GoldenEye: Rogue Agent

The Good
Being the bad guy for once was an interesting touch. Working for the villain (Auric Goldfinger) was an interesting touch as well.

The Bad
This game is quite possibly the worst Bond game out there. Well, A View to a Kill is probably the worst so this is #2. Being the villain sounds like an interesting touch at first but after I beat the first mission of the game (Which is the MI6 training simulator mentioned in the plot outline) I felt like a critical element was missing from the game. A critical element that makes the game...fun. But, sadly, this game does not seem to have it. Throwing enemies off cliffs and taking them hostage to use against other enemies seems like an interesting concept at first but here - it basically...fails horribly. The missions have very little variety in them - they're all the same colors - just a dull gray and sometimes brown if you're lucky.

The Bottom Line
The game is basically just a run-and-gun shooter. Usually, you just open a door, kill everyone inside with the weapon you have, go inside another door, and do the exact same thing. Occasionally, you are given the chance to use your Goldeneye which comes with a feature that will allow you to toss enemies around, be invincible temporarily, hack into computers, and look through cover. The game feels like it could have been an interesting feature to play the bad guy, but here, the game play of the previous Bond game (Everything or Nothing) is missing. Compared to previous Bond games such as Nightfire or Everything or Nothing, this game is poor...and I'm being generous about my score!

The Good
Christopher Lee's voice acting is great as his voice is unbeatable. The dual firing system is pretty well executed. Multiplayer is pretty well done too.

The Bad
It seems so rushed, the gunfights all feel the same, (GoldenEye 64 didn't seem nearly as repetitive), and the eye powers just seem tacked on. The sound effects aren't anything special, and the rocket fights with helicopter things feel very fake and plastic. It is very linear as well, really after 10 hours play there hasn't been one choice of direction.

The Bottom Line
A fairly poor attempt at creating a shooter that would rival GoldenEye on 64. It doesn't have any of the charm and feels very flat most of the time. You can't even be that evil despite the fact that you're a rogue agent... A lack of variety really leaves this game in the lurch. Glad I only paid $26AU for it.