Geek-A-Long
2016 Geek-A-Long: GoldenEye 007
GoldenEye 007 is best known for changing the face of first person shooters. For me, it’s the game that taught me to never trust anyone ever again. Before high school, most of the people I hung out with were the children of my parent’s friends. Fall of ’97 I wound up at Alex’s house nearly every week when our dads would hang out. We were never close. He was younger than me, a boy (I wasn’t over my fear of cooties then), and there weren’t many common interests, but he had access to all the media I was usually denied. Violent games, R-rated movies, and sugary drinks were available with little to no oversight. So naturally, I was always happy to hang out at his house. In a single visit, I watched Scream and played a first person shooter for the first time. My mother would’ve been appalled if she ever found out.
You know that scene in Charlie Brown where Lucy holds the football and invites Charlie to kick it? We know that she’s going to pull it away at the last second, and so does Charlie, but he still holds out hope that this is the time she won’t. In this analogy, I’m Charlie, Alex is Lucy, and GoldenEye is the football. Alex had played the hell out of the game long before my first time behind the gun. He knew where every piece of loot and every trap was. The first time I played it with him I only had the controller about 30 seconds before he told me to:
Shoot that box. It’s got great stuff in it.
The box exploded of course. I died and had to start again. He did that to me every time we played (and we played a lot). Every time I would tell him I knew it was a trap, but he would convince me this time it was loot. I can’t say definitively that that was the start of the cynical, untrusting, wise-ass adult I am today, but I wouldn’t rule out the theory.
GoldenEye 007 wasn’t on the Leaderboards, but it was incredibly influential when it came out. First person shooters on a console are normal now, but at the time it was only something you would see on a PC game. Even the atmosphere and playing experience were risky moves on Nintendo’s part since they were so different from the other shooter games of its time.
Whether you’re knitting, crocheting, or cross stitching this square, you can download the GoldenEye 007 pattern here. Instructions for both knit and crochet are listed in the pattern. When you’re finished making it, don’t forget to tweet or instagram your squares at me @Doctor_Llama and Jac @jac_attacking or with the hashtag #geekalong!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCECDI4nyzY/?taken-by=jac_attacking
If you’re having trouble with double-sided knitting, we have a how-to video here and a tutorial on crochet here. Want to hang out with other people making the blanket? You can find moral support in the Geek-A-Long group on Ravelry here.
~ Megan-Anne
I never finished the game. Alex always got me to self-destruct first.
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