Despite EA's stumbling and bumbling, last year's James Bond game, Everything or Nothing was pretty enjoyable, as the company went all out to ensure that it had the ultimate presentation, which is why it's so upsetting to see that its latest title in the series, Goldeneye: Rogue Agent is so lackluster. Coming up short in just about every category, it's the ultimate super villain torture device.

Since Pierce Brosnan's not playing James Bond anymore, EA decided to go a different route with Rogue Agent. Rather than play as the dashing and seemingly indestructible super spy, you play as an ex 00 agent who's been discharged from service for acting reckless. After a gunshot from Dr. No leaves you blind in one eye, Auric Goldfinger offers you a spot on his team, and when you except, Francisco Scaramanga (voiced by Christopher Lee), surgically outfits you with a synthetic eye, a...well...eye made out of gold that gives you several special abilities, but most notably, the right to be called Goldeneye. So your mission is to basically track down Dr. No and assassinate him, and along the way you'll have to take down an army of his guards and blah, blah, blah, Zzzzzzzzzz.

Seriously, Rogue Agent's story is beyond cookie cutter and boring, like something a fan would write and post on some James Bond website in hopes of being "teh cool." You don't need to pay attention to it, although EA forces you to watch each and every cut scene, but don't bother. The FMV is of poor quality, and aside from Christopher Lee's voiceovers, there's nothing worth checking out.

The whole point of being a bad guy (aside from EA needing to come up with something due to Brosnan's departure) is to do underhanded things, but herein lies the major problem with the concept. Since all you do is basically plow through Dr. No's henchmen (who are in fact extremely evil), you'll never feel any different than when you played as Bond because evil fighting evil pretty much cancels itself out. You can activate traps to kill them and take hostages (standard stuff) as well as use your "special" eye to get you out of trouble (as in covering yourself with a shield or tossing people around the room via Psi-Ops maneuvers), but doing this won't make you feel particularly dirty.

At its core, Rogue Agent is a mindless FPS where you can just put your brain on auto pilot and kill anything that moves, and there are numerous weapons to choose from but they're nothing extraordinary. You've got some machine guns, a rocket launcher, a sniper rifle that reloads slower than Soldier of Fortune for the Xbox, a hand gun, some grenades, and a rail gun, among others. Also, you've always got a crappy pistol on you that has unlimited ammo. You start the game with this weapon (as well as some handy grenades), but you'll soon want to rid yourself of it because it's a weak device incapable of getting you out of tight spots. Thankfully, there are always weapons lying about (as well as body armor), and early on, you're introduced to dual wielding two guns at once. Unfortunately, it's here where the gameplay mechanics trip and fall down the stairs. You can never pick up ammo for weapons. Rather, you'll need to swap for the same gun, so the entire game is this process of picking up and dropping one machine gun. Doing this is a huge pain because you can't just grab one on the fly but have to stop, press and hold the X or A button (depending on the hand), which more often than not leaves you exposed and ready to take damage. This brings me to another one of the game's faults, which is targeting.

The AI does what it's expected to do, which is take cover and run back and forth dodging bullets, and they also have a nasty habit of always landing their shots. As for you, you'll be carrying these machine guns that spit out 30 rounds in a matter of seconds, but you'll rarely hit anyone, because for some reason the game has wonky targeting. It's possible to empty an entire clip and kill nothing, even though you knew you had a good shot. Also, the game's answer to everything is to toss more of the same guards your way (unfortunately, you'll fight against only a handful of enemy types throughout the entire game). The enemies are too boring looking and devoid of personality to have any fun shooting them. There are a few guards that have names, but rather than be boss characters, they merely require a few more extra hits to take down. However, what is funny is how the guards will take their own friends as hostages. Like that's going to stop me from killing them both!

Peppered in between the nameless baddies are boss fights, but they're over quick and lack drama. Xenia Onatopp, for example, takes almost no skill to beat. In fact, it was one of the most boring boss battles that I have ever played.

Visually, the game's very bland-looking. The character models look pretty good, and the villain cameos (Oddjob, for example) look somewhat like their movie counterparts, but the environments are generic and not very well-detailed, and none of the in-game effects seem to take advantage of the Xbox hardware, but that's no surprise since the entire game reeks of multiplatform development.

If I had to guess before playing the one area where the developers would've succeeded the most, I would've gone for the sound since it's James Bond we're talking about here, but unfortunately I'd be proven wrong. The music isn't dramatic at all, and none of the tracks are memorable. The voices, what there is of them, are all right, and the gun fire is okay, but nothing about the game's aural component stands out.

As for the gameplay, I must admit that it's fun to a degree. It's cool to see how each weapon handles and killing hundreds of enemies is somewhat enjoyable, but the more I played, the more I became aggravated at how moronic and linear the gameplay is. Why can't I switch to grenades while duel wielding? Why can't I pick up ammo for the rocket launcher instead of exchanging my current rocket launcher for a new one? Why is that guard still alive after I just shot him in the head? How come that other guard didn't die after I melee attacked him from behind?

In addition to the single-player campaign, Goldeneye has multiplayer. You and up to three of your friends can kill one another via splitscreen, and the game also features Xbox Live support for up to eight players, but it's by no means thrilling. Much of it is your standard online stuff, though the ability to activate traps to kill your foes is a nice touch. On the plus side, you'll have access to some multiplayer exclusive weapons such as the Golden Gun and the Goblin Mine, and the voice communication works extremely well, so you can at least vent your frustration. However, gameplay's extremely monotonous. I kept asking myself, "And I'm not playing Halo 2 because!?!"

Goldeneye: Rogue Agent is one of 2004's most disappointing games. EA has managed to craft the perfect weekend rental, and it's also soiled the Bond name and tarnished Rare's spectacular and genre-defining N64 shooter. "Challenge Everything?" The next time EA's developers decide to challenge something, they should start with themselves.

Our Final ScoreBad

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