Reviews// Goldeneye: Rogue Agent

The Goldeneye, as described in the film, is a massive secret space weapon satellite type thing. But in Rogue Agent, the Goldeneye name seems to have been derived from the fact that the lead character has a golden eye. What’s more, it’s a bionic golden eye with an in built health display. The health display, consisting of a life bar on the right and armour on the left is a set-up taken directly from the N64 version. Except in the former game, it was displayed as a magicool watch-gadget, which is inherently very James Bond; in this, the display is the same, but apparently that’s because it’s built into your golden eye. It seems like an almost sacrilegious work of incomplete plagiarism, akin to ripping up the Mona Lisa and replacing it with a soft charcoal sketch of Janet Street Porter. It’s just not on.

If EA happens to think that it boasts stronger creative prowess than the makers of the films, or even Ian Fleming himself, then that’s all well and good, but some sort of proof would be required. Considering that this is an entirely new mosaic of bits and pieces from assorted Bond worlds, you would, for instance, imagine it might come up with an original name i.e. one that isn’t reminiscent of (a) an existing, specific, single Bond movie or (b) an existing Bond game. So that leaves us with the rather undeniable conclusion that the Goldeneye name has been tacked on in the most cynical way possible, being used almost entirely to draw consumers in under false pretences.

The hint of innovation comes from the supposition that the main character is evil, or technically-speaking, rogue. Like VU’s Evil Genius, in theory, that’s quite a cool idea. Taking control of a Bond super-villain and trying to bring about the end of a near-immortal super-sleuth via various elaborate assassination techniques is an idea with a lot of potential. However, here you just take control of a.n.other agent who just happens to be distinctly less well-behaved than 007. There’s no humour, no irony, just a dismissal of all the components that needed to be there.

So there's the addition of dual-wielding of weapons and hiding behind stuff while your energy recharges, oh, and an X-ray ability. But frankly, so what?