GoldenEye: Rogue Agent

"An Average Game"

I am starting to realize that everyone has different standards for rating games. A seven in graphics for some people could mean okay, and for others it could mean great. I will rate categories as bad, average, and good. So for this review I am not going to use numbers to rate the game, with the exception of the overall grade. Now on to the review.

Graphics: Average

The graphics in GERA are nothing amazing. Menus in the game are plain, which is fine. The textures are terrible when walls are viewed up close , being that they look like plaid blankets. Character models on the other hand look very good. Most of the time you are indoors so not too much variety in missions. In one of the stages you are outside and it looks much nicer. Before and after missions videos play and they also look nice.

Story: Bad

You take the role of Goldeneye. He failed a test to join to MI6, and know he wants revenge by killing them. To do this you join forces with the infamous Dr.No. The story is blah,

Gameplay: Average

In GERA players go through six different levels. These levels are very long. Missions can be 10-20 minutes, which is long for a handheld. I think if the missions were split in half then the game would seem longer. There is four different play modes in GERA. They are Story, Virtual Missions, Virtual Training, and multi-player.
All the missions are basically getting from point A to point B. The AI just runs at you and fires away. Players can easily dodge enemy fire by taking cover or strafing left and right. There are some boss battles which can be hard. Unfortunately, there is no mission select, so if you want to play a level over you must start a new campaign.
There are 15+ different weapons that you can use. Some weapons are a sniper rifle, rocket launcher, grenades, and automatics. Of course, there is the famous one hit kill weapon, the Golden Gun.

Control: Good

With four different control schemes, it's easy to find one that is comfortable. For touch screen control you use the stylus to aim, D-pad to move, and the triggers to shoot. For button control you use the D-Pad to move, L and R triggers to shoot, select to interact, and the face buttons to look (A, B, Y, and X) .

Sound/Music: Bad

Du, Du Du DU. That's about what half the game sounds like. Crappy techno music is what usually plays during missions. When you fire a weapon it makes a simple BAM noise. When enemies fall they say “ah” or “ugh!”. When you are low on health, a beeping noise starts echoing until you health regenerates. I always turned the music off.

Replay Value: Average

Not much to be said here. Beat the Virtual Missions, the game on different difficulties and you unlock more stages and weapons for Virtual Training and multiplayer.

Final Score: 5 (Average)

This game is nothing spectacular. It was fun for a while. I'd only recommend purchasing this game if you are a FPS fan.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/29/05