Sad history of Bond games

yoyoyojoyoyoyojo Posts: 46MI6 Agent
But what a sad history of Bond games. A few gems in there but honestly it looks like a less than 20% success rate. God I hope whomever makes these decisions get their head out of their stuck in the 80's ass and realize two things:

- James Bond is huge gaming opportunity with a potential to bring in a billion dollars of revenue (GTA V, COD, etc)
- WE DO NOT NEED A MOVIE TIE-IN!!!!!!!!!!!

This is such old school thinking, it's as if my dead grand parents came back to life with the attitude of "your little video game you have there". A JB title deserves a big budget and to be made by a developer that has proven themselves (Rockstar, BioWare, WBIM). And movie tie-ins only serve to rush a game and has all the connotations of making a quick buck.

The Batman series is as far as you need to go to prove my point. The game franchise worked well along with the dark knight trilogy. Same look and feel without being explicitly constrained by the movies plot or delivery timeline.

http://www.gamesradar.com/brief-history-bond-avatars/

Comments

  • GoldenEye85GoldenEye85 Posts: 278MI6 Agent
    edited December 2014
    I know video game movie tie ins have been done to death, and with a few exceptions (GoldenEye and a few Lord of the Rings games) they royally suck! But given to the RIGHT company and given the time needed to properly build a game version of the story and if needed a multiplayer addition, it COULD be done to great acclaim again.

    But ultimately I think if they want any 007 game, movie based or not, to be any where good as what GE 64 was or stand out on it's own, Eon will probably have to create a game division and do it themselves. Because regardless of who gets it and what they did movie or stand alone, it will be mirrored after what their best game is.

    But what you are saying about being constrained by a franchise is why Rareware turned down making Tomorrow Never Dies in favor of making Perfect Dark, after the success of GE.
    1, GE 2, CR 3, SF 4, TWINE 5, Spectre 6, TMWTGG 7, DAD 8, LALD 9, AVTAK 10, LTK 11, Octopussy 12, Moonraker 13, TLD 14, GF 15, QOS 16, Tomorrow 17, FYEO 18. TSWLM Not seen much: Dr. No, Russia, Thunderball, Twice, Majesty.

    1: Brosnan 2: Craig 3: Moore 4: Dalton 5: Connery and 6: Lazenby
  • Absolutely_CartAbsolutely_Cart NJ/NYC, United StatesPosts: 1,740MI6 Agent
    The Bond games have been, overall, better than most licensed movie games which tend to suck. Still, the Bond games are more akin to other shooting games on the market than the espionage feel of the actual movies.
  • PPK 7.65mmPPK 7.65mm Saratoga Springs NY USAPosts: 1,224MI6 Agent
    Hopefully soon another game will come out that is good. Personally I think it tends to work in the favor of whom ever is producing the games, if the games story is original rather than tie into the current movie (Everything or Nothing is still one of my favorite games even ten years later and Bloodstone is fun as well).

    Also many other licensed games had dry spells that were just as bad as the James Bond series (Star Wars had a few not so great games here and there for every decent game that came out). From my humble perspective, it is just a matter of finding the right studio and striking a good balance between the gunplay and espionage activities in the game.
  • Absolutely_CartAbsolutely_Cart NJ/NYC, United StatesPosts: 1,740MI6 Agent
    edited December 2014
    Not sure that will happen. Quantum of Solace (the video game) basically looked like a generic Gears of War/Call of Duty clone type of shooting game adorned with 007 imagery.

    The most recent James Bond game, Goldeneye 007, for the Wii/PS3/Xbox 360 received lots of acclaim, but it was a re-make. Skyfall, I don't see happening. The movie was successful enough to not need a game promo, and it's two years too late now. Spectre may be a possibility in 2015 as a game but seeing how long game development cycles have been, we would've heard it by now.

    Since games today have bigger budgets and require more realistic graphics to stand out, they're a lot harder to make. Goldeneye N64 was made in less than a year while the same studio was making like 3 other games. That's not even a possibility now.
  • TheQBranchTheQBranch Posts: 29MI6 Agent
    I think one of the best series to look at would be the Batman Arkham games (Asylum, City, Origins, and upcoming Knight). Those games are proof that a big franchise can be properly adapted to the medium of video games. The best thing is to avoid making a James Bond game as a movie tie-in, and instead make it its own story with well developed mechanics. Imagine a Bond game done in the style of the Metal Gear series!
  • AirJordanFan93AirJordanFan93 Posts: 92MI6 Agent
    TheQBranch wrote:
    I think one of the best series to look at would be the Batman Arkham games (Asylum, City, Origins, and upcoming Knight). Those games are proof that a big franchise can be properly adapted to the medium of video games. The best thing is to avoid making a James Bond game as a movie tie-in, and instead make it its own story with well developed mechanics. Imagine a Bond game done in the style of the Metal Gear series!
    When EA had the license and the majority of the games weren't tied into the film universe they were actually pretty solid. They didn't have the depth a game like Metal Gear or Splinter Cell had at the time but they at least tried. When Activision got the license all we got were rehashes of COD pretty much with little else aside from a meh single player campaign and multi player. It all comes down to who gets the license to make the games and hoping they decide to do more than just make more generic FPS games because its what companies assume make a Bond game a Bond game.
  • Moore ThanMoore Than EnglandPosts: 3,173MI6 Agent
    Not a Bond gamer myself, this may be of interest. Den of Geek article on the Octopussy videogame that never was. James Bond should have made his videogame debut with an Octopussy tie-in, but then it mysteriously disappeared...

    Octopussy: the James Bond videogame that never was
    http://www.denofgeek.com/games/octopussy/34246/octopussy-the-james-bond-videogame-that-never-was
    Moore Not Less 4371 posts (2002 - 2007) Moore Than (2012 - 2016)
  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
    Interesting -{
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • LPFilmsLPFilms Posts: 31MI6 Agent
    There was another Octopussy game made for the ZX Spectrum. It's unnofficial and as far as I remember it came out years after the film and wasn't even in English. It was more like an adventure games similar to Clock Tower where you had to find items to progress. The Atari game looks cool, too.
  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
    Ah yes, Clock Tower :))
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • LexiLexi LondonPosts: 3,000MI6 Agent
    yoyoyojo wrote:
    But what a sad history of Bond games. A few gems in there but honestly it looks like a less than 20% success rate. God I hope whomever makes these decisions get their head out of their stuck in the 80's ass and realize two things:

    - James Bond is huge gaming opportunity with a potential to bring in a billion dollars of revenue (GTA V, COD, etc)
    - WE DO NOT NEED A MOVIE TIE-IN!!!!!!!!!!!

    This is such old school thinking, it's as if my dead grand parents came back to life with the attitude of "your little video game you have there". A JB title deserves a big budget and to be made by a developer that has proven themselves (Rockstar, BioWare, WBIM). And movie tie-ins only serve to rush a game and has all the connotations of making a quick buck.

    The Batman series is as far as you need to go to prove my point. The game franchise worked well along with the dark knight trilogy. Same look and feel without being explicitly constrained by the movies plot or delivery timeline.

    http://www.gamesradar.com/brief-history-bond-avatars/

    No movie tie in, BUT it could be an a good way of getting younger fans into BOND.

    My son (who is 9) would become a fan of Bond, if there was a good xbox game - he's heard of Bloodstone, through a YouTuber who is a fan of Minecraft.

    Most of my son's buying decisions are based on recommendations. This will then make him a fan of the franchise.

    They should be looking ahead... and not just rely on adults buying these games.
    She's worth whatever chaos she brings to the table and you know it. ~ Mark Anthony
  • PPK 7.65mmPPK 7.65mm Saratoga Springs NY USAPosts: 1,224MI6 Agent
    TheQBranch wrote:
    I think one of the best series to look at would be the Batman Arkham games (Asylum, City, Origins, and upcoming Knight). Those games are proof that a big franchise can be properly adapted to the medium of video games. The best thing is to avoid making a James Bond game as a movie tie-in, and instead make it its own story with well developed mechanics. Imagine a Bond game done in the style of the Metal Gear series!

    Yes, that would be my ideal James Bond video game experience.
  • Absolutely_CartAbsolutely_Cart NJ/NYC, United StatesPosts: 1,740MI6 Agent
    I think a Bond game would be great but I don't think the gaming industry now is mature enough. So much money gets spent on high production values while the actual gameplay of the games suffers.

    I've tried Quantum of Solace, the re-adaption of Goldeneye 007 that came out a few years ago and 007 Legends.

    They're not spy games where you investigate cases and such. They're war games where you shoot people. If a big name company isn't capable of making an authentic Bond game, they shouldn't do it at all.
  • GoldenEye85GoldenEye85 Posts: 278MI6 Agent
    edited April 2015
    ^


    I don't think we've been playing the same games. I seem to remember doing a lot of research and such on those games, it might not be to the extent that the movies do or the Splinter Cell games do, but it's still there very present. In that sense, there is only so much that they can do to make it like a real case, it would be very boring to sit through each interview before each mission level. The way GE 64 and TWINE 64 did it was the best in that sense, in GE it was the briefing screens, and in TWINE it was a brief clip that could be skipped.

    As much as I disliked the game, 007 Legends is the closest to that, you do investigate Goldfinger, to great detail I might add. Using Bond's phone to look for clues on what he is doing, finger prints, etc. Same thing goes for the other movies, save for Skyfall X-( , covered in the game.

    In GoldenEye Reloaded, the 360/PS3 release of the Wii game, you do a lot of research for intel and such throughout the game. More so, this goes for the older games too, on the higher difficulty settings, trust me, I've been through the wringer on GoldenEye Reloaded on the higher settings. But on easy or normal is where I think people get off calling it a Call of Duty knockoff, because there is a lot less to do besides run and gun.

    But in both of these games you interact with people of interest in the case, gathering information, that goes for QoS, too.

    Even Quantum of Solace, which was made by a Call of Duty developer, Treyarch, was closer than GE or 007 Legends and even it had mechanics that CoD didn't that set it apart from the military game.
    1, GE 2, CR 3, SF 4, TWINE 5, Spectre 6, TMWTGG 7, DAD 8, LALD 9, AVTAK 10, LTK 11, Octopussy 12, Moonraker 13, TLD 14, GF 15, QOS 16, Tomorrow 17, FYEO 18. TSWLM Not seen much: Dr. No, Russia, Thunderball, Twice, Majesty.

    1: Brosnan 2: Craig 3: Moore 4: Dalton 5: Connery and 6: Lazenby
  • WardWard Maryland/LondonPosts: 195MI6 Agent
    The problem is that the name alone sells it. Feels like developers put just enough in to make a profit.

    A shame, as the potential is enormous. Mercenaries type game? They could do that. Or the new cinematic Tomb Raider. Or Just Cause. Or GTA style. It's wide open.
  • PPK 7.65mmPPK 7.65mm Saratoga Springs NY USAPosts: 1,224MI6 Agent
    Hopefully whenever the next video game arrives it is going to a decent one, and not a rushed job like 007 Legends was.
  • scottytscottyt Posts: 5MI6 Agent
    I agree with everyone who mentioned the Batman Arkham games as inspiration. The Developer of those games, Rocksteady Studios, will release their last iteration for that series in June. So lets hope they've picked up the Bond franchise behind the scenes with an announcement to make at this years E3. I think if a big studio will take up the challenge, these guys are the most likely. Especially since they've now included the Bat Mobile in the final game, so they've learned vehicle mechanics etc.

    Other than that, I think Ubisoft could easily make a great 3rd or First person Bond game, but they may feel it would deduct from their own IP's such as Splinter Cell and Far Cry.

    If EA pick up the license again, Bioware could make an incredible, Alpha Protocol type, RPG Bond game. Also, a DICE Bond game would be incredible, especially with the vehicle sections and a more contained multiplayer. However, these companies have their hands full with EA sports, Mass Effect and the Battlefield series, so there's slim chance of any of this.

    Finally, Bond is an assassin. The makers of the Hitman games, IO Interactive, could make a compilation Bond game, featuring open world missions from a variety of Bond films. There's huge potential there, imagine infiltration/ Assassination missions such as Dr No's secret base, the Vulcano rocket base from 'You Only Live Twice' etc.
  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
    Or how about one based on Scenes from the Novels?
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • scottytscottyt Posts: 5MI6 Agent
    scottyt wrote:
    I agree with everyone who mentioned the Batman Arkham games as inspiration. The Developer of those games, Rocksteady Studios, will release their last iteration for that series in June. So lets hope they've picked up the Bond franchise behind the scenes with an announcement to make at this years E3. I think if a big studio will take up the challenge, these guys are the most likely. Especially since they've now included the Bat Mobile in the final game, so they've learned vehicle mechanics etc.

    Short article on what these guys could do next, with a nice summary of what they would bring to the Bond franchise.

    http://www.techtimes.com/articles/44996/20150409/5-franchises-rocksteady-after-batman-arkham-knight.htm
  • WardWard Maryland/LondonPosts: 195MI6 Agent
    You have to look at the figures though...

    Everything or Nothing was successful by Bond game standards, and sold 2.4 million copies (FRWL sold 0.8 million)
    GTA from the same year as EoN sold 21.5 million.

    The Bond developers have to pay for licenses, likenesses etc, so they're already down on budget. This is one of the reasons why we're not getting Arkham City style games developed with the 007 brand. Yes, they'll sell, but they won't sell enough.
  • Robbo88Robbo88 Newcastle, England.Posts: 253MI6 Agent
    I don't think you could really do a sandbox, GTA style, James Bond game. If it's one city, you won't have the travelling across the world feel that usually comes with a Bond movie.
    "Sic Parvis Magna"
    "Greatness From Small Beginnings."
  • mr jenziemr jenzie Posts: 14MI6 Agent
    i actually BOUGHT a view to a kill on the sinclair spectrum!
    yep
    :))
  • OddjoblofeldraxorinOddjoblofeldraxorin CaliforniaPosts: 195MI6 Agent
    I just had a thought the other day. Wouldn't it be rad if there was a open world Bond video game based on every mission from every movie? You could do the missions in any order or as many as you want simultaneously a la Fallout or GTA. Traveling to all the Bond locations from the films around the world by plane train or automobile would be fun. It would also be great if you could choice between skins of all six Bond actors for your playable character.
  • Teenage MTeenage M LondonPosts: 206MI6 Agent
    Yeah that would be one great game I would buy it. :007)
    James Bond: That’s a Smith & Wesson, and you’ve had your six.

    http://www.james-bondco.yolasite.com/
  • yoyoyojoyoyoyojo Posts: 46MI6 Agent
    I just had a thought the other day. Wouldn't it be rad if there was a open world Bond video game based on every mission from every movie? You could do the missions in any order or as many as you want simultaneously a la Fallout or GTA. Traveling to all the Bond locations from the films around the world by plane train or automobile would be fun. It would also be great if you could choice between skins of all six Bond actors for your playable character.

    make it so my friend, make it so
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