GoldenEye: Rogue Agent

"A poor excuse for a 007 game..."

This installment of the James Bond series came nowhere close to living up to its many prequels and... Hey wait! This game, apart from having James Bond in its title and a few returning characters from previous movies had absolutely nothing to do with James Bond in any way or form! So why is this game a "James Bond" video game? The answer did, and still does, elude me.

This game begins as you enter Fort Knox with Agent 007, in an attempt to stop Auric Goldfinger from detonating a nuclear bomb inside it. 007 is crushed by a falling helicopter and instantly killed. This is when you find out that you were in Virtual Reality. You are fired from MI6 for not helping 007, and you seek out Goldfinger. He hires you to kill Doctor No, another returning character from the James Bond movies. Note that following the VERY short level where you see 007 die, 007 does NOT return to the game in any way. The only other returning characters are Zenia Onatopp of GoldenEye (1995), Francisco Scaramanga of The Man With The Golden Gun (1973), and Oddjob, also from Goldfinger (1964).

The goal of this game was to give the player a feeling of what it was like from a "bad-guy" point of view, but ultimately, nothing is different about this game then, say, Agent Under Fire, a James Bond prequel where you actually played as 007. This game gave you few differences, such as being able to hold an enemy hostage as a body guard, using your "golden" eye to see through walls, jam enemy guns, or throw enemies across the room, none of which seem very realistic. But why couldn't 007 hold an enemy hostage as a body guard? In your briefing does it specifically say, "Oh and 007, makes sure you don't take any hostages, it wouldn't go well with the government officials if they found out." There was a load of room for improvement with the story.

The graphics, while state-of-the-art for say five years ago, are relatively traditional and show nothing unexpected. The first-person setup is practically a duplicate of that for Halo, and has very little originality. The sound during gameplay, much like the game's predecessors, is dull and has little feeling or emotion. The theme song lacked greatly, and overall the sound receives low marks.

I waited to start the game because I anticipated a heavy plot with long levels, much like I had the time to really enjoy the game. I beat it in four hours. On the middle difficulty too. The multiplayer setup is nothing special, but Xbox Live can be fun. In fact, most of this games positive score is due to Xbox Live capabilities, so if you don't have Live, think twice before picking up a copy of this game.

There are no side stories, nothing to do except fulfill the plot to the point. For this reason, there is very little that would convince me to go back and play a level again, or to even consider beating the game a second time, it just wasn't fun enough. The replay value of this game, with the exception of Xbox Live, is relatively nonexistent.

I reserved this game and picked it up the day it came out, only to not play it for another eight months. Paying the fifty dollars as opposed to a current fifteen or so I greatly regret. Anyone with a decent amount of focus and determination can beat this game from start to finish in the five days you rent it for, and I would recommend not buying the game unless you try it out first.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/05