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User:KathleenHartnett
Control (Part ii of Mission 7: Cuba) is the sixteenth level in GoldenEye 007. The formal name of this level is Control Centre. With the long protect sequence, Control has traditionally been the longest level in the game.
| Control | ||
|---|---|---|
| 150px | ||
| World Records | ||
| Difficulty | Time | First achieved by |
| Agent | 3:55 | Rayan Isran on 2019-10-11 |
| Secret Agent | 4:01 | Rayan Isran on 2019-10-24 |
| 00 Agent | 4:02 | Rayan Isran on 2019-10-26 |
| LTK | 4:16 | Blake Carroll on 2021-01-11 |
| DLTK | 8:35 | Bryan Bosshardt on 2016-01-26 |
Overview
Control is primarily a knowledge-based level (more so than other levels at least) and in order to get a good time, you need to know how Natalya works.
Objectives
All Difficulties
- a. Protect Natalya
- b. Disable Goldeneye satellite
- c. Destroy armored mainframes
Facts
Guard Spawns
Once the alarm goes off, 2 black-hatted guards instantly start spawning. What you might not now is that their spawning is actually dependent on Bond having killed 2 guards in the very beginning. Of course, you are required to kill those guys anyway so there's no way to utilize this fact.
Each guard has 7 separate spawning points, shown below:
Red points belong to one of the guards, blue to the other. The probability for each location is #2-6: 15.625%, #1: 16%, #7: 9.765%.
Normally the games does regular "Have any of the guards died?" checks at 60 frame (1 second) intervals, and if so, respawns the guard(s). This interval actually changes once Natalya says "Good luck, James, I'll be waiting for you" and starts running towards the elevator. What's the new interval you ask? 40 seconds. So killing the black hat guards just after Natalya's message means no more black hat guards for 40 seconds.
There's one exception though, and that is if you enter the final big room where Trev is. If you do this, the game starts doing 1 second checks again. (if you go back and leave the room, it's back to 40).
Fast Second Natalya
Did some testing on how to get "optimal" Natalya's after meeting up with her the second time ("I'm coming, James"). Turns out the fastest way is probably to move out of the door, and instantly look back (Not too far left though!, since that will cause her to open the door instead of warping it), wait for her to come into view and then keep her in view all the way until she reaches the computer.
Compared to perfect or near-perfect execution of the regular method of blowing up the glass, shooting screen, looking towards Nat, this method should be faster 99% of the time (at least according to my emulator tests), on average between 10-20 frames (0.16 - 0.33 seconds) and with a maximum of around 30 frames (0.5 seconds).
The problem of course is what to do with the drone guns. On Agent, you can simply run into them, which might be worth it if going for 3:57? You probably have time to at least throw the remote mine in though, after Nat has reached the computer, to kill most guards and the nearest drone gun.
Might also mention that going for the Body Armor, although you never get the "James, I need cover" message, will lose a minimum of around 30-60 frames simply by not looking at Natalya properly.
Strategies
Trap black hat guard spawns
Using Cinema + 16:9 and breaking 2 of glasses on the top floors, you can get all the "bad" black hat spawns (see above) in a single view, thus making it impossible for the black hat guards to spawn there. Simply stand as in the picture below, then move down to the screen as soon as alarm goes off. This should guarantee that both guards get trapped at Boris' desk. This is useful for DLTK.
Tutorials
Agent
Secret Agent
00 Agent
LTK
- Tutorial Video: - Adam Bozon - Control LTK Tutorial (turn captions on)
- Tutorial Video: - Icy - Control LTK Tutorial (turn captions on)
DLTK
Misconceptions
Faster initial Natalya
The idea that Natalya can have faster reaction by turning earlier is simply wrong. Her "I'm coming, James" message can differ by a few frames but not in any significant or manipulatable manner. Even though the message can seem to come up faster when watching in real time, a frame-by-frame analysis shows that there's no difference whatsoever, no matter which method you use (look up, down, turn right, left, early, late etc etc...).
