All James Bond Games

My playthough of every James Bond board game and video game.

[alljamesbondgames]

007 Racing

Original Release: 2000

Developer: Eutechnyx

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platform: PlayStation

The must surprising thing about 007 Racing is the complete lack of one thing: Racing. This is a vehicle combat game with missions you need to complete. With the game utilising multiple famous Bond cars, you might then expect to be a “greatest hits” of Bond car movements, but this is a new story (a very dull one, mostly in told via walls of texts in briefings) that doesn’t even attempt to justify why these cars are being used.

Developed by Eutechnyx, who are now best known for the infamous Ride to Hell: Retribution, this takes an interesting concept (a vehicle-based Bond game) and butchers it in every way possible.

Starting off with a mission where you have to cancel the Bond Girl from a courtyard and escape, I was able to adapt the controls – as this lets you use the right analogue stick for acceleration/breaking, I was able to map it to the analogue triggers.

You start the level off with a machine gun, all the other weapons and gadgets (mainly health and shields) are scattered across the map. Your main weapons for stronger targets (like tanks) are hellfire missiles, but these damage your car whenever you fire them, and aiming them is a pain (they alternate what side of your car they fire from, which changes their aiming). Special missiles are required to take down a helicopter – use it wrong and you need to restart.

Next, Bond is in New York and there’s a bomb on his car! You can’t to too slow or else it will blow up, you need to rush around following the Crazy Taxi arrow to collect…things to increase your time, then drive the car into a river. Incidentally, the simplicity of this mission makes it the most enjoyable in the game. The handling isn’t atrocious, but it doesn’t feel very natural or reliable.

This BMW also seems to handle exactly the same as the Austin Martin from the first, and as all weapons are pickups, none of the cars have any identity or special abilities, so the one thing this game might have going for it – the Bond cars – just strips away what makes them Bond cars.

The next level is one where you get ambushed and is in three parts. The first is simple: kill all enemies in a small arena. One thing to note is that foot soldiers never count as important targets, they just whittle down your health. You also can’t run them over, removing another potentially satisfying element from the game.

The second part of this level has forklifts driving at high speed and ramming into you. R (played by John Cleese) tells you to look for a weak point in their armour to exploit – this is a lie. This game has immensely unclear instructions, and you’ll fail many objectives simply because the game never makes it clear what you are supposed to do. The third part has you using an EMP to destroy “computers”. This is a weapon that shoots a little bit our of the right side of your car. I’ll be honest: this mission was so frustrating that I just started using cheats.

The next level has you shooting tires on a truck using lasers that fire out of the sides of the car.

The next three levels are set in the Mexican jungle. The first is fine, trying to keep ahead of a helicopter then hiding the car in a truck. The second has Bond taking on an enemy compound from within, using a device to blow up mines (which the enemy has oddly placed right next to all their artillery – the device to blow them up is just lying around), setting up a laser and escaping (although you have 10 seconds and no direction).

The third is almost a race – Xenia pops up out of nowhere. You need to race her while collecting objects, although the game doesn’t make this clear, so you’ll probably be fighting and then get a cutscene of Xenia escaping with a British parachute attached to her car. If you do beat her, make sure to pick up and use the parachute, or else you’ll just die. When you succeed, Xenia falls to the bottom of the pit and explodes, but obviously is fine by the time of GoldenEye.

The most annoying level is up next: you control a car remotely from warehouse cameras, planting mines. To make it more annoying, the cameras are low quality and fizz every now and then, and there are some tiny thing driving around.

Then you have to collect missiles and destroy a boat driven by Jaws, go close to limos in New York to collect data. The next mission sounds intriguing: take out an underwater base in the Lotus Esprit.

But then the level starts with Bond driving out of water. Using it is the same as all of the rest, and we have another tedious level that doesn’t utilise the car’s unique abilities in any way. R even clumsily explains that many of the underwater features were removed for weapons – but then the weapons are on the map, not on the car, so it still makes no sense.

The final mission is then horrendously designed. It sounds simple: destroy a plane’s engines, destroy the plane and escape off a cliff. The execution, however, is atrocious. You can’t use the car’s gun at this point (no idea why), so you have to ram the engines.

The engines are only vulnerable when they flash (there’s no shielding or reasoning for this), and there’s no consistency when you ram them. If it doesn’t work first time, the plane flies off and you have to start again. You have to do this with all four engines. After this, the plane turns around (very quickly) and rams you. This is where you use the car’s gun, except that instead of the usual method, you have a first person view to manually aim.

Where you start aiming seems completely random, it’s not ahead of you so you have a 50/50 chance of turning to the right direction. You have a few seconds to aim and shoot a little box hovering under the plane, and then very quickly dodge the plane and drive off a cliff (thankfully, you get an arrow for this). It’s by far the worst designed level in the game, and it’s the climax!

There’s also a multiplayer mode for two players. There ate two modes: shoot each other or ram into each other to pass a bomb over. These take place in small areas and aren’t much fun at all. Again, I’m completely baffled by the complete lack of racing.

A vehicle combat James Bond game isn’t a bad idea, even a racing game with classic Bond cars can be done well. This game, however, is just a complete mess that throws away everything unique about Bond’s cars.

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The World Is Not Enough (PS)

Original Release: 2000

Developer: Black Ops

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platform: PlayStation

While Eurocom made the N64 version of The World Is Not Enough, Black Ops – the developers of Tomorrow Never Dies – still made the PlayStation version. From playing the games, it doesn’t seem like there was any cross development or sharing resources, both games were developed completely independnatly.

While TWINE on PlayStation is a first person shooter, it still feels a lot like Tomorrow Never Dies. The HUD (which I still can’t see properly) and controls from the previous game are still here, with the developers still not taking advantage of the PlayStation’s analogue sticks. I could create an dual stick FPS-like setup, but without the ability to look up and down (without manual aiming).

The game stars off in the bank but the layout is very different. You go up a lift and then down an oddly long corridor with a lot of cameras – these are a massive pain to shoot due to the game’s shoddy controls and I just gave up and accepted the extra guards. One thing also evident is that the levels in this games are small “rooms” with short loading screens when going through doors, which make the levels feel disjoined.

After this, you get some long clips from the film, as it skips through the attack on MI6 headquarters and we go and chase the assassin down some short, narrow London streets. At the end of this level, the game automatically selects the grapple watch to fire at the hot air balloon. This watch isn’t used to help level design, but instead just triggers cutscenes.

Next up is the game’s skiing level which is just really odd. You have full control of Bond’s movement, but his acceleration has been altered. You awkwardly shoot some enemies and start going own a slope – for around 4 seconds. Due to the game being made of lots of tiny areas, you need to go through a pipe and load the next area, so you get the awkward controls and none of the fun of actually going downhill for a decent amount of time.

Next up is a level that the N64 game skipped, as Bond infiltrate’s Zukovsky’s laughably small casino. This is both the best and worst level. There’s only a few room and your mission is to win money at blackjack, which is more enjoyable than the actual game. I did nearly have to restart this mission due to an NPC blocking a patch.

You also have to use Bond’s credit card lockpick to open a door, which is neat the first time but is used far too much and the animations for it are far too long.

Next up is this game’s stealth level. This takes place entirely inside Elektra’s house, as you “stealth” by running and punching guards. There are a few items you can turn on to distract them. The level design for this mission is just bizarre, as the house doesn’t feel like a house due to its nonsensical layout and completely lacking a front door.

You skip from here right to infiltrating Renard’s men, who are trying to steal a nuke. This level feels really strange as you have to sneak past guards (having to punch some out) as you sneak into an area where you were invited into.

Another mission that wasn’t in the N64 game (apart from a multiplayer level) is Elektra’s pipeline, as you try to reach a bomb. You have to shut off the oil and rescue hostages to reach another part of the facility, then protect Christmas Jones as she fixes an oil pipeline maintenance vehicle.

The “City of Walkways” is a single level in this game, and feels far less dynamic, with the helicopter fight being extremely dull and then it’s onto another chase level, which coincidentally involves a bomb being placed in a train station (this time in Istanbul instead of London).

After Bond gets captured, you get to see a lovey, large room with big windows transform into a tiny room in a dungeon. The film footage and game design don’t match in any way whatsoever and I don’t know why they included the torture chair – they could have omitted it and it would have seem like Bond had moved to the next room instead.

You need to go back and forth then fight a few bosses. The first requires you to unload a few rounds from your assault rifle, the second is immune to all of your weapons due to “special armour” (he’s wearing a suit) and you’re told that you need to throw his explosives back at him. Headshots don’t do anything and the game gives you a grenade launcher, which also does nothing. You can only kill him by throwing his own pipe bombs. It’s just odd.

The final mission is on the submarine as you chase Renard. You have to navigate a really strange room filled with toxic barrels. When you reach Renard, you have a boss fight – but not against him, but against a reactor instead. There’s no flooding, and then you run back through the level.

The ending to the level isn’t locked away this time, however there is a secret video if you complete the game on the highest difficulty – which is just the sex scene from the end of the film. There are a few cheats to unlock, but there’s no multiplayer.

It’s amazing just how different these two games are, with the N64 version of the game being a much better game all around. The PlayStation version is stiff and disjointed.

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The World Is Not Enough (N64)

Original Release: 2000

Developer: Eurocom

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platform: Nintendo 64

While Tomorrow Never Dies skipped out on the Nintendo 64, The World Is Not Enough made a return, developed completely separately from the PlayStation version of the game. The N64 version of TWINE is heavily inspired by GoldenEye, following the same style of missions and level structure, but also tries to make the game more cinematic.

Eurocom managed to fit a lot onto the N64 controller. Jumping is now an option, and crouch is just one button. Through button combinations, you can switch between items and gadgets separately, as well as activate alternative fire modes for the guns. Looking up and down is a bit awkward as you either have to hold down the aim button, or use the D-pad (which is a little bit out of the way on an N64 controller) – but this means that it’s quite easy to reconfigure the game to fit a dual analogue controller.

Starting off with a nice simple tutorial level in a bank, this serves as a good introduction of the game’s mechanics, using gadgets and (on harder difficulties) erasing camera footage – this had a few extra objectives for harder difficulties, just like GoldenEye.

The cutscenes in this have voice overs (but not the actors from the films) and are recreated in the game engine, with the story being rewritten so that the game itself makes sense without having to have seen the film. I much prefer this way of doing things, as it helps keep the game’s identity throughout the whole thing.

Back at MI6 headquarters, not only does a bomb go off, but it gets invaded by goons, you have to fight them off, as well as putting out fires, protecting staff and enabling the security systems. It’s a really fun level, and is a great example of how the game expands upon scenes of the film.

After the boat chase (which you don’t get to play), you chase the assassin through docks along the Themes, a straightforward level that introduces the grapple function of the watch, which can be used in certain spaces to climb upwards, adding some verticality to some levels.

Taking advantage of the London setting, the assassin then proceeds into the Underground, having her goons take hostages and setting up a Bomb to try to slow Bond down. The trains are a bit crazy as you have to dodge them, but it’s very enjoyable, and you have to reach the assassin’s hot air balloon before she escapes.

The levels in The World Is Not Enough to a good job of feeling alive and like real locations. I would have liked a few that are less linear, but they’re still enjoyable.

Next up is a skiing mission, which is done in quite a simple way, feeling a bit like a light gun shooter. You can move left/right a bit and can speed up and slow down. There are a few targets that you need to hit, which can be a bit difficult and require restating the mission, which can be a bit annoying.

Next up is the main stealth mission – in most other missions, stealth is optional, but works quite well. Your watch has a “stun” function which, really, is utterly useless – it just makes enemies wiggle and it stops right after you stop firing it at them. Luckily, your watch has a dart which does knock enemies out – or you can punch them to sleep.

Here, you sneak around the grounds of Elektra’s house (and a little bit inside), tapping phones and taking photos of evidence. There are are few villains you need to avoid completely. I remember as a kid taking ages on this level, but once you have the guard patterns down, it isn’t too difficult.

The following two levels are probably the weakest, but still not bad. One has you chasing after a henchman to replace him, you can be stealthy or as loud as you want (just be prepared for a lot of enemies). Then you try to stop Renard from stealing a bomb, meeting up with Christmas Jones and escaping from an explosion.

The “cities of walkways” mission is split into two levels. The first is a fairly typical level as you fight some enemies to reach a computer containing evidence, while the second has you dodging helicopters with buzzsaws and is a great level, as you jump around on platforms that are being sliced then grab a fancy rocket launcher and guide missiles into an attacking chopper.

A few more decent levels follow as you chase a traitor though Istanbul, then you get captured and have to rescue M and kill Elektra, then it’s on to infiltrating Renard’s submarine. You start off on the docks and have to kill the guards efficiently enough to avoid them setting off the alarm. Then you climb into the submarine – with no loading screen, which I thought was impressive when the game came out in order to rescue Dr. Jones and disable the submarine controls.

The final level has a lot of swimming as you navigate the damaged submarine. The controls take some time to get used to, but it’s not so bad once you do – although as you had limited time in this mission, I think the game could have done with some swimming in an earlier mission.

You need to navigate through the submarine, kill Renard (which is similar to the film, they don’t force a boss encounter) and then escape, finishing the game.

The N64 version also has a multiplayer mode which is a lot of fun, complete with bots (although, strangely, you can’t play against bots on your own without cheats). Beating the main game on higher difficulties will unlock more characters to play as.

While it doesn’t reach the heights of GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough is an extremely solid game and is a ton of fun.

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James Bond 007: Special Mission

Original Release: 1999

Developer: Cabajou

Publisher: Cabajou

Platform: Board Game

This one of the most difficult ones to track down, I found lots of low quality imagery, and most of that was from the French version – I eventually managed to convince someone on Board Game Geek to send me images of the English rulebook and text-heavy sections.

From the vast amount of text and large looking rulebook, I initially thought that this was going to be a very complex game, but now I’ve seen the English version, it’s quite simple. It’s a time management and risk taking game where you have to travel the world using either slow public transport, or quick Q transport that requires spending tokens.

Each player starts off a mission based on the newest 10 films at the time – from The Spy Who Loved Me to The World Is Not Enough. They will have to collect Q tokens (representing weapons, equipment and transport), move around and take part in combat. The easiest way to move between each location is handily listed on your mission sheet, although if you want to take a detour to London to get more equipment, you’ll have to use a bunch of charts and wheels to figure out the best way to move around.

Events are very simple: you roll the 00 dice while the player to the left rolls the enemy dice, both are numbered 1-3, highest wins. The agent can spend tokens to beat the enemy – either weapons for combat events or equipment for intelligence events. Players have reliable “counter-intelligence” cards that list what their actions are – this is entirely flavour text as all you really need to do is roll a dice when told – really, each player could do it on their own. Still, it’s a nice touch to provide some kind of interactivity as this is essentially people playing their own games.

To get equipment, you need to go to the MI6 headquarters in London. You choose a type and roll the relevant dice, drawing tokens to the value of your dice roll. You can stay in London and roll again on the next turn – it’s up to you to decide how much you want in reserve. However, if you don’t have enough and get beaten in combat by an enemy, you fail that mission and have to start a new one, gaining no points.

Once you finish a mission, you score the points listed on the mission sheet, along with bonuses for having equipment left over. Then you pick the next mission. The goal is to be the first to collect 4000 points, which will take at least 2 missions to do. The winner gets the coveted 007 title.

Special Mission is an interesting board game. It has a lot of writing but is ultimately a very simple game. Globetrotting to complete the missions is a good idea, although even with that, a lot of the planning is worked out for you.

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Tomorrow Never Dies

Original Release: 1999

Developer: Black Ops

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platform: PlayStation

After GoldenEye and the Game Boy games, the Bond license moved from Nintendo to Electronic Arts, with their first game based on the film Tomorrow Never Dies and developed by Black Ops Entertainment.

While with GoldenEye, I recreated something close to the original experience, I want to give the other games the best chance possible, so I played games in emulators with improved resolution, widescreen and adjusting the controls to be more comfortable.

Tomorrow Never Dies is a third person shooter with a focus on auto aim (although the auto aim is deliberately inaccurate). You can manually aim, but it’s very slow. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t take advantage of the DualShock controller, instead oping to focus entirely on the original controller. While it’s understandable they didn’t want to prevent anyone from playing, it’s a shame that they didn’t support additional options. The original control scheme uses X to shoot and the shoulder buttons to strafe, but I managed to make a more comfortable control scheme more like a standard third person shooter, just without the ability to look up and down.

The first level has you fight through a snow base and target a communications tower by targeting it with a special camera (the best gadget use in the game), then escape by skiing down the mountain. The skiing is awkward but not terrible, although both Bond’s and the enemies attacks of flailing their arms looks absolutely pitiful.

The health bar was an issue for me, I’m colourblind and could not make out any visual differences as I took damage. The life system is also a bit strange: you have limited lives and when you die, you just flash and carry on from exactly where you were. Each mission has one extra life hidden in it.

After this first mission, you have a mission where you take pictures of some machinery and steal a jet (which I got in an it span around oddly until the mission ended). The missions in this game are fairly short and there are only 10 in the game. After the end of this mission, it cuts to a clip of the film, followed by the full opening credits, featuring the song from the film. I always found that the movie clips makes the game feel more disjointed, especially as everyone’s voices sounds different due to different voice actors.

The next two missions are also fairly simple: obtaining information form Carver’s Media building and newspaper press. Gadgets are pretty much keycards, and you just shoot your way through the levels, even though the mission briefing implies stealth, other than manually aiming and shooting before the enemy is fully rendered, there is none.

The next level is about rescuing and protecting Carver’s wife, here you are introduced to the game’s boss fights (they all work like this). You have to dodge their main attacks while either using an immense amount of ammo, or risk manually aiming for a headshot to take off a decent amount. It’s not an enjoyable way to do boss fights at all, and they’re all the same except for different projectiles.

Next up is the game’s best mission: a car chase where you have to blow up an enemy convoy. It’s very basic, and like many other missions, is incredibly short, but it manages to not be frustrating and the handling is passable enough to have a bit of fun.

This is followed immediately by another skiing mission that ends in a boss fight, before you infiltrate Carver’s headquarters, get captured and escape with Wai Lin – who has not been seen or mentioned at all in this game until she randomly appears when Bond gets captured. Without knowing the plot of the film quite well, you would be lost playing the game.

While she randomly turned up at the end of the previous mission without being seen or mentioned previously, you now get to play as Wei Lin for a mission. M explains that she can’t send Bond as the guards have been ordered to shoot him on sight, so while playing as Wei, you turn around a corner and immediately get shot at by guards, so having Bond sent would have made no difference.

She gets to fight a boss to get a rocket launcher and then use that to fight a helicopter, before having to decode information (done via a simple Mastermind-style minigame). This is the most action-spy level of the game, and Bond isn’t even part of it.

Now you’re onto the final level, which has a confusing layout and lots of corridors that look exactly the same. You have to stop Carver from launching a nuke, and he is as strong as all the other bosses in the game. After you defeat him, you have to quickly cancel the nuclear launch then escape the boat.

If you’re not playing on the hardest difficulty you’ll then get a message: finish on 00 Agent mode to get unlock the final cutscene. This is the only unlockable of the game, and if you trudge through the hardest difficulty, you’ll unlock this final cutscene: a two second long clip from the film of the boat exploding, followed by random clips of previous missions. It’s such a hilariously bad reward.

There’s no fun unlockables, no difference other than enemy health and damage between difficulties and no multiplayer. It’s a very short, bare bones games and isn’t even a fun one.

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Tomorrow Never Dies: The Mission Continues

Original Release: Cancelled in 1996

Developer: Black Ops

Publisher: MGM Interactive

Platform: PlayStation

Not Played: No leaked prototypes

After the success of GoldenEye, MGM decided to buy the rights for James Bond games back from Nintendo so they can create their own game for Tomorrow Never Dies. A short trailer was released on the VHS for the film, where it was explained that the game would carry on from where the film ended.

The brief clips we see are a car section, scuba section, a skiing section and a shooting segment in first person. When Electronic Arts purchased the licence, the game was moved under them, where it was reconfigured into a game following the film, instead of set after it.

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GoldenEye 007 Grip Game

Original Release: 1998

Developer: Tiger

Publisher: Tiger

Platform: Electronic Handheld

Not played: Very rare

The Grip Game was a different format to the standard Tiger Electronic Handheld. This mimics a vertical scrolling shooter where Bond uses a pistol, machine gun and shotgun to gun through waves of enemies.

The final boss of the game is the GoldeneEye satellite, which shoots back at you.

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James Bond 007 (Game Boy)

Original Release: 1998

Developer: Saffire

Publisher: Nintendo

Platform: Game Boy

The other James Bond game published by Nintendo. Released in 1998 (the same year the Game Boy Color came out), this quietly drifted by and is mostly forgotten now. I must admit that I didn’t expect that much from this game – with the generic title and releasing quite late in the original Game Boy’s life, I had my own biased expectations: this was probably just a basic side scrolling shooter.

Unfortunately, while some Game Boy games were suited to palettes and would automatically load them to have colour on a Super Game Boy or Game Boy Color, James Bond on Game Boy remains entirely black and white – possibly none of the combinations of colours worked for the game, so you have to make do with an entirely monochrome experience.

However, my disappointment wavered when I realised that this wasn’t just a lazy side scrolling shooter/platformer: It’s a Bond adventure that takes some cues from Zelda (particularly Link’s Awakening). You collect items and weapons, using them to progress he game and fight. From the select screen, you can assign these items (as well as Bond’s punch and block abilities) to the A and B buttons.

The game starts out in a Chinese village, the way is blocked by a broken bridge and you have to find a the repairman’s hammer to fix it – this serves as a simple but effective introduction to finding and using items. From here, you investigate the temples village looking for clues of an international smuggling ring, where you have to fight Zhong Mae, the dojo sensei and the Bond Girl of this adventure, then fight your way though villages before escaping on a boat.

Returning to MI6 headquarters, you get your next mission from M and gadgets from Q, where you can mess around with a few thing (much to Q’s dismay). The dialogue in this game is simple but charming, and captures the spirit of the characters surprisingly well, and the structure of the plot fits the style of Bond films, with lots of neat little touches that just adds to the charm of the game.

You get sent to Kurdistan to investigate the disappearance of 008, who was investigating the warlord currently in control of the region. One absolutely tiny detail fascinated me: a flies. They’re only three pixels flapping about, but such a tiny detail just helps make the game more alive. You’ll be using a lot of trading and solving a few puzzles here before finding and defeating the warlord and getting information that Oddjob is operating out of a market in Marrakech.

This was my favourite level. It’s quite vast with three parts to it: luring a middleman to a casino, finding a diamond and searching catacombs for a “ratman”. This level is where the “maze-like” structure starts to crop up, but the levels aren’t so expansive, so you can learn how to navigate them. In the casino, you need to make money playing Blackjack, Baccarat and Red Dog in order to reach the high earners table and attack the attention of the man who never wins.

In the market, you take part in a large trading cats, where you end up with all sorts of things in your inventory, such as a cat. When you first explore the area, you’ll get hints so when do you find items, you’ll have an idea of where you’ll need them. The catacombs are more combat-based, where you’ll need to find a secret entrance to what is very clearly a brothel (but portrayed in a kid-friendly way), the “ratman” and also a back door to the casino.

Once you’ve done all this, you’ll gain access to Oddjob’s room, where Bond is unequipped to deal with him. Before you die, Oddjob decides that it’s more fun to have Bond be trapped in the desert, near an oasis but too far to get anywhere without being able to carry water. Luckily for Bond, a man on a camel happens to pass buy with a spare canteen, and then MI6 contacts him to let him know that there’s a nearby airfield. If you found the satellite map on the previous level, it’s easy to follow the coordinates. If not, you’ll have to wander around until you find it.

The next place is investigating another temple in Tibet, where you have to find objects to help you scale a mountain to the temple at the top. Here the game gets a bit more combat heavy, with less attention on the puzzle side, which is a bit disappointing, but still fun. Once you make it to the temple, you have to fights far too many rooms of sumo wrestlers, only for it to be a trap as Bond gets taken to Oddjob’s secret base.

This is where Zhong Mae makes a reappearance, breaking Bond out because she’s realised that letting these smuggle to help her village is actually something much, much bigger than she expected. She goes off to disable the base’s security as you need to reequip, find a way to counter Oddjob’s attack and finally defeat him, getting him to tell you who is behind everything. Oddjob doesn’t know, but lets you know of a middleman that does, back in Kurdistan.

In the power vacuum caused by getting rid of the previous warlord, war has broken out. Scattered around are dead bodies being picked apart by birds, a pretty grim sight for a Nintendo-published Game Boy game. After fighting both warring leaders (one fighting to the death and the other being an abject coward), Bond finds who it is and where their secret base is located.

The final section of the game is much more combat orientated, with the only puzzles being playing with switches until you get the right combination (made clear by a Bond theme jingle). I’m not sure if this is the intended way, or if I missed a clue somewhere. After defeating the villain, you have to make it past his defences to stop his missiles from launching, as wall as saving Zhong Mae (who got fed up of waiting for Bond and found out the base’s location on her own).

The game ends in regular Bond fashion, and there’s also a secret ending: if you mess about in Q’s lab, you can find a hidden item, this item unlocks the final scene. The credits also give you some codes that allow you to play the card games by entering the codes as names when creating a save file.

James Bond on Game Boy is fairly short, but is far more than it ever needed to be. It’s very enjoyable and captures the spirit of a Bond adventure as a whole more than any other Bond game. I’d love to see a modern interpretation of this style of game for James Bond – there’s more to the character than just shooting everyone.

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007: The Game of James Bond

Original Release: 1997

Developer: Editrice Giochi

Publisher: Editrice Giochi

Platform: Board Game

Original Name: 007: Il Gioco di James Bond

This is an Italian James Bond game from Editrice Giochi. The cards have no words of the game and I was able to find a detailed description of the game to write the rules form.

In this game, you have a limited “time” to defeat villains. Each turn, you roll each dice which have the numbers “1, 2, 3, 0, 0, 7” on them. For every 0 rolled, the time ticks down. If you manage to roll 007, you get a bonus (although out of the three options, one is far better than the other two).

Then, based on the white numbers “1, 2, 3” on the dice you roll, you can move that number of spaces. You can collect tokens (training, charm and intuition) or go on a quest to tackle a mission card.

A mission card has a list of icons on it. You will need to discard matching icons to collect the card, but if you don’t, you pay what you can and the next player can finish it for themselves. Each mission card has a strength that then can be used against the main villain in the middle. Once your mission cards total the number on the villain, you can claim it for youself.

The first player to collect three villain cards wins. However, if the time track reaches zero, the villain escapes – if three manage to escape, everyone loses the game.

There’s some interesting mechanics here, and you have a lot of choices to make regarding when to go for mission cards – you don’t want to be too quick and end up helping another player, but you don’t want to be too slow and let the villain escape.

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GoldenEye 007 (N64)

Original Release: 1997

Developer: Rare

Publisher: Nintendo

Platform: Nintendo 64

The classic, popular game. I will be looking at a few different versions of GoldenEye, including playing it in an emulator specifically made for GoldenEye, so to be able to compare I opted for a close-to authentic experience, playing in the original resolution with the original controls, not taking advantage of some of the special options that I didn’t experience originally with the game.

GoldenEye took the world by storm, being one of the most famous Nintendo 64 games, particularly for its multiplayer, which was added at the last minute. Four people can kill each other in custom built arenas (some unique, others adapted from main levels) with different weapon selections and character choices. A lot of my time was spent with the singleplayer campaign.

I had very vivid memories of the Dam level. I got the N64 and the game for Christmas when I was 10 years old. I read all of the briefings and instructions and set about playing the game. I instantly loved it, even though I died a lot. I did encounter a frustration which most other players didn’t, which meant I spent all day on the one level.

The briefing said to use bungee rope to jump off the dam. This wasn’t in the inventory like other gadgets (like the covert modem), so I figured you had to find it. I scoured the level many times. Eventually, I gave up and just ran off the dam to kill Bond, which triggered a successful mission.

Next up is Facility, which felt colossal to me. There was so much to explore, including lots of side rooms, not to mention the joy of trying to headshot the guard in the toilet only to shoot his hat off, with him not reacting. Getting from the first area to the second area felt like a puzzle, even though it was just using a console to open a door.

Because I was playing on easy, I kept bumping into Dr Doak on some attempts, but not others – he seemed to be in different places. I had no idea what his purpose was until much later. GoldenEye is all about solving objectives and then reaching the end of the level. I love the idea of extra difficulty being done via extra objectives, but I personally dislike that this is also tied to stronger and deadlier enemies.

After a few more great levels, giving us some unique locations, we get to the level I replayed the most as a kid: Frigate. The idea of a having access to a full ship was great, and it felt like there were lots of ways to approach this one. The Phantom gun was also ultra cool. Here you have to reuse hostages, but luckily you have time to react, even with the N64 controls.

Playing GoldenEye when it came out felt great. Playing it using one of the default control schemes now feels extremely awkward. Dual analogue controls feel great for FPS games, but this used a stick and C-buttons. Even then, a setup close to now isn’t possible. turning left and right is linked to the the same section as moving forwards and backwards. GoldenEye did have something very close to modern day shooters – however, you needed to play using two controllers.

Each level manages to create a unique feel, either through level design or objectives – even when returning to Surface and Bunker. Another highlight was Archives, which looked great. Loads of people complain about protecting Natalya, but the main trouble was finding her when she ran away or accidentally shooting her yourself. Incidentally, Natalya is absolutely deadly in the Jungle episode, taking out enemies relentlessly with her super powerful magnum.

The train level is another favourite level. Even though it’s a straight line, there’s just a charm about it. Not even my complete inability to aim properly with the laser watch at the end dampens my fun of the level.

On that note, the weapons are very satisfying to use (apart from the KLOBB). They have great sounds and all have a unique feel to it. I loved the RCP-120, especially when you could duel wield them. You could only duel wield if you killed an enemy that was doing so, but it felt so satisfying using two guns at once.

After a great climax in the sky, I was very happy with GoldenEye. However, there were two bonus levels. Over the next few years, I finally completed Secret Agent and got access to the Moonraker level (my favourite non-GoldenEye Bond film when I was younger, mainly because of space). I never managed 00 Agent as a child, though, so the final level (plus the customisable difficulty mode), was stuff I only read about in N64 Magazine. Of course, there was still the multiplayer to play, and some cheats to try and unlock.

Finish levels on certain difficulties in certain times and you’ll unlock cheats. The game was clever in that most players would likely unlock some simple ones – such as DK mode – by playing normally, while things like invincibility and all guns were very difficult. Eventually, cheats to unlock the cheats were found and I was able to mess around with them.

I think the level and objective based structure of GoldenEye still holds up, and I wish more modern games would utilise it. Aspects of Goldeneye have definitely aged badly, such as the controls, but the game oozes charm that helps to counter it. With a few small tweaks, even those aspects can be fixed for a very enjoyable game.

One last thing I do need to mention: Grant Kirkhope’s soundtrack for this game is phenomenal, with a ton of great tracks. While the graphics may have aged, GoldenEye still sounds amazing.

Where to buy GoldenEye 007

GoldenEye is currently the only James Bond video game currently available officially. An emulated version original N64 version is available for rent on Nintendo Switch via the Nintendo Switch Online Plus subscription, while an Xbox Series port is about as part of an Xbox Game Pass subscription, or you can buy a digital version of Rare Replay, which includes a copy of the Xbox Series version of GoldenEye as an additional download.

Other versions

These will all have their own articles

GoldenEye 007 (XBLA)

GoldenEye 007 (GEPD 1964 Emulator)

GoldenEye 007 (Xbox Series)

Similar games

There are multiple GoldenEye related games that are not based on the N64 game. These are

GoldenEye 007 (SNES concept)

GoldenEye 007 (Tiger Handheld)

GoldenEye 007 (Virtual Boy)

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (GameCube)

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (DS)

GoldenEye 007 (Wii)

GoldenEye 007 (DS)

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GoldenEye 007 (Virtual Boy)

Original Release: Cancelled in 1996

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Platform: Virtual Boy

Not Played: No leaked prototypes

The Virtual Boy is a strange system released by Nintendo – it was a portable system with goggles that you have to look into (awkwardly using a table or lying on the floor, there’s no strap), allowing for spectroscopic 3D effects. However, the system could only display red and black graphics.

The Virtual Boy GoldenEye game was going to be a vehicle game, a brochure (which is the source of the only screenshot) describes it as “If you thought rush-hour traffic was a nightmare, wait ’til you get behind the wheel of 007’s car. Avoid obstacles and blow the other cars away. Buckle up for safety because, in this game, you never know what’s gonna happen.”

When the Virtual Boy was a complete failure, Nintendo cancelled all game in development, and focused on Rare for making GoldenEye.

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Before I Kill You, Mr Bond…

Original Release: 1996

Developer: James Ernest

Publisher: Cheapass Games

Platform: Board Game

This is an unlicensed James Bond-inspired card game from Cheapass Games. In this, each player is taking on the role of a supervillain, trying to capture spies in their evil lairs.

Each turn you draw a card and can improve your lair, and then play a spy card to attack an opponent’s (or your own lair). You can play a spy from your hand, or one from an opponent’s hand (the backs of the spy are different) and risk not knowing the value of the spy.

If the spy is a higher value than the lair, the lair is discarded. You don’t score any points for this, you just mess up your opponent. If the spy is lower value than the lair, then the owner of the lair has two options: kill or taunt.

If you kill a spy, you score points equal to the value of the spy. You can taunt by playing a “Doubler” card, saying “Before I Kill You, [Name]” and reading out the card. The card has a letter in the corner and if another player plays the second card with this letter, the Spy escapes and you lose your lair (and all the points), but if you’re successful, you double the points of the spy. You can play additional Doubler card, however, you run the risk of losing all the points with each additional one.

It’s a fun, silly game, but also quite flawed. The only incentive to attack opponents is to potentially stop them from getting points, which makes it too risky to play unknown cards from other players.

Danjaq got wind of this game and ordered Cheapass Games to remove any reference to “Bond” and was relaunched as James Ernest’s Totally Renamed Spy Game before being revised as “Before I Kill You, Mister Spy…”. The newest version fixes some of the issues, such as being able to play lair cards face down or stealing lair cards from your opponents, giving you an incentive to attack.

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The Ultimate James Bond: An Interactive Dossier

Original Release: 1996

Developer: Micro Interactive

Publisher: EIDOS

Platform: PC

A reference CD with information on all the James Bond films from Dr. No to GoldenEye. It was produced with EIDOS, who previously published a bunch of James Bond games for home computers under their original name “Domark”.

The main focus on this in on the “missions”, which has a lot of information about “all 17” films: clips, cast information, behind the scenes photos, release information, reviews and more. One of my favourite parts was the “locations”, which plays out the locations of each film on a stylish map.

The other segments were an encyclopaedia featuring varying amounts of information, it was split into categories: Women, Allies, Villains, Q-branch and Vehicles.

The other major part was a trivia quiz. You had a set amount of “lives” and need to earn points to reach the next “level” featuring difficult questions. There’s a lot of question variety and it gives you a bit of extra information when it reveals the answer – a nice trivia game.

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The Reel to Reel Picture Show James Bond 007 Movie Trivia Game 

Original Release: 1995

Developer: Daisy Reel Productions

Publisher: Daisy Reel Productions

Platform: Board Game

This is a very basic trivia game. Take turns picking a category, answer a question and mark off a point if you get it correct. First one to finish their sheet wins.

Some cards have a follow-up question. You can gamble the point from the first question to score a second in the same turn.

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James Bond 007 (CCG)

Original Release: 1995

Developer: Bryan Winter

Publisher: Heartbreaker

Platform: Board Game

In 1995, Hartbreaker launched a collectible card game based on James Bond, with a focus on GoldenEye. It received a starter pack and some boosters, but other than the initial cards, no further cards were added to the game – although one dedicated fan has made some of his own expansions.

There are two kinds of cards in this CCG: Action cards are cards that enable you to build you agency and complete missions, while Plot cards are placed into your plot area for the other players to complete. Unlike a lot of collectible card games, this game supports more than two players.

The are quite a few rules for decks: you must be a multiple of 10, have at least 60. 2 out of every 10 cards must be Bond cards, 3 must be plot cards and there must be a certain value of points your plot cards are worth. You then shuffle your deck and are ready to play.

Plot cards are played facing the other player. These represent missions, villains, henchmen, locations and obstacles. These can be placed separately, although obstacles can be attached to other ones to make them more difficulty. You can also make even more difficult missions by linking plot cards based on the same film together.

The action cards help you build your agency. The Bond cards are your main ones, as these are required to go on missions. Personalities are friendly people that can aid Bond, and Q gadgets can boost his stats. Intrigue cards can either help you or hinder your opponents.

It’s an interesting CCG, you want to try and get a cohesion in your plot cards, but a variety in your action cards to tackle different scenarios. Henchmen can also attack opposing agencies and potentially force them to discard cards, so there is direct conflict, but most of it is trying to complete missions placed by the other players.

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GoldenEye 007 (Tiger LCD)

Original Release: 1995

Developer: Tiger

Publisher: Tiger

Platform: Electronic Handheld

A basic LCD game based on GoldenEye. You shoot and kick your way through enemies, the most annoying of which is a woman (Xenia possibly) jumping on Bond’s back, requiring you to kick and wiggle back and forth to hopefully knock her away. You also have the grenade pen to use once, killing all enemies on screen.

You’ll probably just find yourself mashing buttons to progress, it’s never clear what you’re doing in these games. There’s also a tank stage.

These games work better when they’re very simple, this game is just a mess.

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GoldenEye 007 (SNES)

Original Release: Pitched in 1994

Developer: Rare

Publisher: Nintendo

Platform: SNES

When Nintendo got the license to make a video game based on GoldenEye, their first thought was a 2D platformer. Due to Nintendo being impressed with Donkey Kong Country, they asked Rare to start development on a 2D platformer GoldenEye, using the same pre-rendered methods Rare specialised in Donkey Kong Country – and Rare would have access to the sets for photographs.

A developer at Rare, Martin Hollis, pushed Nintendo into letting them make a 3D lightgun game instead for the “Ultra 64”, which evolved into the first person shooter we know and love for the Nintendo 64.