o you’re telling me that this GoldenEye chap was unceremoniously discharged from MI6 because he didn’t save James Bond in a virtual reality simulator? That’s really what sets this guy off? This is the trigger that unleashes his unbridled hatred for human life? Man, what would happen if he showed up 15 minutes late for work?

In case you can’t read into my tone, I’m not impressed with EA’s latest James Bond game. In fact, I would even go as far to say that it tarnishes the hallowed GoldenEye name that gamers have held close to their hearts since 1997, and is the equivalent of tossing a martini into Bond’s face and then shooting him in the family jewels with a tranquilizer dart. Believe me, I am just as stunned and disappointed as you are. I thought Agent Under Fire was an amazing game. Nightfire wasn’t as explosive, but it was still a fun play. And Everything or Nothing completely blew my mind. I loved it.

With Rogue Agent it feels like a gigantic vacuum cleaner sucked all the creativity out of the game. Assuredly, punching enemies and using them as human shields never seems to get old, but there’s little else that put a smile on my face. The level designs are painfully desolate. Although the deathtraps are more creative (like activating a rocket engine with people behind it), the means of using them is not as elegant. In previous Bond titles, these traps were hidden in the levels. It was up to the player to find them and figure out how to use them. In this iteration, you just have to locate a terminal and press the button. Keep in mind that these terminals all look the same and can be seen from a mile away. Watching enemies bite the big one in a multitude of ways certainly brings about a devious cackle or two, but it’s just too mindless of an approach.

The gameplay is also quite frustrating. For a guy who is a so-called secret agent, GoldenEye can’t change a weapon magazine to save his life. Could these weapons take any longer to reload? Dual wielding is executed well, but I rarely found my visionary tools to be useful. Since an enemy can never keep still and squirms like a five-year-old that slammed a bag of Pop Rocks, the M.R.I. ability of seeing through walls didn’t reveal much for me, and by the time that I used my weapon hack, the enemy was already zipped up in a body bag. The shield is the only tool that I would use successfully. The gameplay may lead to frustration, but I do have to hand it to EA for tracking so many end-of-level stats. I’m a big sucker for performance breakdown, and this game tallies everything (perfect shots, machine traps, melee throws, hostages, explosions, cheap shots, and so on).

The multiplayer maps are nice and small, and work well for both online and split-screen. Deathtraps are abundant, and like a mousetrap with cheese, feature a powerful weapon smack dab in the middle of them. If not for the lackluster gameplay, this multiplayer package would have been pretty slick.

As always, EA did a bang-up job with this game’s presentation. The characters in the CG cutscenes look fantastic, Paul Oakenfold’s rhythmic score is music to the ears, and you just gotta love seeing more of Pussy Galore.

I like EA’s approach of putting players into the shoes of a loose cannon, but the game just lacks that Bond chemistry that we’ve come to expect. Much like Timothy Dalton as James Bond, Rogue Agent doesn’t fit well into this secret agent’s universe.