Bringing Bond Back Pt.2: Let's Make a Bond Game

So, now we've examined the history of Bond and gaming, and so now I will undergo the task of creating the game that I believe would best represent James Bond in the interactive medium. Perhaps what I'm doing is just this side of fanfic, but maybe if I could change a mind or two, I consider this article a success (and really, it's all I could hope for).

Looking back at the franchise as a whole gives us the perspective to see what has worked and what has not. If the several takes on this formula are any indication, it would seem that the best approach would be a first-person shooter. However, the reason behind this could be that EA (and subsequently, Activision), have tried their hand at the shooter genre almost exclusively (although Activision's plans for future iterations remain to be seen) not because the first-person perspective necessarily fits the Bond franchise well, but because both publishers were perhaps trying to capture the allure of the coveted Goldeneye.

Indeed, the entire franchise has almost always tried to match the multiplayer chaos that made Goldeneye so great. However, simply in trying to reach that standard, and claiming that later iterations will be as good as the that game means that, whether the games actually do that or not, the expectations created by that promise won't be met. This is because no title could capture the importance of Goldeneye's release. That is, the importance of being one of the finest early examples of an FPS on a console. Because no other Bond FPS can claim this importance and must instead be weighed against Goldeneye, regardless of the title's own merits, the first-person genre has, for lack of a better term, been done.

Another possible reason that first-person shooters have been the standard model for Bond games could be because of the audience's familiarity with the genre. Fans themselves expect Bond games to be like Goldeneye, because they feel comfortable with that genre. Fans expect the publisher to try to re-create Goldeneye appeal to them, and in turn the publisher does this to cater to that crowd. The Bond licence is a comfort area to most of the people who play them, and it's likely that publishers feel this way too.

Now, assuming that both the players and the publishers want more done to the franchise and aren't just content with the current "cash-cow" model, how can we come up with something that is more faithful the James Bond movies? To identify what we're supposed be faithful to, let's identify some common aspects of Bond films: chases (both on foot and vehicles), gunfights, gadgets, stealth, distinct villains, and Bond Girls. Which of these are easily applicable to games? Obviously, villains and Bond Girls are easily applied to plot lines, which I'll get to later. However, The rest of the aspects I mention are all in the neighborhood of "Gameplay Mechanics", and how applying those concepts offers us a foundation in which to create this theoretical Bond game. And while the foundation of a "great" Bond game would seem to be building a completely new game from scratch, when we expand our scope outside shooters, we have several new templates from which to work from. We don't have to go in a completely revolutionary route to create something great, we just have to make something new for Bond players. Keeping the aforementioned aspects in mind, the genre that can most help us happens to be the platformer. With some adventure and action elements thrown in is a great template for us to work off.

With that in mind, to form a clear picture of the sort of game I'm thinking of, imagine Assassin's Creed. Despite the array of opinions about that game, most people can agree that one of the best things about that game is the way that jumping from building to building felt. It felt accurate and, most importantly, fun. Thinking of just that alone sets up a good foundation with what should be with Bond. So, imagine Altair in a James Bond skin, and instead of Jerusalem, imagine a modern city like Hong Kong or New York. Instead of a horse you have a luxury car, and instead of things like knives and swords you have guns and gadgets. Now you have an idea of what this game would be like. The game would be objective-based, with it plopping you in an area, giving you an objective (such as chasing someone down), and you completing that objective. To give the game the feeling of a fast-paced action movie, the game would feature more linear enviornments, with a small amount of room left for exploration. By creating smaller areas, this means developers to create the wide variety of locales needed to properly captivate an average Bond movie's variety of landscapes.

With the addition of gadgets, the stealth sections of the game can be further expanded. The same example of hiding in certain areas to throw guards and the like off of your trail, with devices like flashes, grappling hooks, etc. And with these devices we can make the substance of the "chasing of Bond" more lifelike by adding gunfire from both sides. This, more than any of the running and gunning that makes up the majority of Bond shooters, brings the aspects of your average Bond movie to life in the modern game world. It would (disregarding any bugs or issues involving the implementation of these ideas, something that is very likely to happen in the development process) perhaps allow us to accurately capture the feel of these movies, and isn't that what any licenced game is supposed to do?

Maybe these are the ravings of someone who just wants to see something new out of a franchise with so much potential, but like I mentioned earlier, maybe someone who needs to see it will see it, and at the very least take a few cues that they may like. Or maybe my whole idea is crap.