Back in 2004 EA released GoldenEye Rogue Agent for the Nintendo Gamecube as well the PS2 and the Original XBox consoles. It was nothing more than a complete cash grab from EA based on the popularity of the GoldenEye First Person Shooter on the Nintendo 64 and aside from Xenia Onatopp from GoldenEye appearing the game ultimately had nothing to do with it what-so-ever. Something good did come from it though and that was it's Nintendo DS port released in 2005 was one of the first true FPS games for the Nintendo DS Console outside of the Metroid Prime Hunters First Hunt Demo that came with the original DS consoles. This version of the game developed by n-Space (who would go on to work on the DS ports of Call of Duty as well as the unenjoyable Heroes of Ruin on 3DS) while not amazing provides a more unique experience of the console version but not without some rough edges that needed polishing up before release.
Firstly there is the story which remains the same from the console version, you are not playing as James Bond but instead a former agent who has been kicked out from Her Majesty's Service for reckless violence and brutality and is given a job offer from Goldfinger and has to go after Dr No who has turned on Goldfinger and also was responsible for the loss of your character's eye. The GoldenEye in the title comes only from the fact that it is your character's codename from which he literally has ---wait for it--- a GoldenEye given to him by Francisco Scaramanga. What seems to be a half decent idea for a what-if storyline then just goes into poorly written fanfiction territory where you have James Bond villains from the 60s and 70s as well as well one from the 90s all just thrown in and while you do side with some of them others just goes against you just to see who is the biggest villain out of them all. You never go against MI6 or fight against Bond which further removes the feeling and goes against the idea of wanting to work for the bad guys. If the game really wanted you to truly feel like you were really one of the bad guys you should be doing evil stuff like blowing up forts or labs and stealing important key personal who oppose both Goldfinger and Dr No, taking hostages and killing those who oppose the criminal organisations and not fighting the latter yourself.
Now GoldenEye Rogue Agent plays out somewhat like a poor man's Halo 2 where it is a First Person Shooter where you have a dual wielding system where you dual wield different guns in your or left hands, throw grenades if you don't have a gun on your left hand and also Health Regeneration if you stay out of fire for a couple of seconds. The difference though that it has a Rogue System where if you do things like take an enemy as a hostages, blowing enemies with grenades or other explosives or using traps like carts, drills and fire that you find in the levels you earn a Rogue Bonus and these are pretty fun enough to use even if you are likely to use only one or two of them through out the game. The other thing is that you have your GoldenEye implant that gives you different abilities, first is MRI Imaging which allows you to see enemies behind cover, EM Hack which disrupts enemies' weapons and machines from a distance, a polarity shield which deflects enemies' bullets as well as discharging a energy blast during melee engagements to stun him so you can take him as a hostage, and lastly the magnetic field that sends enemies flying to their deaths. Each of these abilities use up energy which refills over time, they are decent enough to use and combining this with the dual wielding and the Rogue System at least give the gameplay some variety and depth to the combat.
Every stage has you fighting of enemies in different rooms and then moving onwards to where you need to go indicated by a green arrow that's on your screen. You do have some objectives where you have to activate something to proceed further and this version adds in a Simon Says style puzzles where you press the right buttons in order and these are actually pretty cool. For the most part it is more like the console version of the game being that it is a run and gun shooter but the inclusion of some puzzles kept the gameplay from being too repetitive.
What makes this version of the game so unique are the game's controls. The top screen displays the actual gameplay while the interface alongside your ammo, armour and health meters are on the touch screen. You move with the D-Pad while turning, looking and aiming with the stylus on the touch screen, select either activates something that you can interact with or take a hostage and/or throw him away. You pick up weapons on the left or right hand by standing on top of the weapon and then touching either the left or right icons on the touch screen to pick it up as well as manually reloading if you are standing away from a dropped weapon. The aiming controls are really smooth and easy to get the hang of because it allows you to aim at enemies easily while also having moving around much easier than aiming with Dual Analog Sticks. You do have multiple control schemes, one where you play just using the buttons without the touch screen but it is unreliable, there is a control scheme where you can use both the L and R triggers to fire and the touch screen for aiming, only that it uses the Thumb Stylus which early Nintendo DS consoles might have had back in the day and getting your hands on one today ain't that easy. The recommended control scheme option is the Stylus one where you can fire weapons with L, move with D-Pad, use the Stylus for aiming, turning and looking as well as using the touch screen to throw grenades and also switch weapon hands to either fire left or right hands or fire both weapons with a click of a button. It's a smooth control scheme because of the mouse like aiming on PC FPS games and it is actually easy to get the hang of within minutes of play.
The gameplay of this version also has some improvements from the console version, there is more opportunities to make use of your GoldenEye abilities than you could before like you can make more use of MRI Imaging with the Mag-Rail more thanks to more placements making some sections easier. The Mamba 12g's damage output has been improved and actually does a great deal of damage especially when dual wielding and the AI are not strafe happy lunatics like they were in the console versions. Lastly the position of the crosshair has also been improved by actually having the crosshair in the middle of the screen instead of being in the upper third above centre in the console versions making the shooting even more better. The shooting itself is a lot better with weapons and the weapon spread is also a little better making it easier to aim even with dual wielding weapons
The graphics on the Nintendo DS version are really good for the time, the levels are reasonably large plus the texture work on the environments are great, the character models are rendered nicely and the animations for both the environment and characters aren't that bad for an early DS game despite the limitations. The sound isn't that bad including the explosion sounds, you only voice work from the enemies come from when they taking damage and getting killed or from when they notice you. The music on the other hand isn't anything special and anything you are wanting to replay for listening purposes considering the console version's music weren't all that great either.
As improved the gameplay feels on the Nintendo DS version of the game it does come with some annoyances. First off the enemies while not the most clever intelligence can sometimes shoot you through solid cover dispute being in cover and out of their line of fire which makes the combat broken. This can be an issue when some enemies in like maybe one or two levels where enemy placements can be a little cheap, like having an enemy spawn behind you and shoot you in the back when you weren't expecting it. You don't collect extra ammo for your weapons by walking over them and instead have to constantly swapping back and forth between guns frequently which slows down the pacing. Armour in the game is about as much use as tissue paper because it takes about nearly 5 or so shots from small firearms to waste your whole armour meter completely making armour almost worthless. Lastly the checkpoints in this version of the game are not very frequent making this a much more challenging game making you have to replay a small portion of the level again just to get back at where you where if you died. GoldenEye Rogue Agent on DS isn't really all that difficult, there are about six missions in the Campaign compared to the console versions which had eight so the DS version is much shorter only lasting around two or three hours from start to finish on Normal. The gameplay has some improvements and advantages which make the DS version a more refined experience but however with enemies being able to shoot through cover and some cheap enemy placements leads to some gameplay elements that aren't really all that polished up. The frame rate isn't all that great either, it is smooth and can run at 60 FPS but as soon as enemies come onto the screen the frame rates dips considerably at 30 and below during tense action moments. It is still largely playable and every bit just as fun as it could be for a shooting game even if it has some issues.
Outside of the Campaign there is also a Multiplayer Mode where you can have free for all or team matches with different game mode types with the ability of having 4 player matches with 4 DS' having a copy of the game as well as 8 player matches which only requires one DS card copy of the game to play through the DS' wireless communication which is rather cool, that is if you can find people in your local area with DS' or 3DS consoles that are willing to play this with you. If not then there is also a bot match mode where you can setup matches against the AI control bots with different game modes and weapon load-outs that you can play around with, plus completing the campaign on higher difficulties unlocks extra maps, modes, characters and weapons that you can use in the Multiplayer Mode. Now the AI bot matches are surprisingly entertaining and they can use some powerful weapons that each of the maps gives them as well, this is great additional that is good for killing time if you are done with the Campaign. There is also six virtual training missions that you can partake in which is the only way you unlock the other three GoldenEye abilities to use later in the campaign as supposed to just gaining each new ability by progressing through the campaign. These training missions aren't too bad but however do require a bit of luck and some patience to beat them due to spawn placement and enemies having some overpowered weapons which force you to use your GoldenEye powers to pass them.
GoldenEye Rogue Agent for the DS is nothing on the same level as GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 that's for sure and just because it has GoldenEye in the title doesn't mean that the game has anything to do with it at all. The storyline is just terrible fan-fiction, the gameplay is a little unpolished and the campaign is very short only lasting two hours, but however it is saved by the controls that are smooth with that keyboard and mouse like feeling and it feels so good. It has some improvements over the console version like the crosshair placement that make it the version to play plus this version it has more multiplayer options available and AI bot matches. It's proof that the Nintendo DS is a fantastic handheld choice for First Person Shooters on the go thanks to smooth controls that easily make it a pick up and play game. The only thing is that GoldenEye Rogue Agent was never a good game to begin and it was nothing more than a shameless cash grab on a popularity of the Nintendo 64 FPS game which make this not even worth owning unless you are a hardcore James Bond fan and also needed a true Nintendo DS FPS game to play till the full release of Metroid Prime Hunters. With a bit more time polishing up before release than this would have been an excellent and definitive version of Rogue Agent. But at the very least it ain't the worst James Bond 007 video game released out there as there are far worse off games then this game and also this Nintendo DS version is cheap to pick up second hand and is much better than the console versions.
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Game Score: 6.5/10
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Game Title: GoldenEye Rogue Agent
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: EA/n-Space
Genre: First Person Shooter
Age Rating: PEGI: 12+
Release Date: 1st July 2005 (Europe)
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The Good Points:
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Excellent control scheme that is smooth and easy to get the hang of
Vast gameplay improvements over the console version
Multiplayer that can be done with single-card play
The Bad Points:
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Terribly written fanfiction storyline where you never feel like a bad guy and you never go against MI6 or Bond
Some Gameplay feels unpolished and broken
Has a very short campaign
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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