GoldenEye speedrunner breaks 15-year-old Dam record
Rare boost.
For 15 years, American Bryan Bosshardt's 53-second speedrun of GoldeneEye's first level, Dam, has held fast. Over the weekend, the Dam burst.
Australian Karl Jobst recorded a 52-second run of GoldeneEye's iconic opening level, and he declared it the "best run I've ever done in my life".
The video, below, shows the run in all its glory. Of note, Jobst spends much of the time looking at the floor or the sky. That's because it's faster to strafe continuously and use specific viewing angles to pick up speed in Rare's influential shooter. Also of note, you go even faster when you're shot in the back by guards. The only problem with this is, when playing on the Agent difficulty the guards are awful at shooting you. In short, there's a very low chance that you'll get the speed boosts at all.
On this run, however, Jobst got three speed boosts from being shot by guards, which, he mentioned in a post on reddit, has only happened three times in the 250 hours he's spent speedrunning Dam. Jobst also managed to get a "fast gate" - that is, he got a quick opening gate.
Given 128 people have managed to hit 53 seconds on Dam over the years, some thought it impossible to go quicker. Jobst has proven them wrong.
A clearly elated Jobst can't quite believe his achievement upon seeing his record-breaking time in GoldeneEye's post-mission in-game report, and breaks down in front of the camera (warning, there are quite a few swears in there).