GoldenEye: Rogue Agent

"I'm Shaken and Stirred"

GoldenEye 007 was a masterpiece. Based on a reasonably good movie, it offered up some interesting objective-based gameplay mixed in with some classic shoot outs. There were guns, gadgets, girls, and an amazing multiplayer mode. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is the polar opposite in nearly every way.

Visuals - 5
Sound & Music - 4
Gameplay - 5
Longevity - 5 (about 2 hours)
Replayability - 6 (multiple difficulties, multiple unlockables, no real difference)
Difficulty - 7 (Normal mode considered; final level features some cheap 1-hit kills)

GoldenEye - 4
VERDICT - 4.5

Run & Gun
In Rogue Agent you play as the 00-Agent gone bad, GoldenEye (aptly named after his newfound optical powers). Whereas 007 was all about suaveness and style, anti-Bond here is all about power and destruction.

The 6 missions each contain their own set of objectives, but since every single one of them is linear to a fault, as long as you follow the green arrow pointer you will sail through them without any troubles. Sometimes along the way you will have to open locks by playing through a simple memory-based touchscreen game. These parts are blatantly tacked on for the sole purpose of doing something else with the 2nd screen. Essentially this game is a bog-standard, no-frills FPS, with a couple of twists which aren't very well integrated.

An eye for an eye
The GoldenEye powers, which must be unlocked in the Virtual Training missions separate from the main campaign, allow you see enemies through walls and disrupt machinery, amongst other things. The powers themselves are never required under any circumstance, and their uses don't give you much of a real advantage considering the power of the firearms you'll pick up along the way.

The activation of traps, to send a dozer crashing through hired goons or to ignite some rockets in their faces, are a novel touch. The tables can also be turned on you by some smart opposition, so care must be taken when passing through potentially hazardous areas. The idea sounds good on paper, but you won't know what the effect is until you activate them. They don't appear as often as they could have, and since the graphics consist of mostly bland 3D, you won't get much satisfaction from these kills anyway.

The most effective means of dispatching the 'other' bad guys is simply to grab a good weapon and rain some bullets down. There is a limited selection, from pistols and machine guns to sniper rifles and rail guns. You are able to dual-wield the single-handed weapons with a grenade in your your free hand, but no John Woo gunplay here unfortunately. Weapon switching is also quite lame; you have to manually pick up a dropped gun (only 1 firearm apart from your standard issue unlimited pistol can be held at a time) and this includes the times when all you want to do is just replenish your ammo (which you can't).

My name is not Bond
After sitting through a brief single player campaign, I had totally forgotten about the associated Bond license. Even though it was meant to be somewhat different, Rogue Agent is nothing more than an outdated FPS on a sparkling new console.

The touchscreen controls are quite fitting, although not as precise as that offered by Metroid Prime Hunters (including the First Hunt demo mind you). Later levels throw a lot of soldiers at you, which can be fun to mow down, but they all react the same way, that is dumb; if taking cover in front of some stacked crates constitutes good defence, there truly is new meaning to the term "stupid goon".

The multiplayer mode is a nice gesture, but it is lacking in options and has quite a slow pace (not being able to jump limits the mobility I like in my FPS's). Finally, while the all the sounds of bullets whizzing by is passable, the BGM for the most part would sound more at home as themes to some sort of puzzle game; when a big firefight is going on, some light jazz is not what my ears would like to hear.

Mission: Failure
While trying to give us something different, the developers have actually ended up giving us something totally generic. If the powers were more meaningful, the traps were more inventively placed, the enemies even just a tad brighter, and the music adjusted accordingly, this may have been something worth a gander. As it stands, going through basic looking levels (apart from Dr. No's island which ain't half bad), shooting everyone in sight, with no real aim whatsoever; this is not the thing for me, nor is it for Mr. James Bond himself.

4.5/10 - Live and let this one die

10/12/06

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/06