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Jessica Biel as Pussy Galore? Scrimmage mode? MI6
looks back at GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and ponders what
could have been...
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The Game That Never Was
11th March 2005
When GoldenEye: Rogue Agent hit shelves back in November 2004,
a lot of gamers were left puzzled by a number of omissions from
the game that had previously been mentioned. A number of ideas
during development were also changed or dropped. MI6 takes a look
back at "GoldenEye: Rogue Agent", and ponders what could have
been...
Recasting
A controversial idea during development of GRA was to recast
the classic characters with modern day actors.
Since Gert Fr�be who played the infamous Goldfinger in
the 1964 film of the same name had died in 1988, at least
one of the game's characters would have to be re-voiced.
With other main cast members advanced in age (Joseph Wiseman
who played Dr. No is 86), the idea to use modern day Hollywood
talent to portray the classic characters was born.
Without Bond, could there be a "Bond Girl" in GRA? Yes,
thought EA, and she would come in the shape of Pussy Galore
- before 007 had turned the pilot away from Goldfinger's
organization.
As Honor Blackman was well into her 70's, the idea was
to recast the character with a young actress to supply likeness
and voice. The top choice for the role was 22-year old "Blade:
Trinity" star Jessica Biel , but how far this idea progressed
before it was eventually scrapped is unknown.
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Above: Jessica Biel was proposed as
a possible actress to play Pussy Galore |
In the end, EA elected to re-voice the classic characters (with
the exception of Christopher Lee who provided his voice for Scaramanga),
and maintain the original actors likeness for the digital character
models.
Above: Honor Blackman
(left) and the digital Pussy Galore (right)
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Missing Maps
Throughout the course of GRA development, various mutliplayer
locations were mentioned in interviews and pieces in the gaming
press, but only a subset of those touted made it into the final
game. Two of the high profile casualties were St. Cyril's Monastery
(although one of the lesser known Bond locales, this mountain-top
building from "For Your Eyes Only" made for a superb multiplayer
map) and Piz Gloria (a restaurant in real-life, Blofeld's lair
from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" not only offers great ski
slopes and a bob sleigh run - but was a top capture the flag location).
Missing Models
Similarly, a few high-profile characters are missing from the
multiplayer modes. Skins missing in the final game include some
of the key villains: Scaramanga, Pussy Galore and Number One.
Jaws was also linked to the game early on, but dropped out of
development plans.
Above: End credits songstress Natasha
Bedingfield |
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Theme Song
At the EA Community day in July 2004, another regular component
of the James Bond franchise was tipped to also feature in
GRA.
A main titles sequence with a theme song performed by a
well known artist was said to be on the horizon, but again
plans would change. In the end, the main titles of GRA provided
the background to the story of the game with a remix by
game composer Paul Oakenfold, and the traditional theme
song was shifted.
"If You're Gonna Jump" by Natasha Bedingfield can be found
on the end credits sequence instead. An odd choice of song
some have argued anyway, as like the original N64 "GoldenEye",
the game does not allow the player to jump.
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AWOL AI
Alarm bells began to ring with fans when GRA producers said there
would not be any bots for a single player to battle against in
the multiplayer modes. But an alternative was unveiled... Instead
of traditional bots, a new type of human vs machine death match
would be created, utilizing GRA's "E.V.I.L. AI" in a special "scrimmage"
mode.
Senior Producer Chris Plummer explained the idea to MI6 back
in October, "We're supporting the E.V.I.L AI in offline play rather
than designing a new bot system... What we've done is set up a
skirmish mode where you play against the E.V.I.L AI, it's a little
different to bots because our E.V.I.L AI does things that bots
don't do - like using cover. When you think about bots they usually
run around as fast as they can, which is sort of what the player
does honestly, but we've found it more fun playing against the
AI rather than just bots. So that's the way we're approaching
that one. You won't be playing with players and AI in sort of
a death match though for example. So it's specifically for skirmish
mode".
Unfortunately the scrimmage (or "skirmish") mode never made it
to the final release. In the shipped version of GRA, multiplayer
modes were renamed "split screen" and single players could not
enjoy the non-campaign features of the game without additional
players. As the game was falling behind with only months before
the scheduled release date, "scrimmage" mode is perhaps the biggest
casualty of the rush to get the game out on time.
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