Hate to rain on your parades, but Goldeneye (N64) wasn't a simulator, and the developers didn't have access to the kind of things we have access to today. Chances are good that they just guessed, what with the Internet still young back then, and Youtube-less.
In a nutshell: The old Goldeneye N64 developers probably got their effects from the Bond movies, so we can pretty much do what we like, though both sides are sure to keep complaining, no matter what we do.