EA's Goldeneye "Successor"

welcome to the golden era of double-oh-seven video games it may seem strange to be so nostalgic for an annually released licensed franchise by ea but those who grew up with them know exactly where i'm coming from what they might lack in graphical fidelity or elegant controls by today's standards agent under fire nightfire and everything are nothing more than make up for in variety gadgets and set pieces while they definitely lean more towards the camp of moonraker than the grit of casino royale no other games make you feel more like bond in both quiet and bombastic moments if you've never played these games before i urge you to check them out nightfire as i previously covered holds up superbly despite loving the films when i think of double 07 these games are what first come to my mind alongside goldeneye rogue agent the first video game to ever seduce me into a hype cycle at the prospect of experiencing the variety gadgets and set pieces as a bond baddie double 07's easily just as famous for its villains and henchmen as the principal character goldfinger odd job and [ __ ] galore are some of the most famous characters of all time and they're just from one movie so to make a video game about being the biggest bond baddie of them all is a genius concept unconstrained by mi6 you could completely embrace the lavish architecture terrifying death traps and brutal tactics of these despicable but charismatic rulers it was even slightly virgin territory for the gaming industry rpgs were going through their morality meters and rockstar were pushing the m rating but by and large most games were and are still about saving the world not ruling it as rogue agent promised at the age of 10 i watched every trailer rogue agent undercover episode and interview released building up to the game's launch and i didn't like it never finished it never played it again never really talked about it with anybody but playing nightfire again i got curious wanting to identify what i loved about nightfire made me want to also identify what i hated about goldeneye rogue agent for many it's right there in the title so the game's not called goldeneye because it has anything to do with goldeneye but because it stars a main character called goldeneye who's called golden eye because he has a golden eye hideo kojima eat your heart out you know what though that's fine arcane's prey is a stupid name forced upon by bethesda but it doesn't annoy me while playing and though the name easily fooled thousands of people who bought this game thinking it had something to do with campbell's movie or rare's game rogue agent's title never even crossed my mind as a kid what disappointed me back then were the lack of driving sequences gadgets bots and odd jobs hat there weren't any equivalents of enemies vanquished fire and water or death of an agent i couldn't put my finger on it back then but there was just something about this game that felt uninspired compared to what came before and playing today it's not hard to see why there's a rather infamous quote by jamie griezmer i say infamous because the quote took on a life of its own beyond the developer's intention this is the thing that uh sort of always irritates me about the 30 seconds quote is because if you look at the quote what i'm actually saying is you need that 30 seconds and then you need to put it inside of a context that is constantly changing for a while the 30 seconds is in a warthog and then we fighting through a structure and then we're doing that 30 seconds but it's long range this time or it's against a really powerful shielded enemy you have to mix that up with the mission design that's what halo is a loop that can be repeated through context rogue agent is just a loop it is unironically 30 seconds of fun stretched out for an entire game from level 1 to level 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 credits in hong kong the premise is to assassinate dr no with a planted sniper rifle it's the perfect setup for an atmospheric buildup to this ambush possibly a stealth section but no it's just the loop again it's never presented in a new context genuinely the closest you get in this level is picking up a sniper rifle a trope which itself gets repeated throughout the game it's genuinely difficult to accurately portray the repetition without also boring the viewer but the closest i can get is this years ago i summarized doom fear and halo with split screens to contrast half-life 2's campaign variety some viewers took issue with this saying that reducing halo to 3 hallways and assault rifle is cherry picking that could be done with any video game and fair i was attempting to show rather than tell how half-life 2's structure differs from other games but that imagery could imply a bias i did not intend and that's on me as a writer and editor but for rogue agent you can add as many of these frames as you want and the implication is the same the entire game is shooting shooting shooting shooting and the fun of that 30 seconds is debatable this was released at a period when console shooters were starting to emulate halo rather than goldeneye but couldn't emulate bungie's controls games like medal of honor rising sun don't snap-lock to enemies like goldeneye but they don't have the elegant aim assist or smooth turning for aiming to feel intuitive ironically making it more cumbersome than rare's goldeneye having your weapon lock on meant players were more focused on the situation than centering their screen developed by the same team as rising sun rogue agents are victim of this too the aiming is abysmal with a hideous aim acceleration balance that makes precise aiming with the right stick outright impossible thankfully there is an auto aim option though you then have to contend with its interesting target selections why did it do that in fact there's quite a few bizarre components of the core gameplay on the topic of aiming grabbing hostages is supposed to be done for temporary armor yet holding someone up by the neck apparently increases your weapon accuracy maybe that's why enemies can be seen taking their own allies hostage and you get points for them doing so there's also the mag rail which can instantly kill anybody shoot through walls and be dual-wielded even in multiplayer you have two of them contrasting directly against the dual wheel double barrel shotgun which is easily the weakest weapon in the game and for some reason reload several times faster while do wielding than independently but most obvious of all is the crosshair what's particularly bizarre is early screenshots and footage of this game judging by their weapon angles don't have the high crosshair placement meaning after a year and a half a development the team decided to move it up coincidentally halo 2 releasing the same year pushed it down i don't want to believe rogue agent changed their crosshair because halo 2 did but i can't come up with a logical reason for bumping it up the reason bungie lowered their crosshair and continued to do so is to direct player's eyes upward to account for the verticality of their games both in level design and enemy player movement the only reason i can imagine to place the crosshair up is to make headshots easier and the solution for that would have been to tweak the aiming controls instead the ultimate strategy is picking up an assault rifle with auto aim and burst firing to drop every enemy in the room almost instantly it feels like soldier 76 the most effective strategy in this game for winning gun fights is playing it the most boring way imaginable and in a game where gunfights are the only form of gameplay that's a big problem rogue agent hopes to address this via its emotional visceral intelligent and learning ai with enemies that fire from cover roll from grenades and move independently within the levels assuring that no two battles are the same it's technically true rogue agents ai doesn't follow a script are given a variety of reactions and are capable of the same actions as a player with named enemies even sharing your goldeneye powers it was directly inspired by halo as the game's lead designer worked on halo with the biggest challenge set in this gamespot article to be making human enemies behave realistically compared to aliens and monsters i'd argue the next biggest challenge is making human enemies threatening when you're superhuman and it's one that rogue agent doesn't really address all the nuances of this evil ai are rarely demonstrated because you're so often dropping goons before they can even shout a voice line your health regenerates anything they manage to chip away and while there's nothing you can do they can't except throw people there's also nothing they can do that you can't at least nothing of any consequence in fear enemies taking cover is a big deal not only does it give someone else time to flank your position but the trading of damage is a lot more volatile your health pool can be shredded quickly if you're not careful and only recovers on command by the player via a limited number of health kits your character is powerful through aiming in agility rather than strength in rogue agent you just have a force field that deflects all incoming damage for several seconds which can't be countered who cares if an enemy is behind cover flip your shield on and charge them it's a shame too because the combat isn't completely devoid of merit there are some really memorable weapon designs that have stuck with me over the years such as the magrail predator minigun mark ii detonator and probably my favorite the mamba the reason this shotgun sucks even more is because it looks and sounds so great the whole game has the enjoyably edgy tone of a lincoln park album enemy designs are festooned with red visors bulky armor and masks multiple environments are destroyed industrial complexes to match the industrial soundtrack by paul oakenfold again the problem isn't the game's goal but that there's only one the reason doom fans endlessly repeat rip and tear and bfg division is because they're the only songs of their kind there's an extensive variety to doom sound allowing its heaviest metal signatures to absorb the spotlight i dig some of these beats paul has cooked up but like halo 5's over reliance on strings it gets tiring [Music] it's a big part of why levels in this game blend together i couldn't tell you where these songs play because none of the locations have a unique sound and that's where we come back to this game's biggest problem of all the levels or more specifically their pacing goldeneye rogue agent is the most exhausting game i've ever played on this channel worse than resident evil 6 halo 5 or body count the game said to have 20 something levels across its eight locations for an average total play time of seven hours that's longer than both agent under fire and night fire games with jet packs tanks tranquilizer darts aston martins and laser guns in space the only variety this game potentially has then are the different locations from the octopus black market to hoover dam hong kong to las vegas and from fort knox and goldfinger to the volcano lair from you only live twice but it's just not enough when you spend upwards of 40 minutes fighting in a single backdrop especially when the game is this desperate to pad levels out odd job is already on the ground your fastest entrance will be through the sky lounge the fastest way to the vault is the sky lounge and you know what the amazing thing is this is one of the shortest levels in the game a good chunk of it is just sitting in an elevator had you entered via the ground floor i imagine it would have lasted five minutes meanwhile it's followed up by the longest level repeating everything that's already been repeated with the addition of 14 tanks willem dafoe didn't have that many in everything or nothing and at least i got to drive one it genuinely has you start from the ground floor at hoover dam to reach the top of it just to descend all the way to the opposite side drop me off there put a gatling gun on pussy's pink helicopter and let me blood dragon these [ __ ] to save 40 minutes of my life you don't even have all of your powers by this point in the game and these levels have an obvious bias towards certain abilities auric enterprises has the mag rail everywhere to teach you how to use the mri vision scanner hong kong fills its arenas with lame traps and environment interactions to encourage the em hack and the dam effectively requires the polarity shield i've heard friends joke because of this ability that the game was an early attempted crisis but it doesn't have that game's initial flexibility that facilitates player creativity you're just solving a designer's equation d-pad down plus white button equal solution there is one level that's an exception though the octopus this underwater black market is both a great backdrop and one of the few levels where all of your powers are relevant and relatively open for use say for a couple bridges that need to be activated via the em hack but that gets forgiven when flailing people alive with your mind this is a level where rogue agents components come together with all the fat trimmed no drawn-out elevator rides helicopter fights wave defense sections or limited powers there's even some actual strategy in balancing your abilities between killing enemies protecting yourself and hacking turrets in the environment best of all it's littered with death traps and multi-storied arenas for you to fling people off of it even has a couple hallways to catch your breath to punctuate the action and a running gag of using goldfinger's bank account to progress you have the navigation coordinates that line for me is what cements this level as being above the rest because it's one of the only pieces of characterization in the game that works the game's goal is to absorb you in the bond underworld the reason it surrounds you with gold finger dr no [ __ ] galore xenia onotop odd job and scaramonga is because they're the most famous villains of all the only one that's missing with the same relevance is jaws and that's because he already returned some describe this game as fan fiction but i started with fan fiction so i actually kind of like the alternate world premise in fact it's something i wish more franchises would do what i mind is character while [ __ ] galore and scaramonga carry the same name and likeness of their on-screen counterparts the difference in portrayal is night and day i am francisco's karamonga your golden eye was built by one of my contacts how do you like my island bit off the beaten track isn't it it's rent-free i do my landlords an occasional favor i've heard a lot of people say that one of this game's redeeming qualities is that they managed to have christopher lee reprises role but i don't think he reprised anything this melodramatic brochure reader isn't the enthusiastic multi-millionaire assassin and don't get me started on [ __ ] my name is pussycolor you look like you could use a ride climb aboard golden eye won't you join me not on duty i'm mr goldfinger's personal pilot you are and uh just how personal is that i'm a damn good pilot period this authoritative no-nonsense badass pilot who led her own gang of criminals has been reduced to a spandex femme fatale uber driver i'd complain she does nothing but really none of these villains do anything it's got to be one of the worst ensembles i've ever seen xenia anatop a psychotic thigh-murdering temptressed assassin he's killed in rogue agent like this okay okay okay bye-bye and in the same level odd job dies like this can you imagine someone pitching a video game that requires hundreds of staff thousands of hours and millions of dollars to produce with this being their intention i can't something must have happened there must have been a game where goldeneye wore a white suit outside the midas casino rope jumping on the rooftops of fort knox in a shootout inside auric enterprises packed with beautiful people enjoying a pool party before dr knows army storms in and tearing them apart with goldfinger's laser working with odd job to deliver a bomb to the hoover dam throwing people to sharks inside a crowded octopus black market the game i got hyped for as a 10 year old kid turns out it does exist on paper meet danny bilson yes that danny bilson before he became the vp of thq he was and is a screenwriter he's worked on a multitude of films television shows and video games including ea's james bond during its prime him and long-time writing partner paul dimeo conceived goldfinger vs dr no mapping out the whole game for ea los angeles who they previously worked with on medal of honor rising sun creating scenarios they knew the team could build except they couldn't unfortunately at the same time eala decided to rebuild the tech for medal of honor they got out of sync with us and the engine was never ready just by looking at rising sun it's easy to see why eala felt they were in need of an upgrade medal of honor's console releases looked dated even by the standards of the time but in the opening their scripted set pieces unique gameplay and on-rails action through pearl harbor all the things that rogue agent completely lacked out of necessity there was stuff like a room that flooded and then they put sharks they let the sharks loose you know there's all kinds of crazy [ __ ] they couldn't make it wasn't a creative problem and it was totally laid out by paul and i and then modified we had there was a lot of good people in that studio it's just about time you know what i mean it's time and tech the tech was messed up and we didn't have the time we needed another year the reason rogue agent feels like the minimum viable product of a big pitch is because that's exactly what it is so other things that happened along the way was general manager came into the studio really good good guy but he had an idea that maybe wasn't so great which was we'll call it goldeneye all of a sudden our game that's limping along under real tough production constraints is you're gonna put that name on it you're now you're gonna be compared to one of the greatest console shooters of all time and then there was a ridiculous demand on shipping the game in nine months which i'll be frank is why i quit and why i left ea was all about this game and so in fact i have never played that game i have copies of it i have never broken the seal on it it was our dream that became kind of a nightmare games like these aren't bad because the developers don't care when danny says there is lots of talent within the team he's putting it lightly dan orzolak was its combat designer who not only worked on combat evolved as previously mentioned but most recently ghost of tsushima its sound designer was one eric craber who'd have his name cemented forever in the hearts of titanfall and apex fans its character art director was takayoshi sato of silent hill fame costumes were designed by kim barrett of the matrix trilogy renee morel from final fantasy spirits within modeled all the major villains its business producer was a manager for looking glass and its system engineer was a lead on the dead space trilogy they even had both old and new environments be sketched by sir ken adam the original set designer for the double07 film franchise from dr no all the way to moonraker it had the people and the money but without time and tech it's honestly a miracle they even released a product at all for years i thought i hated this game and believe me at times while playing for this video i really did but truth be told there's so many worst video games out there without the connection in my childhood i would have thought it's just another mediocre fps to add to the pile what i've come to load are the systems that doomed rogue agent the mechanisms that forced its name resurrected not to continue a legacy but to boost sales the days talented people work to make something they'll forget or want to forget the marketing selling this is something they damn well knew it's not because that's their job and there are enough people like my 10 year old self who wouldn't know the scenario where a bad game using the name goldeneye overwrites a great game by people who actually made goldeneye i hate this system because ultimately it gives each of these horrible decisions a reasonable explanation why would time splitters get bonds advertising budget why would executives give another year to rogue agent when its follow-up is already set for next year why would marketers sell their game as less than the competition would you do anything differently as that marketer or manager as much as i want to believe otherwise i don't think i would [Music] i've been using the rocket stock intro for far too long i hope this new one was to your liking and not a downgrade as is my new microphone can you sum up the iracing community in one meme [Music] [Music] boxers already answered this is tmnt cool i guess didn't really watch it growing up do you ever get exhausted with all the requests and status report demands for new videos compared to how exhausted i get with adobe not even remotely does mr racevic enjoy mmos not really i've tried wow guild wars 2 neverwinter tour wildstar defiance and black desert of those tor and wildstar clicked with me the most so it's almost fitting that wildstar quickly died why is johanna i don't know when will you start streaming whenever i'm willing to boot up shadow ops red mercury again as i promised a friend it would be what i first stream and a promise is a promise black lagoon video when i've honestly considered it being it doesn't really get much coverage these days yet is still popular enough to get pubg mobile skins is there any game or series that you can't slash won't do it years later on because someone you know or like has done it better than you think you could absolutely one i've previously mentioned is metal gear both matthew mitosis and super bunnyhop made phenomenal videos that hold up today regarding the series and critical nobody did a brilliant overview of both splinter cell and hitmen of the two which are more likely for me to do i'd probably go with splinter cell [Music] you

Channel: Raycevick

Views: 475,731

Keywords: Raycevick, CuHnadian, COG, connected, COGconnected, review, analysis, years, later, ea, electronic arts, ea games, ea sports, james bond game, james bond, 007, james bond 007, goldeneye, goldeneye n64, goldeneye 007, goldeneye trailer, goldeneye rogue agent, medal of honor, medal of honor rising sun, danny bilson, james bond video games, 007 games, paul oakenfold, paul oakenfold ready steady go, quantum of solace, nightfire, 007 nightfire, agent under fire, perfect dark

Id: f0xA0oLoeYA

Length: 26min 0sec (1560 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 03 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/NoMikeyNoNoNo_xD]

Oh man I remember seeing all the ads on TV and then renting this game back in the day, I gave up after a couple levels where it was so unenjoyably repetitive, such an awful game.

[u/tetsuo9000]

This was a trip. I had completely forgotten about this game until I saw those copy+paste wall textures in the corridors and then a flood of memories came back. I remember now renting it from a Blockbuster and thinking it was a bit meh.

I really need to go back and play through those old Bond games. The EA licensed boom during the PS2 era made some great stuff like Angelfire, the LoTR trilogy, etc.

Edit: Meant Nightfire. My early 2000s memories are all tangled up

[u/Sleepydave]

Haha this game really is a prime example of mediocre 6th gen FPS games. Its amazing how devs still didn't understand how the autoaim completely makes or breaks a console fps. Even years after Goldeneye and Halo you have games with either too much or no aim assist at all. The way the crosshairs are placed so high up is such a terrible attempt at fixing the issue.

[u/JBL_17]

I remember my grandparents got me this. I wanted to show my gratitude so I stuck with it longer than I wanted to.

[u/DM_Me_Your_Tigers]

I appreciate that he's commenting on the split-screen comparisons he's done in the past. You COULD do that with any game and make it look copy/paste (including Half-Life 2 if you were so inclined), but it sounds like it's a fair criticism for Rogue Agent.

[u/b_rizzle24]

Hah - of course this is objectively a bad game but as a 14 year old with only a GameCube desperate to play a shooter this was sort of all I had until Time Splitters came out a year later. So I have weirdly fond memories of it.

[u/returntospace]

Oh wow I had literally no idea this game even existed and I was an ardent agent under fire/nightfire/everything or nothing stan

[u/TootsMcGavin]

I couldn't tell you a thing about the campaign for Nightfire or Agent Under Fire but i played so much of the multiplayer with family and friends. Wasn't the best but it was like playing Goldeneye on modern consoles at the time

[u/KyleCAV]

God I remember putting hours into goldeneye and rage quitting once the game introduced the omen gun. It was fun but stressful.