James Bond has flourished on the big screen for over sixty years, with various actors taking on the mantle of 007 and defining their own personal eras of the character (yes, even George Lazenby). Having begun as the protagonist of Ian Fleming’s novels, Bond’s adaptability to jump between media was evident early on, but it would be a while before he’d put on his digital tux and slipped unseen into our disk drives.
As the early 80s saw the emergence of home computer games, many big screen icons would make the transition to the world of video games, and Bond was no different. Humble beginnings for the super spy would lead to a generation-defining game and a few misfires along the way.
With IO Interactive bringing the spy in from the cold with 007: First Light after a lengthy hiatus, I decided to chart the history of Bond in video games. From simple text adventures to iconic shooters, 007’s digital missions have been full of twists, turns, and turmoil.
From the Page to Text Adventure
A very British spy got a very British debut as Richard Shepherd Software’s Shaken but Not Stirred was released in 1982 on the ZX Spectrum. For this first 007 outing in game form, inspiration was taken from the Ian Fleming novels rather than the films, with this being a text adventure.
There were a few visuals, including an opening cutscene to establish the story of a stolen nuclear warhead that will be used to threaten the destruction of London by the game’s villain, Dr Death. Mostly, though, it’s a globe-trotting adventure where your imagination needs to fill in the blanks.
The limitations of the ZX Spectrum didn’t stop the ambition of the story. Players could choose an initial loadout, investigate various locations around the world to find Dr Death’s secret island base, and once found, explore an interconnected set of locations, culminating in a maze environment that leads to the warhead.
The kicker is that each playthrough changes the layout of locations in the island section, and keeps Bond on his toes with foes ranging from henchmen to bloodthirsty sharks (no frickin’ laser beams are attached to their frickin’ heads, sadly). Surprise and replayability? Yes, but also frustration. Still, a solid start to Bond’s virtual career.
A Two-Dimensional Character
In 1983, Parker Brothers looked to give us the first Bond game to be directly inspired by the movies. James Bond 007 was originally going to be based on Octopussy, starring Roger Moore as Bond, but several false starts led to the creation of a new version of the game based on earlier Bond adventures instead.
So the game comprised four levels based on aspects of four previous Bond outings. These were Moore’s The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, and For Your Eyes Only, as well as the Sean Connery Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.
These levels were horizontally-scrolling shooters where Bond’s multi-purpose vehicle would help him in a particular mission inspired by each of those films. These include rescuing Tiffany Case from an oil rig in Diamonds Are Forever, destroying an underwater lab in a submarine, blowing up satellites, and retrieving radio equipment from a sunken boat in the climactic level based on For Your Eyes Only.
With the game being released on the Atari 2600, 5200, 8-bit, and Commodore 64, among others, it marked Bond’s first widely released video game outing and offered a simpler game structure than its ZX Spectrum predecessor. So more of that, right?
Well, sort of. Moore’s next onscreen outing, A View to a Kill, was coming up next, and this time, we’d get a tie-in game for the masses, but also another text adventure for the purists on the Apple II, Mac, and MS-DOS.
Domark (the company that would eventually become Tomb Raider and Hitman publisher Eidos Interactive) handled the blockbuster version, which begins with Bond pursuing a parachuting May Day through Paris before side-scrolling missions, escaping a burning City Hall, and surviving rockfalls in a mine.
It was the next logical step in creating a Bond movie experience at home, and even features musical covers of the Monty Norman Bond theme and Duran Duran’s opening title track.
Unfortunately, the game was more poorly received than the film it was based on, but Domark would get another crack at Bond with 1987’s The Living Daylights, based on the film of the same name starring the latest Bond, Timothy Dalton. The side-scrolling run-and-gun shooter was simpler than its predecessor, but still gave players the chance to play as Bond rather than Bond’s car or boat.
In 1988, Domark commissioned Elite Systems International to make a racing game based on the speedboat chase from Live and Let Die, so it was simple times once again, but back to playing as a boat rather than Bond. This trend continued in 1990, when an adaptation of The Spy Who Loved Me saw players as Bond’s modified Lotus Esprit.
Domark’s run wasn’t inspiring much confidence in Bond as a video game hero, and the character did some freelance work the same year as The Spy Who Loved Me game by (sort of) appearing in Delphine Software’s Operation Stealth in the US (where it was titled James Bond: The Stealth Affair). The game’s protagonist, John Glames, was given the Bond name but still worked for the CIA.
Desperate times, not helped by the decline in popularity of the character on the big screen. The next Bond game would concern his nephew in the James Bond Jr. games. Based on the very American animated series, two games emerged in 1992. One was a NES platformer, while the other was more action-oriented and was released for the SNES. There’s not much to say about them. They weren’t too well-received and weren’t really James Bond games. But they do represent an awkward period for the series in all its forms.
Domark returned to Bond for what would be the final time with the Master System and Genesis/Mega Drive outing James Bond 007: The Duel. This side-scrolling run and gun action game was perhaps the most vibrant Bond game to date and attempted to tell a brand new story not based on a novel or a movie, with Timothy Dalton’s Bond battling series villains Jaws and Oddjob.
While it was a solid enough swansong for Domark’s run, it still left us without a true standout 007 game. Luckily, the Bond series revival on film would lead to the most iconic Bond game of all time.
The Golden(Eye) Age
Pierce Brosnan took over the James Bond role from Timothy Dalton for 1995’s GoldenEye. The film was a critical and commercial smash, revitalising the series after a six-year hiatus (which seems normal in a post-Craig era). A new console generation was also emerging, but there wasn’t a tie-in Bond game for GoldenEye.
Well, not yet. That would come in 1997, the same year Brosnan would have his second outing as Bond. 007 came to the Nintendo 64 with yet another new developer, aiming to do what nobody had managed before: make a great Bond game.
Enter British studio Rare and its FPS Goldeneye 007. A sliding doors moment saw the game originally begin as a side-scrolling platformer akin to the James Bond Jr. game, but the shift to 3D technology on the N64 changed the project entirely, and the rest is history.
GoldenEye 007 was a more collaborative effort between game makers and film makers, as Rare would visit the film’s set during development, and get access to sequences and characters from other Bond productions.
That choice ended up giving us a roster of characters that live on in multiplayer infamy, and in the early days of multiplayer shooters at home, GoldenEye 007 became a genre-defining game on consoles. It was no slouch in the single-player either, but the multiplayer was where the game cemented its status.
Naturally, before GoldenEye 007 came out, expectations were on the floor given the underwhelming history that preceded it, which made the revelation of its quality so much more impactful. Who knew making a great game first would help make a great Bond game? Oddjob be damned.
If only Rare had gotten another crack at Bond. It’s not like they’d go on to make any other great console shooters, right?
EA’s Prize Only
Alas, the N64 era of Bond was fleeting. Rare went on to make something called Perfect Dark, while Electronic Arts got its hands on the now lucrative Bond license. Easiest job in the world, right? Make another Bond shooter like GoldenEye 007 based on the follow-up film Tomorrow Never Dies, and the plaudits and cash would just rush in on a wave of euphoria.
Sports-centric developer Black Ops Entertainment was given the unenviable task of following Rare, and, sad to say, they fumbled hard with Tomorrow Never Dies.
Veering over to a third-person shooter perspective, the opening was at least promising if a clear downgrade from GoldenEye 007. After a brief initial mission, based on the film’s opening, it climaxes with an FMV clip from the film and then kicks into the credits along with Sheryl Crow’s underappreciated theme song. A glossy Bond-evoking high point.
But the gimmick doesn’t carry the game, and the majority of TND is a trudging bore of a shooter (and occasionally a driving and skiing game) interspersed with clips of a middling Bond film.
Back to the drawing board, then, for The World is Not Enough, and Black Ops decided to take a crack at an FPS Bond game this time around. (Almost) The same engine, a shift in perspective, and yes, more scenes from the film slotted into the game, the only way was surely up. However, this PlayStation and N64 release was a strange one because the PS version by Black Ops was poor compared to the N64 version, which was handled by Eurocom (a nice redemption arc after James Bond Jr.). So a small step forward and one back.
The small setback of a frustratingly inconsistent 007 Racing game sounded the death knell on this generation of Bond.
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