Like many, I spent a large chunk of my childhood playing GoldenEye 007 multiplayer against my friends and, more often than not, managed to rack up enough kills to win most matches.
There was one character that made that more difficult to achieve. Oddjob. While unable to throw his steel-rimmed hat, the character was far shorter than others that were available to select, lending an advantage in that you always had to aim lower to take a shot at him.
Now, two developers that worked on the revered Nintendo 64 classic at Rare have acknowledged that playing as Oddjob is cheating, ending a debate that has raged between players since the game first released in 1997.
“We all thought it was kind of cheating when we were play-testing with Oddjob [due to his short stature, the auto-aim of the weapons goes above his head], but it was too much fun to take out and there was no impetus from any of us to change it,” lead environment artist Karl Hilton explained to MEL Magazine.
“It’s clearly become part of the culture and folklore of the game — I noticed playing GoldenEye as Oddjob was mentioned in Ready Player One, so ultimately, I think it’s fine.”
That’s something that Mark Edmonds agrees with, who had worked as the gameplay and engine programmer for GoldenEye 007:
“It’s definitely cheating to play as Oddjob! But that can just add to the fun when you’re all sitting there next to each other and berating/poking/hitting the person who chooses him.
“Personally, I like to pick Jaws [who originally appeared in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me] and then beat the person with Oddjob just to show them! We could have put something in to stop this blatant cheating, but why not just let players decide on their own rules?”
