assumed the intention was to have this as some kind of co-op alternative.

Yes I did because I once looked through the control options.

Yes but I also thought everyone else knew too

Wow, at 117 votes, it's almost a perfect split. 51% Yes, 49% No.

I knew it, but like all dual-analog-controls for 1st person shooter, it was crap (for me).
Best controls on consoles (before motion aiming) where on the N64 with walking with the C-Buttons and aiming with the controlstick. I don't know why, but I was far better with this. 🤔

I did know this at the time as it was one of the control options and even showed two controllers on the screen. This was 1997 though, and using two analogue sticks at the same time just didn’t feel right. I think I gave it a go but quickly stuck with the one controller option. I managed to compete the game on all difficulties with one controller so obviously it was fine. I’d like to give the dual control scheme a go now.

Can the dual control method be used in 2 player?

I did know, because it's in the menu.

No, I didn't know, but I don't care, since both control methods suck. The only good FPS control schemes are mouse/keyboard and motion controls (without dual sticks).

Had no idea, though 4 player deathmatch was where me and a few school-mates would spend out lunchbreaks at Huddled around a 15" CRT, ah good times!

This is really only possible because of the three-pronged N64 controller. If the stick was on the left it wouldn't have been practical to hold.

(On the other hand Sony solved the whole thing by making a twin stick controller.)

I learned about this from did you know gaming, a long time ago.

Yes, I knew. I played the game to death when I was a kid. Also, I'm pretty sure this control scheme is a big deal for speedrunners of the game.

I did genuinely know about this (IIRC it's the Honey control scheme, I think all the control schemes were named after Bond girls), but I've never really bothered to try it as I was always very happy with the default control scheme and I thought it would make changing weapons and going into the menu more difficult as the buttons are harder to reach.

It might be an odd way of playing by today's standards but the game was basically built around playing with a single controller so it's not like it's impossible to beat without using a second controller.

That said, I've always thought it was a missed opportunity for things like the recent RetroFighters controller to not come with a second analogue stick and two connectors so you can play twin-stick GoldenEye from a single controller.

I remember using that option once or twice.

Do people not read the instruction manuals that come with games? It is stated on page 14 that you can use two controllers.

But did you know that when it snows
My eyes become large
And the light that you shine can't be seen?

Me and my friends thought it was a multiplayer control scheme for the single player so would play levels cooperatively using it.

Oh dear NL, how did you not know this? It's nearly as bad as when NOM marked Doom 64 down for having "awkward" controls, yet you can remap every button in the game and get a cracking set of controls out of it, comparable if not better than the recent release.
First thing I do when booting a game, look at the options menus (perhaps I am old fashioned?) to see my options if I don't like something. Usually I disable something or increase sensitivity, or with graphics, turn off Chromatic aberration, blur and bloom.

I did, I tried it once and thought “this is so awkward” and went straight back to using one controller.
But then I also remember the first time I sent a text from my Mitsubishi MT30, back in ‘98, and thinking “this will never catch on, why wouldn’t you just call?”- so what do I know, right?

What I want to know is - what’s the big white console on the far right of that setup, above the Technicolor N64?

@gaga64 Looks like a NeoGeo Arcade Stick Pro to me.

@bluemage1989 yeah me and my brothers did that until we learned how to do both controllers at once, that was when you'd mastered Goldeneye. Well that and all the time trials for cheats.
I also played Breath of the Wild on Switch with my nephew like that, was actually quite fun once he stopped being a kid and actually co ordinated with me, instead of trying to get me killed .

Knew tired like twice went back to one. Like holding two 64 pads was hard back then and awkard

Using the 2 controller setup enabled you to shoot during end level cutscenes using the second controller. Meaning you could shoot guards or Natalia. If you placed remote mines you could detonate them.

Yes, because I'm old...

I honestly can’t remember if I knew this. If I did I was too uncoordinated to play that way. I probably didn’t know though. I poured hours into this game.

@Damo poor Ant then? Want me to name and shame him in the comments too? Glad you hadn't misremembered this tho Damo.

@BionicDodo @damo cool, thanks!

Yes, I knew. I'm going to sound like a smart alec now, but I thought it was common knowledge?

Even though it came after Goldeneye, Robotron 64 did the same thing too. I wished I knew about it when I rented the game.

For sure and felt it was ahead of it's time. Lucky enough to have controllers to spare, might even have had 1v1 with dual-dual-dual wielding! The n64 set me up the wrong way round for fps for life though, anyone else have that problem? Annoyingly not every game lets you simply switch sticks and I couldn't retrain myself, plus very hard to find out in advance. So had to play Doom in 'lefty' with the sticks ok but then it swapped the triggers too. Couldn't do Wolfenstein though that didn't even have that option. Thank christ nintendo put the button remapping option in.

Robotron 64 also had an option for dual controllers.

Yes I knew it, you only have to go to Settings and select it LOL. Only thing is that you need to hold a controller in each hand. Settings is the first thing I check on the menus since I was a kid.

I remember trying it a few times and it was awkward holding two controllers but if I am remembering right of you were dual wealding guns with Rumble paks in controller 1 would only vibrate for the left gun and controller 2 for the right one. It did make anything outside moving and shooting feel impossible though like changing weapons and opening doors as your right thumb would have to use A and B on the second controller.

Those acting arrogant about people not reading manuals and going through options to check every controller layout. Well many people have played this game years after it's release and may have picked up a loose cartridge and second not everyone adjust things in settings menus if they like how the game plays when they first start playing it. I know I didn't go through all that stuff when I got the game on release.

I sure didn't and I played a lot of GoldenEye back in the day. 🤔

I always liked how they named the control schemes as a Bond girl. I was fond of Solitaire and Domino.

I had no idea! Fantastic. Gonna have to try that out later.

Yes, I think. Although it might have actually taken me some time to even discover it. But once I did learn about this, it was the only way I played it. It was basically dual analog back in a time when very few other games used it. The DualAnalog controller was actually already out for PlayStation by then, itself a response to Nintendo having the revolutionary and paradigm-shifting analog thumb stick on the N64 first, but it had only been on the market for a few months and there was like a small handful of PlayStation fps games out there, and I don't think any of them that released before GoldenEye 007 used dual analog controls. So Rare deserved/deserves major kudos for including this option in GoldenEye 007. Once again, despite some gamers being completely ignorant and not showing GoldenEye 007 the respect it deserves, even suggesting it's not worthy of any such praise, GoldenEye 007 shows why it was one of thee most ground-breaking and important fps games in history. And, yes, it's still a blast to play even to this day!

I never knew that. No one ever talked about that feature.

Yup, not easy or intuitive. But at least it was an option lol. Required 2 controllers too. I thought everyone knew about that

I remember this on Star Wars Racer, never knew about this on GoldenEye.

@Damo It might not be common knowledge now in 2020 (especially as you might have some younger people within your audience), but I THOUGHT it was common knowledge in the 90s when it came out. I might be wrong, but I do seem to remember it being mentioned in the UK's N64 magazine. And as someone else stated, it is right there in the settings... then again, it wouldn't surprise me if many people did miss it since nearly all my friends played with the default controls instead of switching to the superior configuration that mapped forward/backward movement plus strafing to the C buttons, and 360 aiming to the stick.

@DownRightSam Actually, moving around using the dual analog setup is extremely simple and intuitive, and basically exactly like any modern fps game on consoles that use dual analog. Only the reticule aim mode was a little bit clunky because of the way that mapped basically 1:1 with the angle you were pushing the stick and then flicked back to the the center of the screen if you released the analog stick.

Absolutely. And I played it this way too.

@Damo SWE1 Podracer was?

My cousin found this option when we were kids. Didn't use it much except when we were bored we would see how far we can get working together each using a controller.

I poured hundreds of hours into Goldeneye. I doubt there's anything I don't know about the game, quite honestly. I even used Game Shark to find hidden assets and to play multiplayer on levels like Statue and Cradle.

I want this game on Switch so badly. Still my favorite FPS.

@Reprise And, if I recall correctly, you could use the d-pad just like the c-buttons in this setup (as move forward, backward and strafe left and right), so even with the single analog method, it was possible to actually have standard [digital] move/strafe on the left thumb [pad] and the [analog] turning/looking on the right thumb [stick], which is the same way around that we all have it now.

I did not know this because I hated GoldenEye. Or rather, I hated that my friends and I would get together and play it nearly every weekend back in high school, and being the only person in the room who didn't own it I got destroyed every time. It's okay, though, because then we'd switch over to Saturn Bomberman and I'd get my sweet revenge.

@Damo Because he clearly wants to join in the discussion with everyone else in a way that's actually visible to everyone else, which is basically the whole point of these "social" online sites and platforms. You know, with the comments sections where everyone can add their say and be part of the discussion and the like. Now, even with that, maybe he just wanted to make the initial point as succinctly as possible with a simple yes. Don't be a douche and knock him for doing nothing wrong. Maybe you should instead think about whether your moderation/filtering system is quite as perfect as it could be. Yes, it's goal is to filter out small spam-like comments or whatever, but at times it's also a pain in the *ss when you just want to say one or two words that perfectly fit the bill but you can't. Luckily, I rarely have that problem of not having enough to say. lol

@impurekind Yeah, that's a great point actually. I forgot about that! I always did it the C stick way round, but only because that was what I was used to at the time.

I did and I was awful using it!

@Damo Nothing to answer other than your attitude towards someone who's taken the time to come in and contribute to your site. The guy was simply expressing his frustration with the comments not letting us be straight to the point at times (while still being and feeling like part of the actual discussion, part of the community, and not just a mathematical stat on a poll), and you're response was unnecessarily snippy and missing the point imo.

@Damo My logic is that your response to him comes across like "If all you have to contribute is yes then your comment isn't really good enough or worthy enough to warrant inclusion in the discussion, but we'll certainly take it contributing to our poll--and whatever else you've done on the site that helps us generate the money that pays our bills via the included ads that popped up while you were navigating the various pages along with your click-through contributions and the like, thank you very much", which I don't appreciate and so I'm calling it out. He wanted to post a simple comment and something in the site design got in the way of that, and you don't have to subtly passive-aggressively defend it and query him like he was doing it wrong.

@Damo So what's the problem with mentioning the only other game (AFAIK) that has the same atypical control scheme on the N64 that wasn't mentioned in your article? That's all I was doing.

Seems like you're the one missing the point.

I understand if a lot of casual players haven’t heard about it, but for people in the speedrunning community, everyone pretty much knows.

I knew about long before this article, but I didnt know about it at the time of playing Goldeneye on the 64. I think it's a combination of two reasons: all my friends had their own controller and we'd obviously all jump straight onto multiplayer. I honestly dont think I ever played single player Goldeneye with more than 1 controller plugged in, so the option never got uncovered!

@Damo

You: Robotron isn't an FPS though.
Me: SWE1 Race was? [meaning it was a FPS]
You: It's in the text.
Me: And Robotron wasn't.
You: But SWE1 WAS mentioned in the article.

Me: You're the one not understanding this conversation, which was always about a control scheme.

@Damo And to further clarify, my initial comment wasn't calling you out. It wasn't directed at you saying you missed something or should correct the article to include it. It was just mean to say to others, "Hey, this game also does that." That's all. So I'm not sure why you felt the need to be so defensive, as if I were being critical of you.

I believe it had a setup like turok ad well. Where the c buttons moved and the analog stick aimed.

Yes, because a few people have actually hacked up two N64 controllers to join them together to make a "GoldenEye controller".

Yes. Not difficult to blow past it when selecting controller configs.

@RupeeClock Exact same here.

Yes?

And yes, but I didn't use it, because solitaire is just better?

@dsparil I had no idea that this feature existed, but I never really looked at the settings menus in games as a kid. Not my most played game, but I certainly played a lot.

I remember that. I even tried it a couple of times, but for some reason, it didn't really feel right. I guess I just prefer holding one controller at a time, although playing Wii games with the Wiimote and Nunchuck wasn't all that bad.

I knew about it, but didn't know the intention. I thought it was some silly form of co-op play.

@BulkSlash Honey was the default control scheme where you moved and turned with the control stick and strafed and aimed up and down with the C buttons.

I used it once, and didn't really like it. But I was really good with the c buttons, so I probably just tried it too late into learning how to play.

never knew that goldeneye 64 had a dual analog option, interesting. wonder if perfect dark on the N64 has this same option

@DrDaisy Honestly I should have just booted my N64 up and checked. It’s literally on the desk next to me. 😅

@Mr-X9000 it does as far as I remember it has all of the same options

I tried it a couple of times. Was not impressed. Same with PERFECT DARK.

I can't believe so many people voted "no". Like others said, they must not've played the game very much. I couldn't stand the default controls, I always switch to 1.2 Honey (move with C-buttons, look with stick). I've tried the twin-stick, but never stuck with it for long.

Here's a much more useful tidbit: you can increase your velocity in GE and PD by holding forward and strafe at the same time (you just have to turn so you're at an angle). The X and Y velocities added together don't get clamped, so I'm not sure if my calculations are correct, but if they are, this will increase your speed by 41%. Either way, it's quite a speed boost.

I knew about it because I always look at the options of games. I remember thinking at the time that it seemed totally crazy - exorbitant, lavish perhaps - to use two controllers at once. But then I had a friend who was really in to Goldeneye and he preferred to play that way.

I’d like to add that I also thought the WASD keyboard setup was weird and nonsensical the first few times I encountered it as well. I would always change the controls back to using either the arrow keys or the number pad like I was used to.

How did people not know about this?! That said, I was one who actually read the effing manual!

Of course I did, look at my avatar.

Using the trigger on the 2nd controller allows u to shoot during the cut scenes. Baron laughing at you? Shoot him in the face. I played around with that a bunch

Erm...it wasn't hidden or anything lol. I find this weird lol.

I knew about it and realized how terrible it was and never gave it much thought after that

Nope didnt k ow but I'm more into Perfect Dark, might have to check now of PD has this option, it must have surely

Sounds clumsy as heck. I'd rather play it the normal way tbh

You could use the second controller to shoot the characters in one of the cutscenes.

@w00dm4n Now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the grey

I actually remember this as a way for two people to control one character in story mode XO

This is how we played it back in the day. The only thing I find shocking is how many people didn't know.

I'm guessing the vast majority of people on here weren't born when this game was out.

"The Elite" is shocked at this article... probably .

I used this setup just this summer. And for Perfect Dark, too.

Back in highschool we would use this for hilarious, maddeningly frustrating co-op solo missions in Goldeneye.

Modern Vintage Gamer was able to activate a hack discovered on the game cartridge that allows you to play RareWare's first 3 or 4 developed games emulated on the N64.

I mention this dual analog control [as just one of the things] every time someone wants to knock down the N64 controller, which happens a lot in modern times and usually comes from people who simply don't know any better.

The N64 controller was utterly revolutionary back in its day: It was the first controller to offer proper analogue thumbstick control. It was the first gamepad to have a trigger. It had rumble support that was actually more advanced and nuanced than most other gamepads managed until pretty much the current generation. It was/is actually very comfortable to hold, despite what some people might claim. The three normal different grip methods are actually a very cool solution to the various ways you might want to play games, both classic 2D and slightly more modern 3D. The dual analogue [two-controller] setup was a first in gaming. It was the first time a console came with four controller ports built in as standard. It was the first controller to offer multiple different colour options as standard. Etc.

The N64 controller was/is pretty awesome.

@Cia You should actually try it. . . .

@ummyeahnintendo Do you just not like dual analogue in fps games then?

lol I feel like this comes up every 5 years.

pod racer
robotron 64
goldeneye
perfect dark

that's my list of known games with two controller/two stick options.

👍

@RetroGames

I like dual analog just fine, but I found the twin stick setup on 64 less than ideal. I just think the handle is a bit dinky, and the stick a bit tall and slippery to manipulate with just one hand.

such a cool idea though 👍

I knew it and used it. I also used the same scheme for "Star Wars Episode 1 Pod Racer", it was rad!

@-wc- You much have giant hands but tiny thumbs.

@RetroGames

LOL 😂