They didn't pull it off
Goldeneye: Rogue Agent was a game I was very excited about getting. To be honest, I was still quite excited after playing the first level, as your character gets kicked out of James Bond's MI6 and gets recruited by SPECTRE. Lots of old Bond enemies such as Dr. No, my favorite, and Goldfinger. As with most North American males, I'm a huge 007 fan. I thought to myself, "This is going to be great."
However, the novelty wore off as I played through the single player campaign. I kept saying to myself, "this is going to get better" but it didn't.
GRAPHICS: 7 out of 10. I really don't understand the problem a lot of people have with the graphics in Rogue Agent. I found them to be smooth, colorful and detailed. While not exactly Halo 2 or Doom 3, the graphics in Rogue Agent are at least as good as many other FPS released last year. Nothing spectacular, but remember this is EA Games we're talking about.
PLAYABILITY: 5 out of 10. The controls in this game are very similar to previous Bond games made by EA. However, I found the aiming to be a little frustrating, even with the auto aim on. Couple this with the unusual way in which your enemies move. The enemies in Rogue Agent, in my opinion, don't move like real people or even in a realistic fashion. They seemed to jump about like characters in a Mario Bros. game. Even the enemies in N64 Goldeneye or Perfect Dark were better done than this.
Also, I found the game to be unimaginative and boring. The levels are fairly repetitive. Compare this to EA's previous Bond game, Nightfire, for instance, where the levels were interesting and varied between running and shooting, driving vehicles, stealth and especially sniping to name a few features.
STORY: 9 out of 10. What's wrong with playing the bad guy? This idea of playing as an agent of SPECTRE was GREAT, but they didn't pull it off. Instead of returning to the 007 roots of exploring, spying, espionage, stealth and assassinating Rogue Agent is simply a blast fest. This could have been great.
REPLAY: 7 out of 10. Rogue Agent has a pretty good multi-player mode, very similar to Nightfire. Anybody who's played multi-player modes such as Nightfire, Timesplitters etc. will know what they're getting here. It's decent quality but nothing special.
OVERALL: 6 out of 10. A buddy of mine bought this for me as a Xmas gift, and I feel bad for him in a way. I suspect he paid upwards of $60 for this, and Rogue Agent is definitely not worth that. By rating this game 6 out of 10, I'm saying Rogue Agent is okay, but without a doubt didn't live up to the hype surrounding this game. It has a good multi-player. Don't pay more than $15 or $20 for this game, which is about what it is worth.