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Marek

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent forum mini-preview

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Woohoo! Another thread courtesy of a recent EA press event. This game I didn't get to play myself, but I got a demo of it by one of the producers, and witnessed a multiplayer match between two people.

The basic concept of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is that for the first time in a James Bond game you're not playing James Bond. You're another member of MI6 who's been thrown out for rockless brutality. At the beginning of the game you even get to kill James Bond, except you don't actually kill him. It turns out it was just a sequence from a "simulator", which is a bit of a trite plot device.

Anyway, the developers seem pretty excited about allowing players to do in the game what James Bond would or could not do. You run around shooting bad guys often wielding two weapons at the same time. This is kindaneat, as you can mix-n-match various weapons. Depending on what you have in your right and left hand, the strategy changes a bit. Also, if you reload the left and right weapons at exactly the right times, you can in fact create a continuous flow of bullets. The reloading animations are cool, and when you switch weapons the main character juggles them in the air a bit. There's also a couple of special moves, such as grabbing an enemy, turning him around and using him as a human shield, and eye enhancements such as being able to look through objects.

The 8 player multiplayer mode seems good, and will probably be a large part of the game's appeal. The levels are tight, and have various death traps that can be operated.

Despite these somewhat interesting features, the game didn't leave too much of an impression on me in terms of atmosphere. EA keeps saying how this James Bond set design guy was brought in, as well as a costume designer from The Matrix films, and some guy who worked on the Final Fantasy movie. This would lead you to expect a certain degree of style, but the levels I saw didn't show this. The level architecture in the game seems strongly based on the same stuff we've seen forever. Think rooms with grey concrete walls and crates, wooden pallets and/or containers thrown about, with the occasional tripod lights to spice things up. Of course this all happens at the 10th floor of a large building, with a luscious view of a city skyline whereever there's a window. Did I say luscious? It's just a grainy background photo. Okay, now I'm getting grumpy and maybe letting my personal taste get in the way. To be fair, I've seen screenshots of more interesting areas that weren't shown to me, including some well-known locations from the movies (e.g. Moonraker), but they still all have this bare-bones arcade shooter plainness.

I've not seen much of the James Bond elements, or any of the cutscenes, or any of the main characters. Maybe that stuff will be really good, and maybe this game will in fact be interesting. However, my impressions so far are pretty lukewarm. I was, in fact, more excited by The Urbz than by Rogue Agent.

(Note: I've not played the much-lauded N64 GoldenEye, so I guess you'll have to compare them yourself. :innocent:)

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Meh. The first GoldenEye was one of the most overrated FPSes ever. I don't think a franchise as big as the bond movies is going to try anything remotely interesting in game form.

I reckon Bond would work much better as an RPG. And it should be based on Flemings books.

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Where are the proper Action/Adventure bond games? Why always 3rd or 1st person shooter?

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The last bond game tried and mosly suceded in makeing a new, cooler bond game, with stealth and more intersting fighting, but this is just going back to the same crap we have seen before. YAWN

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