GoldenEye 007

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GoldenEye 007
Developer(s)	Rare
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release date(s)	August 23, 1997 August 25, 1997
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: T (Teen) ELSPA: 15+ USK: 18 OFLC: MA15+
Platform(s)	Nintendo 64
Media	96Mb (12MB) cartridge
Input	Nintendo 64 Controller

GoldenEye 007 is a first-person shooter video game for the Nintendo 64 based on the James Bond film GoldenEye. It was produced by then second-party Nintendo game developer Rareware, and released in 1997.

The game received positive reviews^[1] and sold over eight million copies.^[2] It is considered an important title in the development of first person shooters, and is often cited as being one of the top 10 games of all time. It also has become well-known for the quality of its multiplayer deathmatch mode and its incorporation of stealth and varied objectives into its single player missions.

GoldenEye 007 was followed by a spiritual successor, Perfect Dark, also developed by Rare. Independent developers have also attempted to re-create aspects of GoldenEye 007 by modding other FPS titles.

Contents 1 Development 2 Gameplay and design 3 Storyline and missions 3.1 Additional missions 4 Multiplayer mode 4.1 Characters 4.2 Multiplayer arenas 4.3 Weapons 4.4 Scenarios 5 Weapons 6 Unfinished features 6.1 The distant island 6.2 Citadel 6.3 All Bonds 7 Easter eggs 8 Reaction 9 Sequels 9.1 Inclusion on Wii Virtual Console 9.2 Mods 10 Hacking 11 Notes 12 See also 13 External links

[edit] Development

GoldenEye 007 was originally announced for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, before being stepped up to the Nintendo 64.^[3] The intention for the first few months of development was for the game to be an on-rails shooter similar to Virtua Cop; it only became a first-person shooter later in development.^[4]

The development team working on GoldenEye 007 was very inexperienced; for all but two of them, it was their first game. As David Doak explained:

"Looking back, there are things I'd be wary of attempting now, but as none of the people working on the code, graphics and game design had worked on a game before, there was this joyful naïvety."^[5]

Doak went on to say that:

"We were like a mini-company inside Rare making an atypical game that no-one really thought was going to be any good. The general feeling was we were a bunch of students wasting time. And then when it went into testing there was this very good feedback, initially from testers in-house but also from Nintendo. People were putting in voluntary overtime to test this game."^[5]

The game is based upon the GoldenEye film and its novelization by John Gardner, but, as game designer Martin Hollis explained, many of the missions were extended or modified to allow the player to participate in sequences of which Bond was not originally a part, or those in which he only played a minor role.^[4]

The original sets that were created for the film were first converted into complete, believable virtual environments by one group of game designers; when this process was complete, other designers began populating them with objectives, characters and obstacles in order to create a balanced and fun game. As Martin Hollis explained,

"The benefit of this sloppy unplanned approach was that many of the levels in the game have a realistic and non-linear feel. There are rooms with no direct relevance to the level. There are multiple routes across the level."^[4]

Hollis also noted that the concept of several varied objectives within each level was inspired by the multiple tasks in each stage of Super Mario 64.^[4]

GoldenEye was developed through two and a half years, but, according to Martin Hollis, only the last year was spent developing the game. During the beginning, the engine was built, art assets were made and the enemy AI was written and polished.^[4]

The game was delayed numerous times, partly because during development, the team decided to incorporate a multiplayer feature to the game to demonstrate the N64's 4-player capabilities.

In addition to the N64 game, a version of GoldenEye was in development for the Nintendo Virtual Boy, but cancelled before release.^[3][6]

[edit] Gameplay and design

GoldenEye 007's menu system is set up as an MI6 dossier. The player has four dossiers, each representing a single save file, to choose from.^[7] The next selection screen allows the player to choose the mission he or she wishes to tackle. Each of the twenty missions can be played using one of several difficulties: Agent, Secret Agent, 00-Agent and the customizable 007 setting, which is unlocked upon fully completing the game at the 00-Agent difficulty level. After the difficulty select, the player is given another dossier, which includes background information on the mission and its objectives (higher difficulties incorporate additional, more complex objectives) and comments by MI6 personnel including M, Q and Miss Moneypenny.

The game is one of the first FPS titles in which weapons inflict different levels of damage depending on which body part they hit. The game's hit detection also extends to the hats worn by certain enemies, which can be shot off. In addition, unarmed attacks to the back of an unsuspecting enemy's head inflict higher levels of damage than those to the front or side. Stealth is an important element of the game; fighting crowds of enemies can be dangerous, so it is advantageous to eliminate soldiers and security cameras before they can spot or hear the player. Some gadgets from the James Bond film series are featured in the game; for example, 007's in-game watch includes both the laser from the GoldenEye film and the electromagnet from Live and Let Die.

Once a mission is completed, the player has the option of either continuing on to the next or going back and replaying that mission over on the same or harder difficulty. Every mission also challenges the player to earn bonus cheat options by beating them in a limited amount of time on a specific difficulty setting (for example, completing the "Facility" mission on 00 Agent difficulty in 2:05 or less will unlock the "Invincibility" cheat), which gives the single player mode significant replay value as a time attack game. These cheats cannot be used to complete unbeaten levels. In addition to this method, it is also possible to unlock the options by entering complex "push-button" cheat codes, which were revealed by Rare some time after the game's release.

[edit] Storyline and missions

Further information: Goldeneye storyline

Like in the movie, GoldenEye 007 starts in Arkhangelsk,USSR during the mid-1980s, where James Bond and his friend and fellow 00-agent Alec Trevelyan are sent by the MI6 to destroy a secret chemical weapons facility at the Byelomorye Dam, led by Coronel Ourumov. The part in the dam itself, that resumes to Bond bungee jumping to the base in the movie, now includes battling Russian guards on the way. Inside the facility, Bond meets Trevelyan only in the nerve gas tanks (while the two fight their way into the tanks area in the film). The following is similar: Trevelyan appears to be killed by Ourumov, Bond blows the facility and escapes by commandeering an aeroplane (but the game includes a tank instead of a motorcycle from the film to reach it).

Also new to the game are missions where 007 goes to the satellite control station in Severnaya, Russia where Natalya Simonova and Boris Grishenko work, and the "Silo" mission (which takes place two years before the main story, presumably in 1993), Bond investigates an unscheduled test firing of a missile in Kirghizstan, believed to be a cover for the launch of a satellite known as GoldenEye. This space-based weapon works by firing a concentrated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) at any Earth target to disable any electrical circuit within range; from its orbit, it would be a threat to any city on Earth. Ourumov makes another appearance in the level.

The French frigate La Fayette and the Eurocopter Tiger (actually referred to as the 'Pirate' in the game) in Monte Carlo are also present, but Bond finds hostages inside the ship, and puts a tracker bug in the helicopter (when it is found by the British satellites in the film). Then Bond comes again to the control station in Severnaya, where he escapes along with Natalya Simonova after Ourumov sets the GoldenEye to fire the EMP at the station (in the film, Natalya is in the bunker when the EMP is fired).

Then follows a level in St. Petersburg, where Bond arranges with ex-KGB agent Valentin Zukovsky in a square to meet the chief of the Janus crime syndicate - revealed to be Alec Trevelyan. Then Bond has to release Natalya from the helicopter filled with explosives (where in the movie he is trapped in the aircraft with her). Following it, both are arrested by the Russian police, and taken to the military archives for interrogation. In the movie, Bond and Natalya are questioned by Defence Minister Dimitri Mishkin. In the game, Bond has to escape his interrogation room, rescue Natalya and also communicate with Mishkin.

Then Natalya is captured by General Ourumov, and Bond gives chase with a tank in the streets of of St. Petersburg, eventually reaching a depot used by Janus to coordinate illegal arms deals and terrorist actions around the world. After making his way through the depot and destroying its weaponry stores, 007 hitches a ride on Trevelyan's Soviet missile train, also killing two guards waiting for him inside. This part features many departures from the film storyline, where Bond doesn't reach the depot, and only enters the train after firing in it with the tank.

Bond makes his way through the train, where he kills Ouromov and rescues Natalya. However, Alec Trevelyan and his ally Xenia Onatopp escape to their secret control center in Cuba.

Natalya manages to track Janus to Cuba, and goes along with Bond to the Caribbean. Surveying the jungle aerially from a light aircraft, they are shot down and crash into the Cuban jungle. Unscathed, Bond and Natalya perform a ground search of the area's heavily guarded jungle terrain, but are ambushed by Xenia, who is quickly killed by Bond.

Bond sneaks Natalya into the control center to disrupt transmissions to the satellite and force it to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

After an original mission where Bond traverses a series of flooded caverns, he comes to the antenna cradle. Trevelyan attempts to restore contact with the GoldenEye by manually re-aligning the main broadcasting antenna of the control centre’s radio telescope. Bond kills Trevelyan and destroys the main computer terminal which causes the GoldenEye to burn up upon re-entry.

[edit] Additional missions

Two additional missions were added as bonuses for the completion of the game on higher difficulties. The first, "Aztec Complex", was partially taken from the James Bond film, Moonraker, and is unlocked when the player completes the entire game on Secret Agent difficulty. During the mission, Bond is sent to the Aztec complex in Teotihuacán to investigate the Drax Corporation's unlicensed space exploration in which at least one space shuttle was stolen from NASA. Although Hugo Drax was blown into space by Bond in the movie, it has seemed that his corporation still existed after his death due to remnants and fragments that were still active. MI6 believes their intentions with the shuttle in space are military in nature and authorizes Bond to reprogram the shuttle's guidance computer so that MI6 can take control of the craft once it reaches orbit. During the mission, Jaws makes a return in an effort to stop Bond from completing his mission. Many of the rooms in the mission were from the movie and included several new features, such as the launch room for the Moonraker shuttle.

The second bonus level, "Egyptian Temple", blends elements from the films The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die. To access this level players must complete the entire game on 00 Agent difficulty. Prior to the mission, M informs Bond that a person claiming to be Baron Samedi is in possession of the since deceased Francisco Scaramanga's legendary "Golden Gun" pistol. Samedi has invited James Bond to the el-Saghira temple in the Valley of the Kings (which partially replicates the location of Bond's first encounter with Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me) to retrieve it. Knowing it is a trap, M sends Bond regardless to take possession of the Golden Gun and eliminate Baron Samedi. Despite being seemingly killed by Bond three times, Samedi can be seen in an end-of-level cutscene laughing, similarly to the ending of Live and Let Die.

[edit] Multiplayer mode

GoldenEye 007 features one of the most popular multiplayer modes of any console game. The multiplayer mode was added late in the development process; Martin Hollis noted that the setting was "a complete afterthought".^[4] According to David Doak, the majority of the work on the multiplayer mode was done by Steve Ellis, who "sat in a room with all the code written for a single-player game and turned GoldenEye into a multiplayer game."^[5]

[edit] Characters

The multiplayer mode features all of the characters in the game, including enemies and civilians. At first, only 12 characters are available, with 21 more becoming available as progress is made through the game. A button code will allow players to temporarily unlock 31 other characters, all but two of them likenesses of the programmers. Variations between characters' heights and builds can affect the challenge of shooting them; there is a great difference between the squat Oddjob and the tall and bulky Jaws.

The mode had also previously allowed players to choose from four of the then five actors who had played Bond, but that feature had been removed before the game was released (see All Bonds).

[edit] Multiplayer arenas

As with the selectable characters, only a few arenas are available at first, with more becoming available as progress is made in the game. There are eleven arenas, not counting levels that can only be accessed with a GameShark, and a "random" button that chooses the level randomly. The multiplayer-only arenas are: Temple, Complex, Caves, Library, Basement, and Stacks. Several arenas are taken from the single player mode, with alterations such as restrictions on which sections of the map can be used: Facility, Bunker, Archives, Caverns, and Egyptian. GameShark codes allow one to play other stages, as well as eliminate the two-player and three-player restriction for certain levels such as Egyptian. Another GameShark code allows players to walk through doors without opening them, effectively eliminating restrictions on areas players can access in multiplayer mode.

[edit] Weapons

Weapon selections in the multiplayer mode are grouped by type, such as pistols, automatics and explosives. Other selectable weapon schemes focus on weapons not frequently found in the single player mode, such as laser guns, throwing knives or the Golden Gun. The "Slappers Only!" setting removes all projectiles and limits players to defeating each other using only bare-handed attacks.

[edit] Scenarios

The multiplayer mode features five general scenarios, within which options such as weapon schemes may be altered.

Normal

A basic free-for-all deathmatch mode, in which players attempt to kill their opponents as many times as possible within a set amount of time. This mode can be played in teams of 2 versus 1, 2 versus 2, and 3 versus 1.

You Only Live Twice

Similar to Normal mode, except players only have two lives before they are eliminated. This often leads to experienced players 'camping out' in remote parts of the level while other players fight amongst themselves and lose lives.

The Living Daylights [Flag Tag]

In this adaptation of the playground game "Tag", a flag is placed in a random location in the map. The player who holds it the longest wins the match. A player cannot use weapons while holding the flag, but can still collect them to keep opponents from stocking up on ammo.

The Man with the Golden Gun

A single Golden Gun is placed in a random location on the map. Players must find and pick up the Golden Gun, which is able to kill opponents with only one shot, regardless of where they are hit and/or if they are wearing body armour. After a player acquires the gun, the others are able to see him or her on their radar. The player with the golden gun is able to pick up body armour and the golden gun does respawn allowing others to pick it up.

License to Kill

All attacks, including "slapping", will kill opponents in one hit. This mode cannot be played in teams, unlike the other scenarios.

[edit] Weapons

Many types of weapons are featured in GoldenEye 007, including pistols, submachine guns, rifles, shotguns and explosives. Most of the game's firearms are modelled after real-life counterparts (although the names were changed), but some are based on ficticious devices featured in the James Bond films, such as the Golden Gun and Moonraker laser.

Bond's primary weapon in most missions is his trademark Walther PPK 7.65 millimeter (or "PP7" as it is known in the game), one of several guns in the game also available in a "silenced" version. Most enemy soldiers usually carry a KF-7 Soviet, D5K Deutsche or AR-33 (based on the AKS-74U, MP5K and M16 respectively), while "Officer" characters encountered in the game usually carry pistols such as the DD44 Dostovei (TT-33).

Explosive weapons featured in the game include hand grenades; grenade and rocket launchers; timed, proximity and remote mines. The explosives feature a large amount of splash damage, making them dangerous to the user as well as their opponent. In certain missions, the player is able to drive a tank, as Bond does in the movie. This has the ability to fire explosive shells, but can also kill enemies by simply driving over them.

Shotguns, automatic shotguns, throwing knives and hunting knives are featured in the game, but are either rarely encountered during the main single-player missions or only available using cheats. The "All Guns" cheat can be used to obtain a joke weapon, the "Taser Boy" — a Game Boy with the ability to electrocute.

The varying characteristics of the game's weapons makes them all useful in particular situations. The game's sniper rifle is extremely accurate, and is fitted with an adjustable zoom lens enabling enemies to be killed from far away, but it has a slow rate of fire. Certain powerful weapons, including the RC-P90 (FN P90) and Cougar Magnum (Ruger Blackhawk) have the ability to shoot through enemies' bodies and metal doors; however, they are very loud. Detailed analysis of the properties of the game's weapons have been published by third-party sources on the Internet.^[8]

Many of the GoldenEye 007 guns also returned in the game Perfect Dark as renamed "classics" (with slightly altered names, such as PP9i and KLO1313). In the Super Smash Bros. series, the proximity mine appears as an item (with the name "Motion-sensor bomb").

[edit] Unfinished features

[edit] The distant island

The very first level, "Byelomorye Dam", contains a visible but inaccessible section which had been removed from earlier, more elaborate versions of the level. The sniper rifle can be used to look across the lake to a distant island, which contains a guard tower and a machine-gun bunker.^[9] The island can only be reached by using GameShark cheat codes, and serves no gameplay function. The original idea was for Bond to reach the island via a boat on the docks and destroy the minigun so that he is able to escape two levels later in the Runway level. It was also found that Bond was meant to pick up bungee equipment on the island. The idea was scrapped and Rare installed the machine guns that are now there in the Runway level. The mysterious island was left behind for undisclosed reasons. Rare claims that the extra features made the Dam level too hard for a first level.

[edit] Citadel

GameShark users found several references to a level called "Citadel" in the game. Rareware explained its nature, and joked about players' speculation that multiplayer-mode Bond characters could be seen in the single-player game: "'Citadel' was a very rough test level designed during the early stages of Multiplayer mode. It's not in the finished game in any shape or form, and Oddjob and Mayday wouldn't be in it if it was."^[10]

It was thought that a few textual references were all that remained of the level. However, in 2004, GoldenEye 007 fan websites uncovered an unplayable but viewable single-player version of the level (with implemented sky and water textures).^[11]

In 2005 the website GoldenEye Forever revealed that it was possible to access a fully playable multiplayer version by linking a GameShark to a computer.^[12] The codes to access Citadel in its fullest state totalled nearly 10,000 lines. The test map is largely a mass of shapes and ramps that the players can climb upon, thus giving players many opportunities for sniping and for hiding.^[13]

[edit] All Bonds

Before GoldenEye 007 was released, Rareware had placed a feature in the multiplayer mode of the game, known as the "All Bonds" option.^[14] This would allow players to choose four of the five actors that had portrayed Bond in various films; Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. George Lazenby was not included, presumably because he only appeared in one film. However, before the game was released, Rareware removed the feature for unexplained reasons. It is assumed that Rareware had every intention to release the game with the feature, but was later forced to remove it (possibly due to legal problems with EON Productions, Danjaq, LLC, or the other Bond actors themselves). In response, Rareware said "Yes, it was the hope of the team that they [all Bonds] would be available to play, but for various reasons they weren't."^[10]

In addition, the actors' portraits were at one point used to illustrate the four single-player save file dossiers; this was also removed, with Pierce Brosnan's likeness appearing on all four in the final version.

Not all remnants of the All Bonds feature were completely removed from the GoldenEye software. One major clue was the fact that the portraits of the four Bonds in the selection screen for multiplayer mode were accessible by using a GameShark. Also, various screenshots in the game manual, such as one from the multiplayer selection screen, show traces of the former Bond portraits.

The feature was brought to the attention of many gamers when the gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly published an April issue with what they called the "All Bonds Cheat", using some fake screenshots "to support" its claim. The magazine reported that to unlock the option in the cheat menu, a player must complete the Aztec mission on 007 difficulty in less than nine minutes with all customisable enemy settings on the highest difficulty. The claim was later found to be an April Fools prank, which the magazine held annually.

In 2005, a program called the GoldenEye ROM Editor was released by The Rare Witch Project.^[15] The coders SubDrag and Ice Mario cracked the compression format of the images used by the game, allowing any image in the game's memory to be viewed and edited, by opening up a ROM image of the game. It was then discovered that the All Bonds faces and suits are still in the game; Rareware had only removed the ability to use them. By mapping them onto other multiplayer characters' faces and bodies, one can try to recreate All Bonds, although since the body and head shapes do not match the textures, it will not look as it was intended.

[edit] Easter eggs

Rare put several references to other James Bond movies in GoldenEye 007, the most apparent being the titles of the alternate modes of multiplayer (You Only Live Twice, The Living Daylights, The Man with the Golden Gun and Licence to Kill), and the Bond Girl control scheme names (Honey, Solitaire, Kissy, Goodnight, Plenty, Galore, Domino and Goodhead). In addition, the case of the CCTV tape found in the "Bunker 2" mission is the VHS cover of the GoldenEye film.

Two members of the game's development staff were featured in the game. The Klobb weapon is named after Ken Lobb, and Bond's contact "Dr. Doak" from the "Facility" mission has the name and face of David Doak.

[edit] Reaction

Reviews and awards

Publication	Score	Comment
EGM	9.37 out of 10
IGN	9.7 of 10[16]	Editor's Choice
GameSpot	9.8 of 10[17]	Editor's Choice
Edge	9 of 10
Compilations of multiple reviews
Game Rankings	96 of 100 (based on 21 reviews)[1]
Metacritic	96 of 100 (based on 21 reviews)[18]
Awards
1st Annual Interactive Achievement Awards	Console Action Game of the Year Console Game of the Year Interactive Title of the Year Outstanding Achievement in Software Engineering
BAFTA Interactive Entertainment	Games Award

GoldenEye 007 is one of the few cases in which a video game adaptation of a film or novel is rated highly amongst gamers. At the time of its release in 1997 its stealth elements and varied objectives contrasted with the approaches taken by Doom and Quake, and its split-screen deathmatch mode proved popular. It sold eight million copies^[2] and still retains the distinction of being one of the best first-person shooters ever released.

Along with Shiny Entertainment's MDK, GoldenEye is credited with popularizing the video game convention of a zoomable sniper rifle, enabling players to kill oblivious enemies from vast distances away with a single, precise headshot; context-sensitive enemy hit-locations were also pioneered by the game.

In 1998, GoldenEye received the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment "Games Award" and Rareware won the award for "Best UK Developer".^[19] It also won four awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences: "Console Action Game of the Year", "Console Game of the Year", "Interactive Title of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Software Engineering". Additionally, it was nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics" and "Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Design".^[20]

In a January 2000 poll, readers of the long-running British video game magazine Computer and Video Games voted GoldenEye 007 into first place in a list of "the hundred greatest video games".^[21] In a poll in the next year, the game was ranked 5th.^[22] Also in 2001, GameInformer magazine ranked GoldenEye 007 16th in a list of the "Top 100 Games of All Time".^[23] In 2005, a "Best Games of All-Time" poll at GameFAQs placed GoldenEye 007 at 7th.^[24] In a list made by IGN in 2005, GoldenEye was ranked 29th^[25] while the Reader's Choice placed it at 7th^[26].

The game originally received a "nine out of ten" score in Edge, with the magazine later stating that "a ten was considered, but eventually rejected".^[27] In the magazine's 10th anniversary issue in 2003, the game was included as one of their top ten shooters, along with a note that it was "the only other game" that should have received the prestigious "ten out of ten" rating.^[28]

The game continues to be played by fans, many of whom have developed online communities based around popular aspects of the game. There are those who enjoy replaying single-player levels in an attempt to achieve fast times, those who battle others in its deathmatch mode, while others use GameSharks and similar devices to examine and to modify the game's code. On October 25th, 2006 a fansite, The Rare Witch Project, released a level editor, that allows users to place objects and write AI routines for existing stages on a ROM image, so new stages can be developed.^[29]

[edit] Sequels

Following the success of GoldenEye 007, Rare commenced work on a similar-style first-person shooter, titled Perfect Dark. It was decided that this game would use an enhanced version of the GoldenEye 007 engine but would be a completely new franchise that would be owned by Rare. For this reason, when Perfect Dark was eventually released for the N64 in 2000 after numerous delays, it was marketed and hyped as a "spiritual sequel" to GoldenEye. Although it has no official Bond license, it features many references to 007 and the former game: the four "dinner jacket" characters strongly resemble the tuxedos that were worn by Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan; the BAFTA Interactive award that Rareware received for work on the previous game can be found hidden in a vault in one level; several of the maps from GoldenEye return for use in Perfect Dark's deathmatch mode. In 2005, David Doak commented, "GoldenEye pretty much exhausted the performance of the machine. It was hard to push it further. Perfect Dark had some good ideas but was dog slow."^[5]

A number of the GoldenEye 007 team left Rare soon after development on Perfect Dark commenced, beginning with Martin Hollis in 1998, who after working on the GameCube at Nintendo of America formed his own company Zoonami in 2000.^[30] Other members formed Free Radical Design, and four of the team of nine who originally worked on GoldenEye 007 are now employed there, including David Doak, Karl Hilton and Steve Ellis. This company's most prominent creations are the TimeSplitters series of first-person shooters, which are considered by some to be, like Perfect Dark, "spiritual sequels" to the original game. The TimeSplitters series contains many references to GoldenEye 007; the design of the health-HUD, the nature of the aiming system and the dam setting of the opening level of the second game are among the more obvious.

The James Bond game licence was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1999, which published new games based upon the then-recent James Bond films Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough. The latter game, along with others published by EA such as Agent Under Fire and Nightfire are similar in-style to GoldenEye 007.

In the autumn of 2004, Electronic Arts released GoldenEye: Rogue Agent for Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube and later the Nintendo DS. This is the first game based on the 007 franchise in which the player does not take on the role of James Bond himself; rather they control an aspiring 00-agent (named GoldenEye) who is recruited by Auric Goldfinger, the villain in the movie and book Goldfinger. The game has little to do with either the film GoldenEye or the N64 game, and was released to mediocre reviews^[31] and was criticised for using the "GoldenEye" name in an attempt to sell the game by riding on the success of Rare's game.^{[32][33][34][35]}

In the aftermath of E3 2006 Activision obtained the rights for James Bond games from MGM and EON,^[36] and a "next-gen" game is currently in the works by subsidiary Treyarch.^[37]

[edit] Inclusion on Wii Virtual Console

The President of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, announced that Nintendo is exploring the possibility of adding GoldenEye 007 to the Wii Virtual Console, despite a complicated situation in which the game's developer Rare is owned by Microsoft (producers of the rival Xbox 360 console) and the video game rights to the James Bond franchise are held by Activision. He stated, "We would love to see it [on the Virtual Console], so we're exploring all the rights issues."^[38]

[edit] Mods

Several GoldenEye 007-based mods have been developed by players. One current project is GoldenEye: Source, a mod for Half-Life 2's Source engine that aims to recreate the original game with updated physics and graphics.^[39] An alpha version of GoldenEye Source was released on December 25, 2005. The modification later proceeded to its beta stage on December 25, 2006.

GoldenEye Doom 2: Total Conversion is a stand-alone total conversion of Doom II.^[40] It utilizes many Doom engine ports including Doom Legacy and Edge Doom Engine. It has also been ported to the PlayStation Portable.^[41]

[edit] Hacking

4 members of the website Rare Witch Project have created a program, named the Goldeneye Setup Editor or Goldeneditor, to play around with almost every part of the game.

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• James Bond games
• List of Half-Life 2 mods
• History of video games (32-bit / 64-bit era)
• List of games that have been considered the best ever

[edit] External links

General

• The Making of GoldenEye 007 Speech given by game designer Martin Hollis to the European Developer's Forum
• StrategyWiki's GoldenEye wiki guide (previously hosted by Wikibooks)
• GoldenEye 007 at MobyGames
• GoldenEye 007 at GameFAQs
• GameRankings page for GoldenEye
• GoldenEye 007 at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e James Bond video games

James Bond: The Duel • GoldenEye 007 • James Bond 007 • Tomorrow Never Dies • The World Is Not Enough • 007 Racing • Agent Under Fire • Nightfire • Everything or Nothing • GoldenEye: Rogue Agent • From Russia with Love

Rare video games v • d • e
Banjo-Kazooie games	Banjo-Kazooie • Banjo-Tooie • Grunty's Revenge • Banjo-Pilot • Banjo-Kazooie 3
Battletoads games	Battletoads • Battletoads (Game Gear) • Battletoads & Double Dragon • Battletoads in Battlemaniacs • Super Battletoads
Conker games	Conker's Pocket Tales • Conker's Bad Fur Day • Conker: Live & Reloaded
Donkey Kong games	Donkey Kong Country / Land • Donkey Kong Country 2 (GBA) / Land 2 • Donkey Kong Country 3 (GBA) / Land III • Donkey Kong 64 • Diddy Kong Racing (DS)
Perfect Dark games	Perfect Dark (GBC) • Perfect Dark Zero
Killer Instinct games	Killer Instinct • Killer Instinct 2 • Killer Instinct Gold
Sabreman games	Sabre Wulf (GBA) • Underwurlde • Knight Lore • Pentagram • Mire Mare
Jetman games	Jetpac (Refuelled) • Lunar Jetman • Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship
Other games	Blast Corps • GoldenEye 007 • Jet Force Gemini • Star Fox Adventures • Grabbed by the Ghoulies • Kameo: Elements of Power • Viva Piñata • It's Mr. Pants