GoldenEye: Rogue Agent Designer Diary #3
Multiplayer lead designer Adam Isgreen discusses GoldenEye: Rogue Agent's multiplayer features.
Multiplayer is where it's at!
By Adam Isgreen
Multiplayer Lead Designer
Multiplayer is a HUGE part of Rogue Agent, as it was with the original N64 classic, and we've put a lot of focus on it from the beginning of production. With independent dual-weapon triggers, death traps, and GoldenEye powers at your disposal, our style of multiplayer is all about competitive energy and show-off bragging rights. Rogue Agent features over 20 multiplayer maps and will take you through famous James Bond film locations in addition to original environments designed in collaboration with Sir Ken Adam. We're taking you inside gaming's most authentic rendition of the Bond universe, featuring maps from several classic films as well as original locations.
Although our intense single-player campaign is tons of fun and full of action, at the end of the day…multiplayer is where it's at! The game's pick-up-and-play accessibility, addictiveness, and great replay value makes this shooter the instant "couch classic" we were striving for.
Environments
Most of our arenas are based off of (or inspired by) the most memorable showdowns from classic Bond films, including locations from Dr. No, Goldfinger, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, A View to a Kill, The Spy Who Loved Me, GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies, just to name a few. The arenas range in size from small to large, accommodating anywhere from two to eight players. We paid special attention to one-on-one maps, because we wanted to capture the intensity of those classic showdowns between Bond and the supervillain from that film. It felt like an area abandoned by most FPS games these days, even though it is the most likely scenario for playing a multiplayer console game. But we also have a huge variety of four- and eight-player maps.
These environments are dangerous. Almost every location is riddled with death traps, ranging from simple trapdoors and automated guns to the more exotic shark-filled tanks, exploding fire pits, and even an animatronic Al Capone.
Traps are tactical, so if you don't catch someone in one (and yes, you get kill credit if you do), you can force players to play differently by triggering them at opportune moments. Open a trapdoor behind an opponent to limit his movement, fill a room with poison gas to prevent others from getting to that powerful weapon, or drop a bridge so you can cross it once it closes, knowing it takes a few seconds to reset the trap. Knowing how the death traps work in each level will certainly give you an edge over your competition.
Death traps are triggered by switches placed throughout the levels. If you don't happen to be close to a switch when your enemies are just begging for a squishing, you can use your GoldenEye's Electromagnetic Hack ability to trigger the death traps, making it even easier to catch players in them.
If you're not in the mood for death traps, you can always disable them in the map-setup options, but then you'll miss out on a great source of victim-taunting material!
Weapons
Rogue Agent has a great selection of weapons for you to use, and since most of our 14 multiplayer weapons can be dual-wielded, you are bound to find a combination that caters to your play style.
I have yet to hear the same combination of weapons touted as the "perfect" combo. Everyone argues about what's best and that's exactly what we wanted. The tactical differences between each weapon give them each a unique personality. There are some pistol-purists here that always go after the high-powered, accurate .357s. We have players that like to charge, who swear by dual-submachine guns or pistol/MG combos. Some prefer the finesse of the Mag-rail and Assault Rifles for their long-range capabilities and unique behaviors. Others like to cause explosive chaos with remote detonators, goblin mines, and harpoon rockets. It's fun to mix and match weapons, and sometimes it's hard to give up a weapon you like, even when it's almost out of ammo!
Weapons have unique fire effects, tracers, and sound, making it easy to tell what you're being attacked with. Knowing what's coming at you allows you to make decisions on how to counterattack. If you see green tracers zipping past, your enemy has a venom gun, so you may want to charge in close, as it's hard for your enemies to hit you at close range with venom. See a trail of superheated rings punching through the wall? Someone's using a Mag-rail to snipe--time to turn your polarity shield on (so you disappear from your enemy's MRI vision) and hunt 'em down! And if there's ever anything stuck to you that's beeping and glowing…you better hope you've got armor!
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- EA Games
- Dreamworks Games
- Modern First-Person...
- Release: Nov 22, 2004 »
- ESRB: Teen
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