It started out innocently enough - I was hanging out with a friend (Woody007) and we decided to fire up Nightfire on Gamecube for a nostalgia trip. Then, we finished it. Then we finished Agent Under Fire. Eventually, we decided to formalize the mission statement:
Complete every James Bond console and PC game from 1996 to the present day.
This mission has now been completed, along with several "bonus objectives" (handheld games). Almost all of these games were completed on original hardware. If multiple versions of a game existed, we would pick one, but if the different versions were genuinely different games by different studios, then we played both. We tried out several games not on the following list, such as Shaken Not Stirred and Nightfore for GBA, but these are the ones that we completed:
Some of these games were good. Many of these games were bad. A few were almost unbearable. Now kick back and put this video on loop as I share my impressions of all of them.
James Bond 007
Platform: Game Boy
Release year: 1996
Fun: High. It's surprisingly good to play, although I suspect someone who had no familiarity with GB titles might find it a little tougher.
Frustration: Medium. There is a part where you have to go into a casino to win enough money to attract someone's attention. It's Poker or Baccarat, both of which are basically luck of the draw even if you play optimally. There's also a few other tough spots, notably the ending where you need to go through a very long gauntlet of bullet and lasers switching back and forth between the two defense gadgets to avoid death. If you die, you lose the healing items you came in with, so unless you nail it first time, it becomes REALLY hard.
Bond factor: High. It has gadgets (and a Q-branch to explore), martial arts, a casino, exotic locations, a love interest, and most importantly the classic 007 theme on the title screen. Really the only thing it's missing is car chases.
This game is a great little Zelda-lite with James Bond trappings. It's faithful to the franchise, it's fun, and although it is frustrating in parts, it's definitely worth playing if you have any interest in these kinds of games.
Goldeneye 007
Platform: Nintendo 64
Release year: 1997
Fun: High. It's fast paced, the extra objectives are a neat idea, and the core gameplay is strong. Wide variety of weapons, enemies react to being hit in all sorts of amusing ways, there's a good variety of missions and what you actually do in them is changed up all the time too.
Frustration: Medium-Extreme, depending on difficulty setting. For a lot of games, I would ignore the top difficulty if it's bullshit, but in this one it's worth mentioning because you don't have to complete all the objectives on lower difficulties, so it's a rather different experience. 00 Agent is brutal, but that's what we finished it on. The controls and performance also add to the frustration.
Bond Factor: High. It's very action focussed, but manages to squeeze in a surprisingly large amount of Bond stuff, even compared to later 3D shooters once you factor in things like bonus levels and multiplayer.
This is the James Bond game for a lot of people. It's iconic, it's well made, and it feels like it has a lot of fresh ideas even today. It's also got a lot of rough edges, the performance absolutely blows (<20fps a lot of the time), and the controls are ROUGH. It's not even button mappings necessarily, it's things like how you auto-level your aim when going up or down inclines, or how the analogue stick dead zones are set that make it really hard to aim even with hours and hours of practice, etc. Oh yeah and 240p, yummo. We played on a CRT at least so that helped a bit with how it looked and played.
Despite the negatives, it's still a very enjoyable game to spend time with. I recommend it to people who can tolerate shooters from this era, and maybe even to people who don't because it's just really nifty in a lot of ways. We left this game for last, and I'm glad we did, because it was a great note to end on. I'd love to see a modern take on some of the ideas in this game. As you'll see later, the Wii/360/PS3 reinterpretation is not that.
Tomorrow Never Dies
Platform: Playstation
Release year: 1999
Fun: Low. Shooting isn't great. Which is bad, because that's more or less the entire game. If you hate fun, this game is for you.
Frustration: High. The first half of the game isn't too bad once you get into the swing of things. In the back half, the difficulty ramps right up and it fucking suuuuuuuuuucks. The controls are awful, it lacks support for dual analog, so you've got L2 and R2 to strafe, and the world's worst autoaim system. You really need to get your hands onto it to understand.
Bond Factor: Low-Medium. It has some footage from the movies, it had some Bond stuff, some Bond music etc, but it doesn't feel nearly as inspired as Goldeneye, nor does it have the extensive range of extra modes including MP stuff.
A bizarre game. This is the first of the EA era, so that's worth noting.
It's kind of run of the mill for licensed stuff in the era, which is to say it's not on the same planet of quality as Goldeneye was 2 years earlier. Despite releasing 2 years after Tomorrow Never Dies the movie, and having actual movie footage to use, it deviates from the story of the film substantially. Whereas Goldeneye changed a few things because it had trouble depicting them or to pad out various things with extra levels that never happened in the movie, this game sees Terri Hatcher survive and stay with you past where she is in the movie, and it doesn't have Michelle Yeoh show up until the 2nd last level with zero introduction or context. Very odd choices.
As mentioned above, the gameplay sucks. It feels bad to play, it feels bad to shoot. Do not play this game unless you hate yourself.
The World is Not Enough
Platform: Nintendo 64
Release year: 2000
Fun: Low-Medium. Shooting is ok but not as fun as Goldeneye. Enemies aren't as fun either. Stealth is now more of a thing... but it's not that good.
Frustration: Medium. There are a few tough spots, but overall not too bad until the awful ending level where you get lost in a submarine for 16435345345345 hours and even guides for the game on the internet can't help you find your way. You'll basically need to watch someone else do it on youtube or spend your whole life trying to figure it out.
Bond Factor: Medium. The stealth and extra mission variety help feel a bit more Bond-like, but it could be a lot better.
Not great, but not too bad. The 2nd best 3D bond from the era (this is not a high bar to clear FYI) but I would not rank it highly overall compared to videogames of that era in general. On a technical level, this is a big step up from Goldeneye, because it has voice acting, better graphics and more animations on Bond for things like reloading and using gadgets. It requires an expansion pack to do anything meaningful and a memory pack to save your game, so it's pretty hefty on accessories for the 64.
I had this as a kid so there was a bit of nostalgia going in, but that faded fast. You could do worse than this, but it's not one I'd return to again anytime soon. This one is also notable because it's Eurocom's first crack at the franchise, and they'll go on to develop quite a few later entries.
The World is Not Enough
Platform: Playstation
Release Year: 2000
Fun: Low. It's an improvement over the last PS1 game, but not quite as good as the 64 version.
Frustration: Medium. A few difficulty spikes, the game still controls a bit ass with strafing on L2 and R2 and bad autoaim.
Bond Factor: Medium. Still not massively Bondish, but it earns a few bonus points for having a casino with a playable game.
This game is a step down from the N64 version, but it's not abysmal like Tomorrow Never Dies was. This is actually the same developer as TND PS1 (Black Ops entertainment), but they've switched to a first person perspective and did an overall better job the second time around. They were clearly trying to go a little bit more Goldeneye, but it's nowhere near as good even just in terms of core shooting and it doesn't have all the bonus stuff or MP stuff or whatever. Not worth playing really.
007 Racing
Platform: Playstation
Release Year: 2000
Fun: Low. Do you enjoy driving games? You won't enjoy this. Don't enjoy driving games? That's literally the only thing we do here.
Frustration: Medium-high. A lot of levels are breezey, but some are just completely random and don't explain what to do properly, or they do explain it but it's just fcking hard as balls. The finale on a runway is like "go stop that aircraft", then it disables all your weapons. What are you supposed to do??? Why ram the engines one by oen with your car. Then your weaposn come back online and you have 1 millisecond to aim and fire and hit them or it's mission over.
Bond factor: Low-medium. Plenty of iconic vehicles, some decent gadgets, but it's pretty shallow and there's nothing EXCEPT cars.
This game was a change of pace but it still blows. This came out in 2000 along with TWINE on 64 and PS1, all three came out within a 1.5 month span at the end of the year. This is probably the least enjoyable, although TWINE PS1 is certainly trying for the same title. As a driving game it sucks. As a bond game it sucks. Do not play it. Do not buy it.
The World is Not Enough
Platform: Game Boy Color
Release Year: 2001
Fun: May contain traces of fun.
Frustration:
....................../´¯/)
....................,/¯../
.................../..../
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
..............\.............\...
Bond Factor: Doesn't even have the goddamn common decency to include the Bond theme.
This game suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. It's so bad I had to stop and make a thread complaining about it, which can be found here. The gameplay is rotten, enemies stunlock you if you don't stunlock them first. Guns are less effective than punching more often than not. The platforming segments are completely fucking dire with some of the worst controls you'll ever experience. Words can't describe how bad they are. The final boss is a time sensitive platforming segment followed by an extremely unsatisfying cutscene where Bond chokes the villain for about 1.5 seconds. You don't even get to fight him! The difficulty is also very high in the back half and it's a GBC game with forced stealth missions. Yuck.
This is IMO the worst James Bond game in this list. The final insult is that it uses password saves because they cheaped out on the cartridge, I guess.
007: Agent Under Fire
Platform: Gamecube
Release Year: 2001 on PS2, 2002 on GC
Fun: Medium. Decent gameplay, a big step up over the EA games from the previous gen.
Frustration: Low. It's a rather easy game on average, the controls work well enough, the performance is solid.
Bond Factor: Medium. Lacks a few trimmings but it now blends driving with combat in various levels and introduces "Bond Moments".
This is the first 007 game by EA Redwood Shores (later known as Visceral games). It's decently fun, but very short. This also marks the first move of the 3D bond games away from movie adaptations and towards original stories (this had already happened in the Gameboy title as well as pre-1996 games). It's not a great original story, leaning heavily into Brosnan era silliness with a plot about cloning world leaders to replace them and control the world, and EA Redwood Shores would certainly lean into this silliness in their next game too.
If you can get it cheap and like games from the era, I'd say it's worth a try. Note that it despite being Brosnan era, it does not use Brosnan's likeness.
007: Nightfire
Platform: Gamecube
Release year: 2002
Fun: High. Driving and shooting are both pretty good.
Frustration: Low. As above, fairly easy on average and with solid controls and performance.
Bond Factor: Medium-High. Brosnan lends his likeness which helps boost a little more over what AuF was doing. Otherwise it's mostly comparable - a good array of gadgets, some sneaking, some shooting, driving and whatnot. It has a globetrotting plot with some exotic locales and it has a Bond girl or two.
This one I can call good without reservation. It's not perfect certainly, but it's very bond, the gameplay is good, it's not frustrating generally and it looks nice for the era. It's got a meatier runtime than AuF, too. This is Eurocom's second Bond title, and they had really hit their stride by this point. As another original story, this is probably less silly than the Redwood Shore games, but still pretty silly. It still ends with a plot to take over the world, but this time it's a space satellite laser defense system.
I would consider going back and playing this agian at some point, and I'd recommend it to people who are interested in 007 games or Shooters of the era. This is among the best games on this list.
007: Nightfire
Platform: PC
Release year: 2002
Fun: Medium. The shooting mechanics are fairly solid, but not remarkable. It lacks variety in gameplay.
Frustration: High. The back half of the game is hard, and brutally hard in certain places. There's one spot in particular where you 're stuck in an elevator surrounded by enemies on 40 different angles and you just have to sit there killing them all for ages. You will die a shitload of times.
Bond factor: Low. They cut out the driving completely and it lacks a lot of little things compared to the other PS2/XB/GC release.
If that screenshot looks kinda like counterstrike, that's because this was made on the GoldSRC engine by Gearbox software. The first levels are actually quite nifty and fun, but then that gives way to a huge difficulty spike and overall less inspired latter levels that drag the whole experience down considerably. It's a really sharp decline in quality. I cannot in good faith recommend this game except as a historical curiosity. I consider it to be quite poor overall.
007: Everything or Nothing
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Release year: 2003
Fun: Medium. This is fairly ambitious for the GBA. It's doing a lot, and it's not all perfect but it's decently enjoyable.
Frustration: Low. It's pretty easy, tbqh.
Bond factor: Medium. A lot of the bond trimmings, but the presentation isn't as strong as it's latter console bretheren, and the story is a lot more rushed, so it doesn't quite "feel" as Bondy.
A pretty intriguing release. This came out several months prior to the PS2/GC/Xbox versions of the same game which are far more famous. It's got quasi-RPG systems to upgrade, it's got stealth mechanics and shooting+melee stuff in an isometric perspective. I really haven't seen anything quite like it, and it's very interesting. It's not a must have on the system, but it could be worth a look if you're into something a bit experimental.
007: Everything or Nothing
Platform: Gamecube
Release year: 2004
Fun: Medium. There are a lot of cool and fairly unique for the time mechanics, but they're also not that well executed.
Frustration: High
Bond Factor: High. Willem Dafoe is an excellent Bond villain, it's got a huge array of gadgetry, weapons and vehicles, lots of globe trotting, a fair few setpiece moments. Bond finding an excuse to get into a car race really does feel like the kind of absolute dumbass thing he'd do.
This is where I'm going to lose a lot of people, because I think that this is quite overrated in people's recollections. For it's place in history, I think it's pretty cutting edge, and it is sort of vaguely a prototype of what would become the Uncharted type game. It's a cinematic third person adventure/shooter game with a sort of bit of a melee system, it expects you to take cover a fair bit (although it doesn't quite have a magnetic cover system), it's got pretty sophistecated vehicle sections to break things up and setpiece moments. It's undoubtedly innovative, but it's not actually that good. Compared to Nightfire and AUF, it's extremely rough around the edges, because all of these new things it was doing were simply not very refined. Combine that with a high difficulty and it's a rather frustrating experience.
It was the 2nd bond title by EA Redwood Shores. The plot is, once again, very very silly, with Willem Dafoe (a student of Christopher Walken's character from View to a Kill!) trying to conquer Russia (and then... the world!) with an army of Platinum tanks firing nanomachine shells that eat all metal except platinum. You even get into one of those tanks later and get into a massive tank battle, which is just hilariously stupid. If you have nostalgia for this, by all means pick it up, but I wouldn't recommend it to people blind.
Goldeneye: Rogue Agent
Platform: PS2
Release Year: 2004
Fun: Low-Medium. It's not great even compared to shooters of the era. Not totally awful in every way, but ehhh.
Frustration: Medium. Some levels feel a bit bollocks, but it's not that hard to get through overall.
Bond factor: Low-Medium. You don't feel like Bond, but there are a lot of Bond things in it. Christopher Lee lending his voice and likeness to Scaramanga (acting as your version of Q) is basically just delightful though.
A very unusual game. Even things like the Crosshair is off-kilter - it's in the top 1/3 of the screen (see the screenshot) rather than the centre. You can only have what's in your hands - either dual-wielding single handed weapons, or a single double-handed weapon. Other than that, it's just a backup pistol. The controls are strange. The mechanics are strange. The gadgetry is a neat addition, being able to take hostages (a very heavily advertised feature) is "ok" but mostly not very useful, at least on the normal difficulty.
Despite how odd it is, it's not good. It's also not experimental in the same way Everything or Nothing was where you can say "oh look how neat, it's kind of a hint at what would come in the future". It's just oddball stuff that was an evolutionary dead-end in the genre. Seeing the classic Bond villains in a modern context was nifty, but not so nifty I'd recommend an otherwise fairly poor game.
007: From Russia with Love
Platform: Gamecube
Release year: 2005
Fun: Medium. Like EoN, but a bit more polished around the edges.
Frustration: Low. Much easier than EoN, but not a trivally easy game.
Bond factor: High. Leans heavily on nostalgia for the film, but it mostly works. Getting Connery's likeness and voice was a real coup for the game.
I'll be losing more people here - but this is a better game than Everything or Nothing. It's a lot more fun to play through especially for someone who maybe didn't play them when they were new. Redwood Shores' second take on the formula allows them an extra layer of polish on the mechanics of EoN, and it pays off in spades. Everything from taking cover to the autoaim to the melee just feels better. It's not as long, but that's not too bad, EoN was pretty lengthy so this is still a decent enough runtime.
I would recommend this to people intersted in Bond games or just licenced games of the era. It's probably in my top 3 or 4 of the list. Also worth noting - this is the final game of the Electronic Arts era!
007: Quantum of Solace
Platform: Playstation 3
Release year: 2008
Fun: Medium. Do you like Call of Duty? This is that, but not as good as most of the mainline ones.
Frustration: Low-Medium. Again, this is Call of Duty. There's a few rough spots but it's mostly smooth sailing.
Bond factor: Low-Medium. It is rather low on Bond trappings, despite cramming the story of both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace into one game.
The first Activision 007 game, and developed by Treyarch simultaneously with CoD: World at War (released around the same time too). It uses CoD's modified fork of idTech, same as WaW and CoD4. Looks fairly nice compared to the previous gen stuff, but ultimately, this is not what most people want out of a 007 game, I think, even if it's not awful or anything. I generally don't recommend this.
Goldeneye: 007
Platform: Wii
Release year: 2010
Fun: Medium. A bit better than QoS on average, but not dramatically. It still feels kinda CoD-ey. They add a bit more mission variety, especially in terms of objectives here.
Frustration: Low-Medium.
Bond Factor: Medium. They add more gadgets and the like here, and it's going through the plot of Goldenye which just feels a bit more classic bond even with the Craig era updates.
As a modern remake of Goldeneye it's not that good. It does attempt to replicate some of the magic, it has various objectives it adds on higher difficulties, but they just don't work as well here. It feels a bit torn in mutiple directions. It's still quite CoD, even though not as much as QoS. It is also trying to be a bit retro, but also it's still clearly very modern. Ultimately, it doesn't work that well, but it's not a bad game. If you want a shooter on Wii, I'd say try it out, but it really is not a worthy successor to the N64 original, nor is it's take on the story a worthy successor to the 1995 Brosnan original.
That said, this is Eurocom's final decent 007 game. It's not their final 007 game, though.
007: Blood Stone
Platform: X360
Release year: 2010
Fun: Medium. This is properly a cover shooter now, and it works ok, along with decent driving sequences. It has a similar focus kill system to Splinter Cell: Conviction which works well for Bond.
Frustration: Low-medium. Not too hard overall, but could use some more fine tuning.
Bond-factor: Medium-High. It checks off most of the Bond boxes and is fairly cinematic. Hard to say why I didn't think it was more bondy, but there was something a bit hard to pin down that felt off. This was still the era where they were trying to distance themselves a little bit from classic bond to be more hip and with it, or whatever.
This was Bizarre Creation's crack at the formula, and honestly it's a pretty good effort. From the first 2 missions or so, I thought they'd nailed it. Unfortunately, the momentum stops, and it becomes just kind of repetitive and not that fun by the end. This is a damn shame, honestly. I think this formula could work, but it juist didn't in this case. If you're hankering for a 360 era cover shooter or just really love Daniel Craig, check it out, but I would not call it a great game.
007 Legends
Platform: X360
Release year: 2012
Fun: Low. The shooting is okish. That's about it.
Frustration: Medium. Very spikey difficulty.
Bond factor: Medium. It's a collection of iconic scenes from Bond films (plus a scene from Die Another Day nobody asked for), but mostly it's just like "woah look a Bond thing just happened before you took over control... now shoot 7000 guys". Despite having a lot of cool bond stuff, it doesn't feel like a Bond movie really at all, because it's so disjointed and the sturcutre of the films is a large part of what Bond is.
This is Eurocom's final hurrah, and also the final commercially released 007 game for PC and console. It sucks. It's not the worst Bond game, but it's pretty low down there. Shooting is servicable at best, but the missions aren't fun to play, so what's the point? The story is a nothingburger, just a brief greatest-hits compilation. Or rather, a few Great Hits and also Die Another Day (nobody wanted this) and a mission from Licence to Kill (not a terrible film but who again who asked for that?). They went for 1 film per classic Bond to adapt a scene from, but wow those are odd choices.
This game was almost certainly rushed out in time for Skyfall. With another six months to cook, it could have been a pretty cool game. I doubt it ever would have been great, because it's got too many structural weaknesses, but it at least may not have been crap.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus ends our journey.
I had a lot of fun hanging out and playing these games, but it was also at times exhausting and very frustrating because the game in question sucked shit. I'm happy we stuck through it all though. I do not recommend anybody else try something like this because really there's more bad than good in the Bond catalogue (that could also be said of the films, lol).
My overall favourites, which I'm not going to rank in order, would be Goldeneye (N64), From Russia with Love, Nightfire (GC), and James Bond 007 on GBC.
In conclusion,
....................../´¯/)
....................,/¯../
.................../..../
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
..............\.............\...
Goodnight.
Complete every James Bond console and PC game from 1996 to the present day.
This mission has now been completed, along with several "bonus objectives" (handheld games). Almost all of these games were completed on original hardware. If multiple versions of a game existed, we would pick one, but if the different versions were genuinely different games by different studios, then we played both. We tried out several games not on the following list, such as Shaken Not Stirred and Nightfore for GBA, but these are the ones that we completed:
- James Bond 007 (GB)
- Goldeneye (N64)
- Tomorrow Never Dies (PS1)
- The World Is Not Enough (N64)
- The World Is Not Enough (PS1)
- 007 Racing (PS1)
- The World Is Not Enough (GBC)
- James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire (GC)
- James Bond 007: Nightfire (GC)
- James Bond 007: Nightfire (PC)
- James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (GC)
- James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (GBA)
- Goldeneye: Rogue Agent (PS2)
- James Bond 007: From Russia With Love (GC)
- 007: Quantum of Solace (PS3)
- Goldeneye 007 (Wii)
- James Bond 007: Blood Stone (X360)
- 007 Legends (X360)
Some of these games were good. Many of these games were bad. A few were almost unbearable. Now kick back and put this video on loop as I share my impressions of all of them.
James Bond 007
Platform: Game Boy
Release year: 1996
Fun: High. It's surprisingly good to play, although I suspect someone who had no familiarity with GB titles might find it a little tougher.
Frustration: Medium. There is a part where you have to go into a casino to win enough money to attract someone's attention. It's Poker or Baccarat, both of which are basically luck of the draw even if you play optimally. There's also a few other tough spots, notably the ending where you need to go through a very long gauntlet of bullet and lasers switching back and forth between the two defense gadgets to avoid death. If you die, you lose the healing items you came in with, so unless you nail it first time, it becomes REALLY hard.
Bond factor: High. It has gadgets (and a Q-branch to explore), martial arts, a casino, exotic locations, a love interest, and most importantly the classic 007 theme on the title screen. Really the only thing it's missing is car chases.
This game is a great little Zelda-lite with James Bond trappings. It's faithful to the franchise, it's fun, and although it is frustrating in parts, it's definitely worth playing if you have any interest in these kinds of games.
Goldeneye 007
Platform: Nintendo 64
Release year: 1997
Fun: High. It's fast paced, the extra objectives are a neat idea, and the core gameplay is strong. Wide variety of weapons, enemies react to being hit in all sorts of amusing ways, there's a good variety of missions and what you actually do in them is changed up all the time too.
Frustration: Medium-Extreme, depending on difficulty setting. For a lot of games, I would ignore the top difficulty if it's bullshit, but in this one it's worth mentioning because you don't have to complete all the objectives on lower difficulties, so it's a rather different experience. 00 Agent is brutal, but that's what we finished it on. The controls and performance also add to the frustration.
Bond Factor: High. It's very action focussed, but manages to squeeze in a surprisingly large amount of Bond stuff, even compared to later 3D shooters once you factor in things like bonus levels and multiplayer.
This is the James Bond game for a lot of people. It's iconic, it's well made, and it feels like it has a lot of fresh ideas even today. It's also got a lot of rough edges, the performance absolutely blows (<20fps a lot of the time), and the controls are ROUGH. It's not even button mappings necessarily, it's things like how you auto-level your aim when going up or down inclines, or how the analogue stick dead zones are set that make it really hard to aim even with hours and hours of practice, etc. Oh yeah and 240p, yummo. We played on a CRT at least so that helped a bit with how it looked and played.
Despite the negatives, it's still a very enjoyable game to spend time with. I recommend it to people who can tolerate shooters from this era, and maybe even to people who don't because it's just really nifty in a lot of ways. We left this game for last, and I'm glad we did, because it was a great note to end on. I'd love to see a modern take on some of the ideas in this game. As you'll see later, the Wii/360/PS3 reinterpretation is not that.
Tomorrow Never Dies
Platform: Playstation
Release year: 1999
Fun: Low. Shooting isn't great. Which is bad, because that's more or less the entire game. If you hate fun, this game is for you.
Frustration: High. The first half of the game isn't too bad once you get into the swing of things. In the back half, the difficulty ramps right up and it fucking suuuuuuuuuucks. The controls are awful, it lacks support for dual analog, so you've got L2 and R2 to strafe, and the world's worst autoaim system. You really need to get your hands onto it to understand.
Bond Factor: Low-Medium. It has some footage from the movies, it had some Bond stuff, some Bond music etc, but it doesn't feel nearly as inspired as Goldeneye, nor does it have the extensive range of extra modes including MP stuff.
A bizarre game. This is the first of the EA era, so that's worth noting.
It's kind of run of the mill for licensed stuff in the era, which is to say it's not on the same planet of quality as Goldeneye was 2 years earlier. Despite releasing 2 years after Tomorrow Never Dies the movie, and having actual movie footage to use, it deviates from the story of the film substantially. Whereas Goldeneye changed a few things because it had trouble depicting them or to pad out various things with extra levels that never happened in the movie, this game sees Terri Hatcher survive and stay with you past where she is in the movie, and it doesn't have Michelle Yeoh show up until the 2nd last level with zero introduction or context. Very odd choices.
As mentioned above, the gameplay sucks. It feels bad to play, it feels bad to shoot. Do not play this game unless you hate yourself.
The World is Not Enough
Platform: Nintendo 64
Release year: 2000
Fun: Low-Medium. Shooting is ok but not as fun as Goldeneye. Enemies aren't as fun either. Stealth is now more of a thing... but it's not that good.
Frustration: Medium. There are a few tough spots, but overall not too bad until the awful ending level where you get lost in a submarine for 16435345345345 hours and even guides for the game on the internet can't help you find your way. You'll basically need to watch someone else do it on youtube or spend your whole life trying to figure it out.
Bond Factor: Medium. The stealth and extra mission variety help feel a bit more Bond-like, but it could be a lot better.
Not great, but not too bad. The 2nd best 3D bond from the era (this is not a high bar to clear FYI) but I would not rank it highly overall compared to videogames of that era in general. On a technical level, this is a big step up from Goldeneye, because it has voice acting, better graphics and more animations on Bond for things like reloading and using gadgets. It requires an expansion pack to do anything meaningful and a memory pack to save your game, so it's pretty hefty on accessories for the 64.
I had this as a kid so there was a bit of nostalgia going in, but that faded fast. You could do worse than this, but it's not one I'd return to again anytime soon. This one is also notable because it's Eurocom's first crack at the franchise, and they'll go on to develop quite a few later entries.
The World is Not Enough
Platform: Playstation
Release Year: 2000
Fun: Low. It's an improvement over the last PS1 game, but not quite as good as the 64 version.
Frustration: Medium. A few difficulty spikes, the game still controls a bit ass with strafing on L2 and R2 and bad autoaim.
Bond Factor: Medium. Still not massively Bondish, but it earns a few bonus points for having a casino with a playable game.
This game is a step down from the N64 version, but it's not abysmal like Tomorrow Never Dies was. This is actually the same developer as TND PS1 (Black Ops entertainment), but they've switched to a first person perspective and did an overall better job the second time around. They were clearly trying to go a little bit more Goldeneye, but it's nowhere near as good even just in terms of core shooting and it doesn't have all the bonus stuff or MP stuff or whatever. Not worth playing really.
007 Racing
Platform: Playstation
Release Year: 2000
Fun: Low. Do you enjoy driving games? You won't enjoy this. Don't enjoy driving games? That's literally the only thing we do here.
Frustration: Medium-high. A lot of levels are breezey, but some are just completely random and don't explain what to do properly, or they do explain it but it's just fcking hard as balls. The finale on a runway is like "go stop that aircraft", then it disables all your weapons. What are you supposed to do??? Why ram the engines one by oen with your car. Then your weaposn come back online and you have 1 millisecond to aim and fire and hit them or it's mission over.
Bond factor: Low-medium. Plenty of iconic vehicles, some decent gadgets, but it's pretty shallow and there's nothing EXCEPT cars.
This game was a change of pace but it still blows. This came out in 2000 along with TWINE on 64 and PS1, all three came out within a 1.5 month span at the end of the year. This is probably the least enjoyable, although TWINE PS1 is certainly trying for the same title. As a driving game it sucks. As a bond game it sucks. Do not play it. Do not buy it.
The World is Not Enough
Platform: Game Boy Color
Release Year: 2001
Fun: May contain traces of fun.
Frustration:
....................../´¯/)
....................,/¯../
.................../..../
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
..............\.............\...
Bond Factor: Doesn't even have the goddamn common decency to include the Bond theme.
This game suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. It's so bad I had to stop and make a thread complaining about it, which can be found here. The gameplay is rotten, enemies stunlock you if you don't stunlock them first. Guns are less effective than punching more often than not. The platforming segments are completely fucking dire with some of the worst controls you'll ever experience. Words can't describe how bad they are. The final boss is a time sensitive platforming segment followed by an extremely unsatisfying cutscene where Bond chokes the villain for about 1.5 seconds. You don't even get to fight him! The difficulty is also very high in the back half and it's a GBC game with forced stealth missions. Yuck.
This is IMO the worst James Bond game in this list. The final insult is that it uses password saves because they cheaped out on the cartridge, I guess.
007: Agent Under Fire
Platform: Gamecube
Release Year: 2001 on PS2, 2002 on GC
Fun: Medium. Decent gameplay, a big step up over the EA games from the previous gen.
Frustration: Low. It's a rather easy game on average, the controls work well enough, the performance is solid.
Bond Factor: Medium. Lacks a few trimmings but it now blends driving with combat in various levels and introduces "Bond Moments".
This is the first 007 game by EA Redwood Shores (later known as Visceral games). It's decently fun, but very short. This also marks the first move of the 3D bond games away from movie adaptations and towards original stories (this had already happened in the Gameboy title as well as pre-1996 games). It's not a great original story, leaning heavily into Brosnan era silliness with a plot about cloning world leaders to replace them and control the world, and EA Redwood Shores would certainly lean into this silliness in their next game too.
If you can get it cheap and like games from the era, I'd say it's worth a try. Note that it despite being Brosnan era, it does not use Brosnan's likeness.
007: Nightfire
Platform: Gamecube
Release year: 2002
Fun: High. Driving and shooting are both pretty good.
Frustration: Low. As above, fairly easy on average and with solid controls and performance.
Bond Factor: Medium-High. Brosnan lends his likeness which helps boost a little more over what AuF was doing. Otherwise it's mostly comparable - a good array of gadgets, some sneaking, some shooting, driving and whatnot. It has a globetrotting plot with some exotic locales and it has a Bond girl or two.
This one I can call good without reservation. It's not perfect certainly, but it's very bond, the gameplay is good, it's not frustrating generally and it looks nice for the era. It's got a meatier runtime than AuF, too. This is Eurocom's second Bond title, and they had really hit their stride by this point. As another original story, this is probably less silly than the Redwood Shore games, but still pretty silly. It still ends with a plot to take over the world, but this time it's a space satellite laser defense system.
I would consider going back and playing this agian at some point, and I'd recommend it to people who are interested in 007 games or Shooters of the era. This is among the best games on this list.
007: Nightfire
Platform: PC
Release year: 2002
Fun: Medium. The shooting mechanics are fairly solid, but not remarkable. It lacks variety in gameplay.
Frustration: High. The back half of the game is hard, and brutally hard in certain places. There's one spot in particular where you 're stuck in an elevator surrounded by enemies on 40 different angles and you just have to sit there killing them all for ages. You will die a shitload of times.
Bond factor: Low. They cut out the driving completely and it lacks a lot of little things compared to the other PS2/XB/GC release.
If that screenshot looks kinda like counterstrike, that's because this was made on the GoldSRC engine by Gearbox software. The first levels are actually quite nifty and fun, but then that gives way to a huge difficulty spike and overall less inspired latter levels that drag the whole experience down considerably. It's a really sharp decline in quality. I cannot in good faith recommend this game except as a historical curiosity. I consider it to be quite poor overall.
007: Everything or Nothing
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Release year: 2003
Fun: Medium. This is fairly ambitious for the GBA. It's doing a lot, and it's not all perfect but it's decently enjoyable.
Frustration: Low. It's pretty easy, tbqh.
Bond factor: Medium. A lot of the bond trimmings, but the presentation isn't as strong as it's latter console bretheren, and the story is a lot more rushed, so it doesn't quite "feel" as Bondy.
A pretty intriguing release. This came out several months prior to the PS2/GC/Xbox versions of the same game which are far more famous. It's got quasi-RPG systems to upgrade, it's got stealth mechanics and shooting+melee stuff in an isometric perspective. I really haven't seen anything quite like it, and it's very interesting. It's not a must have on the system, but it could be worth a look if you're into something a bit experimental.
007: Everything or Nothing
Platform: Gamecube
Release year: 2004
Fun: Medium. There are a lot of cool and fairly unique for the time mechanics, but they're also not that well executed.
Frustration: High
Bond Factor: High. Willem Dafoe is an excellent Bond villain, it's got a huge array of gadgetry, weapons and vehicles, lots of globe trotting, a fair few setpiece moments. Bond finding an excuse to get into a car race really does feel like the kind of absolute dumbass thing he'd do.
This is where I'm going to lose a lot of people, because I think that this is quite overrated in people's recollections. For it's place in history, I think it's pretty cutting edge, and it is sort of vaguely a prototype of what would become the Uncharted type game. It's a cinematic third person adventure/shooter game with a sort of bit of a melee system, it expects you to take cover a fair bit (although it doesn't quite have a magnetic cover system), it's got pretty sophistecated vehicle sections to break things up and setpiece moments. It's undoubtedly innovative, but it's not actually that good. Compared to Nightfire and AUF, it's extremely rough around the edges, because all of these new things it was doing were simply not very refined. Combine that with a high difficulty and it's a rather frustrating experience.
It was the 2nd bond title by EA Redwood Shores. The plot is, once again, very very silly, with Willem Dafoe (a student of Christopher Walken's character from View to a Kill!) trying to conquer Russia (and then... the world!) with an army of Platinum tanks firing nanomachine shells that eat all metal except platinum. You even get into one of those tanks later and get into a massive tank battle, which is just hilariously stupid. If you have nostalgia for this, by all means pick it up, but I wouldn't recommend it to people blind.
Goldeneye: Rogue Agent
Platform: PS2
Release Year: 2004
Fun: Low-Medium. It's not great even compared to shooters of the era. Not totally awful in every way, but ehhh.
Frustration: Medium. Some levels feel a bit bollocks, but it's not that hard to get through overall.
Bond factor: Low-Medium. You don't feel like Bond, but there are a lot of Bond things in it. Christopher Lee lending his voice and likeness to Scaramanga (acting as your version of Q) is basically just delightful though.
A very unusual game. Even things like the Crosshair is off-kilter - it's in the top 1/3 of the screen (see the screenshot) rather than the centre. You can only have what's in your hands - either dual-wielding single handed weapons, or a single double-handed weapon. Other than that, it's just a backup pistol. The controls are strange. The mechanics are strange. The gadgetry is a neat addition, being able to take hostages (a very heavily advertised feature) is "ok" but mostly not very useful, at least on the normal difficulty.
Despite how odd it is, it's not good. It's also not experimental in the same way Everything or Nothing was where you can say "oh look how neat, it's kind of a hint at what would come in the future". It's just oddball stuff that was an evolutionary dead-end in the genre. Seeing the classic Bond villains in a modern context was nifty, but not so nifty I'd recommend an otherwise fairly poor game.
007: From Russia with Love
Platform: Gamecube
Release year: 2005
Fun: Medium. Like EoN, but a bit more polished around the edges.
Frustration: Low. Much easier than EoN, but not a trivally easy game.
Bond factor: High. Leans heavily on nostalgia for the film, but it mostly works. Getting Connery's likeness and voice was a real coup for the game.
I'll be losing more people here - but this is a better game than Everything or Nothing. It's a lot more fun to play through especially for someone who maybe didn't play them when they were new. Redwood Shores' second take on the formula allows them an extra layer of polish on the mechanics of EoN, and it pays off in spades. Everything from taking cover to the autoaim to the melee just feels better. It's not as long, but that's not too bad, EoN was pretty lengthy so this is still a decent enough runtime.
I would recommend this to people intersted in Bond games or just licenced games of the era. It's probably in my top 3 or 4 of the list. Also worth noting - this is the final game of the Electronic Arts era!
007: Quantum of Solace
Platform: Playstation 3
Release year: 2008
Fun: Medium. Do you like Call of Duty? This is that, but not as good as most of the mainline ones.
Frustration: Low-Medium. Again, this is Call of Duty. There's a few rough spots but it's mostly smooth sailing.
Bond factor: Low-Medium. It is rather low on Bond trappings, despite cramming the story of both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace into one game.
The first Activision 007 game, and developed by Treyarch simultaneously with CoD: World at War (released around the same time too). It uses CoD's modified fork of idTech, same as WaW and CoD4. Looks fairly nice compared to the previous gen stuff, but ultimately, this is not what most people want out of a 007 game, I think, even if it's not awful or anything. I generally don't recommend this.
Goldeneye: 007
Platform: Wii
Release year: 2010
Fun: Medium. A bit better than QoS on average, but not dramatically. It still feels kinda CoD-ey. They add a bit more mission variety, especially in terms of objectives here.
Frustration: Low-Medium.
Bond Factor: Medium. They add more gadgets and the like here, and it's going through the plot of Goldenye which just feels a bit more classic bond even with the Craig era updates.
As a modern remake of Goldeneye it's not that good. It does attempt to replicate some of the magic, it has various objectives it adds on higher difficulties, but they just don't work as well here. It feels a bit torn in mutiple directions. It's still quite CoD, even though not as much as QoS. It is also trying to be a bit retro, but also it's still clearly very modern. Ultimately, it doesn't work that well, but it's not a bad game. If you want a shooter on Wii, I'd say try it out, but it really is not a worthy successor to the N64 original, nor is it's take on the story a worthy successor to the 1995 Brosnan original.
That said, this is Eurocom's final decent 007 game. It's not their final 007 game, though.
007: Blood Stone
Platform: X360
Release year: 2010
Fun: Medium. This is properly a cover shooter now, and it works ok, along with decent driving sequences. It has a similar focus kill system to Splinter Cell: Conviction which works well for Bond.
Frustration: Low-medium. Not too hard overall, but could use some more fine tuning.
Bond-factor: Medium-High. It checks off most of the Bond boxes and is fairly cinematic. Hard to say why I didn't think it was more bondy, but there was something a bit hard to pin down that felt off. This was still the era where they were trying to distance themselves a little bit from classic bond to be more hip and with it, or whatever.
This was Bizarre Creation's crack at the formula, and honestly it's a pretty good effort. From the first 2 missions or so, I thought they'd nailed it. Unfortunately, the momentum stops, and it becomes just kind of repetitive and not that fun by the end. This is a damn shame, honestly. I think this formula could work, but it juist didn't in this case. If you're hankering for a 360 era cover shooter or just really love Daniel Craig, check it out, but I would not call it a great game.
007 Legends
Platform: X360
Release year: 2012
Fun: Low. The shooting is okish. That's about it.
Frustration: Medium. Very spikey difficulty.
Bond factor: Medium. It's a collection of iconic scenes from Bond films (plus a scene from Die Another Day nobody asked for), but mostly it's just like "woah look a Bond thing just happened before you took over control... now shoot 7000 guys". Despite having a lot of cool bond stuff, it doesn't feel like a Bond movie really at all, because it's so disjointed and the sturcutre of the films is a large part of what Bond is.
This is Eurocom's final hurrah, and also the final commercially released 007 game for PC and console. It sucks. It's not the worst Bond game, but it's pretty low down there. Shooting is servicable at best, but the missions aren't fun to play, so what's the point? The story is a nothingburger, just a brief greatest-hits compilation. Or rather, a few Great Hits and also Die Another Day (nobody wanted this) and a mission from Licence to Kill (not a terrible film but who again who asked for that?). They went for 1 film per classic Bond to adapt a scene from, but wow those are odd choices.
This game was almost certainly rushed out in time for Skyfall. With another six months to cook, it could have been a pretty cool game. I doubt it ever would have been great, because it's got too many structural weaknesses, but it at least may not have been crap.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus ends our journey.
I had a lot of fun hanging out and playing these games, but it was also at times exhausting and very frustrating because the game in question sucked shit. I'm happy we stuck through it all though. I do not recommend anybody else try something like this because really there's more bad than good in the Bond catalogue (that could also be said of the films, lol).
My overall favourites, which I'm not going to rank in order, would be Goldeneye (N64), From Russia with Love, Nightfire (GC), and James Bond 007 on GBC.
In conclusion,
....................../´¯/)
....................,/¯../
.................../..../
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
..............\.............\...
Goodnight.
Last edited:
