Who do you have onboard with the GRA development team and what do they bring to the game?
Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, who wrote "The Rocketeer" and several other movies, and an outgoing and gifted writing team helped us to crack the initial story. They're basically Bond fans so they know the universe inside out.

Beyond that Ken Adam, production designer and Oscar winner, knighted for his work and knowledge of Bond, but also movies like Dr Strangelove, came back to basically revisit some of the environments that he created; like the Moonraker shuttle launch bay, Fort Knox. He also created new areas for this game to attach to the ones that he'd originally built for the James Bond films, then to work with us to create all new environments so Ken is really the visual stylist of this game. So that was really huge for us.

Kym Barrett, costume designer for The Matrix, designed a lot of the costumes for the characters in our products. Rene Morel, who did the characters for "Final Fantasy: The Movie" built all of our replica's of the classic Bond villains, we did that to look like the original films. So that's some big California Hollywood talent onboard. Plus we've got great talent on the team, so we've got the best in the industry and the best in EA that have come together to make this game.

Above: "The Rocketeer" poster, which starred James Bond # 4, Timothy Dalton.

Above: Original "Moonraker" (1979) concept artwork by Sir Ken Adam.

With the amount of stiff competition that there is in the market for FPS games, what's going to make this game stand out from others?
I think the villain angle for this is very unique, I think the goldeneye is very unique spin on first person shooter game play. It's a tool you use, it's not a replacement for a weapon and it's not a replacement for some of the fundamentals for FPS, but its definitely an interesting catalyst for unique game play. Especially how our game works with characters hiding behind cover and E.V.I.L AI that pursues you, you can use the eye to pull guys out of cover, you can use the eye to make their weapons stop working, to shield yourself, to activate death traps and things like that. So it's a pretty powerful device in conjunction with all the weapons.

What about the graphics of the game, how is it going to keep up with games that are being created at the moment, and what improvements are there on previous Bond games?
We've pulled a lot of engine components from Electronic Arts to build the engine for "Rouge Agent". We've built it using some fundamental technology we had here in EA LA. We took the character rendering from "Lord of the Rings" then we took another part of the rendering from an EA Sports game. Basically we took the cream of the crop from around the company and assembled the engine by taking the key components and then adding on top of it things like environment mapping, light mapping so we've really taken this to the next level. So we've given our artists the tools that are adaptable and more advanced then most engines that are out there.

What about the storyline of the game - is it comparable to the movies that we've seen so far? What aspects of the movies did you take in order for it to fit into the storyline?
Well the fun of the product is that you play on the villain side of the universe so strictly speaking its not a James Bond game. I mean "No Bond, no rules, no mercy" is our tag line, you play a character with a different edge than someone who's working for Her Majesty's Secret Service. But at the same time we're trying to deliver the sort of entertainment value that you get from a James Bond game. So the same kind of battle sequence with huge scope and sweep of an espionage thriller that you'd expect from James Bond, and we've gone back to characters that would never have had a game made for them and use them for the center pieces.

You've got Auric Goldfinger, you've got Doctor No, you've got characters that are unbelievably recognizable as being part of the James Bond universe that you're seeing here in a game for the first time.

Will we actually see the face of the Rouge Agent himself, and if so, will he be played by anyone?
Well he's totally unique character, he is unique to this product and he's a brand new designed character so you will see his face and can decide who you think he looks like. We tried to make him as unique as we could.

How important are the cut scenes in progressing the game level to level?
The cut scenes in this product are sort of the glue that holds all the gameplay together. You get briefings by Goldfinger and Pussy Galore about the action you're about to dive into. Scaramanga is well connected in the blackmarket and is pulling technology from all sources as you fulfill your missions, and then beyond that there are people like M - Judi Dench makes an appearance in the game.

All of them help us to solidify our grounding in the James Bond universe, but also help us advance the story of a guy who was rejected by MI6, went the wrong side and got swept up in this big gang war between Goldfinger and Doctor No. So there's quite a big story there and there's quite a few twists in it along the way. As much as possible we tried to get those to happen in gameplay, and then cinematics help give a sort of richer texture to that.