Goldeneye… the greatest game ever?

Saturday night, looking for something to do that didn’t involve sitting in and watching tele, Nik spotted something in Time Out that she thought might be an interesting thing for us to do.  A group of like-minded individuals at The Hand Baked Arcade were putting on an ‘Button Bash’ arcade night over in Kings Cross.  Basically, they took over a pub and set up a variety of retro games, consoles and accessories (Megadrive, Master System, SNES, NES, Atari) for everybody to play on.

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Now I’m usually the first to voice my displeasure about going up into the city on a Saturday night, but I knew this was something I had to experience.  The journey was long and the pub was a little bit off of the beaten track but when we finally arrived and walked through the front doors, it was like stepping into a tiny bit of my own personal nostalgic pub heaven.  Classic games consoles everywhere, with the right type of chilled out people playing them.  Games I had forgotten existed, crackling on monitors, useless skills I had acquired down the years suddenly recalled back into existence.  It was like someone had taken photos of my life through the years and put them into computer game form.  Rampage, Wolfenstein, Super Mario Bros, Bomberman, Mario Kart for the SNES, Mario Kart for the N64, all games that I had grown up with, each representing different parts of my life.  I could happily have stayed there all night playing multiplayer Bomberman with seven other like-minded individuals or getting my arse handed to me by some freakishly good player on Mario Kart.  Unfortunately, the time flew by and our last train beckoned so we made our way home.  Trying hard not to bore everyone with what had just happened but promising to make sure the world knew of this night (and the possibility of others).  Kudos to the people responsible, I really hope they continue doing what they are doing and make a success of it.

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My only issue though, and the only blemish on what was otherwise a very well put together evening… where the hell was Goldeneye?  N64 benchmark, awesome solo game, set the standard for multiplayer games for years to come and in my opinion the greatest game ever!  My friend and I had been chatting about Proximity Mines, Golden Guns, Oddjob and Sniper Rifles all the way up there only to be scuppered in our four player plans. It was still good to remish though and I reckon if I’d had a few more beers in me I may well have made that crazy ebay purchase of a battered N64 I came close to making when I got in….