GENRE
	First-Person Shooter
	DEVELOPER
	EA Games
	PUBLISHER
	EA Games
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1-4
	CONNECTIVITY
	no
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Ever since Rare developed GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 gamers have eagerly anticipated a first-person shooter (FPS) that would rival its sheer brilliance and quality. Perfect Dark, Rare’s follow up title, was supposed to be that game but the jury is still out on whether or not it actually was. Many claim that Halo has eclipsed that plateau and taken it to a new level but nothing has been unanimously declared yet.

However, along came Electronic Arts and with the James Bond license plans to create an original game based off the same movie but with an all new twist: Play as the bad guy! Does Electronic Arts fill the big shoes that Rare has left or is this yet another failed attempt at claiming the FPS throne? Read on…

visuals

Right off the hop you will notice some minor compression issues in the opening cinematic sequence, which can be expected with any GameCube game but seeing how this game came shipped on two discs I really wasn’t expecting to run into this compression problem.

When the actual game starts up you’ll soon notice that the visuals are merely average -- everything is done to acceptable levels and it neither enhances nor detracts from the overall game experience at hand. One minor gripe I had however was that I found that a few of the heavily used textures (i.e. walls/floors) were occasionally muddy and blurry, which, when noticed, is an eyesore. But for the majority of the game it isn’t noticed because you’re too busy running through areas blasting people – it’s only in the rare instanced when you get a chance to catch your breath and walk around safely.

audio

I really can’t say enough good things about the audio in GoldenEye: Rogue Agent. Not only does this game feature a plethora of excellent sound effects and catchy music (DJ Paul Oakenfold) throughout the game and in the menus, but there’s also some very decent voice acting for the cut scenes and NPC’s as well (Christopher Lee [Scaramanga] and Judi Dench [M]). Audiophiles are in for a real treat with this one.

gameplay

The first thing I want to get out of the way, which is a major concern for all FPS’s, is the controls in the game. I was very pleasantly surprised that after you watch some introductory cinematic sequences the first thing that you get to do is set up your preferred control styles and test them out before continuing so immediately you will feel comfortable playing the game. Excellent job! The controls are very responsive and feel really natural too and are super easy to pick up even for rookie FPS gamers.

With that out of the way, I’ll briefly give you some background on the story of this game. You are a secret agent for MI6, just like James Bond, but when sent on a mission something goes very wrong; James Bond dies and you narrowly survive somehow with a horrible injury: You lost the use of one of your eyes! The secret service blames you entirely and the one and only Goldfinger takes you in and offers to replace your eye with a mechanic golden eye.

The aforementioned “golden eye” plays a very critical role in this game as you can probably guess by the title of the game – it allows you unique special abilities that make you that much more dangerous and lethal including MRI Vision, EM Hack, Polarity Shield and Induction Field. Most of these abilities can be very useful when you figure out how to use them properly, although the MRI Vision can become rather useless when you’ve already memorized the locations of all the enemies – its only use later on in the games is when you can get your hands on a Mag-rail and snipe enemies through walls/objects.

Speaking of weapons, there’s a wide assortment of weapons in Rogue Agent including the usual flair you’ve come to expect in most FPS’s (handguns, machineguns, shotgun, minigun, grenades) and some new goodies like the railgun and more. What Rogue Agent does differently however is allows you to mix and match any duel-wield combinations to create literally over a hundred different combinations. Or you can always stick with the ever-useful grenades as your secondary weapon – and they’re actually useful in this game unlike most FPS shooters out there!

Another important aspect in FPS’s is the artificial intelligence -- The AI in Rogue Agent is pretty decent but nothing remarkable. It starts off pretty “dumb” to let you get used the game and it steadily increases in difficulty as your progress through the game. Nothing to complain about here, feels just right.

Lastly, I just wanted to give kudos to EA for including interactive environments. Check the multi-player section for more details about this.

multiplayer

All of the standard 2-4-player death match gameplay is included in GoldenEye: Rogue Agent for your party needs. There are numerous maps to choose from but most of them must be unlocked first by completing the corresponding mission in the single player game first. One thing I particularly like a lot about the maps that I had a chance to play in were the traps that you could set off. An example of this is can be found in the Golden Gate Bridge level where you can activate trap doors to cause your opponents to plummet to their death or call the nearby blimp to open fire on the people on the walkway below.

On the disappointing side, however, is most of the maps are rather small and don’t leave a lot of room for you to run around and hide in without literally running into each other especially when there’s more than two players playing. The spawn points are also very predictable once you learn where they are.

overall

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent doesn’t really break any new ground in the FPS genre, other than allowing you to duel wield any combination of single-handed weapons you wish, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game either. At the end of the day this is a solid game with a great license and I can easily recommend this game for any casual FPS gamer or gamers interested in the license.

7.6/10