Bond has done it all. He’s battled bad guys on the moon. He got his nuts smashed by a psycho Albanian crime lord, and(spoiler warning!) he even died the most stoic and manly death ever conceived. The guy is a legend of the silver screen, then, but he’s also done pretty well outside of the movie theaters.
Recent years haven’t given us much to love in terms of Bond games, but a flick through the history books shows there was once a steady trickle of new Bond games releasing every couple of years. Some were good, others were great, and some were downright shite. We’ve whittled them down and arranged this little list for you. Here are the seven best James Bond games, so far.
7 – From Russia, With Love
Can you imagine Sean Connery sitting in a recording booth in his old age, reading out scripted quips for a video game version of one of his movies? Well, that’s exactly what he did, rest his soul, for the decent From Russia With Love, a video game adaption of the movie. Released on home console and Sony’s PSP, the latter was especially impressive given it was basically a 1 for 1 port of the home console experience.
From Russia With Love expanded on the original movie, and sometimes got a little silly with it all, but who can complain when you’ve got Sean Connery’s Bond smirking his way through a competent shooter?
6 – James Bond 007: Nightfire
Pierce Brosnan’s penultimate outing as video game Bond was a doozy, taking players back to the familiar first-person perspective one more, but opening the game up with semi-open world levels. Rather than being pointed from A-to-B and told to shoot everything in between, players could explore the maps and take on objectives and optional mission tasks however they liked with a wide range of weapons and fancy Bond gadgetry.
To be fair, it’s a little rough around the edges playing the game now, but if you managed to get through it back in the day, this one is worth taking for another spin, just for old-time’s sake.
5 – Goldeneye 007: Reloaded (2010)
Eurocom’s re-imagining of the classic N64 game was… interesting to say the least. With the story being altered to suit the new face of the game, Daniel Craig, the final product only bore a passing resemblance to its inspiration. Just as well, too, because the legal mumbo jumbo around the golden game license would have even Saul Goodman taking himself for a final walk through the Albuquerque desert.
But, it’s still a decent little shooter. Yes, it’s built on the foundations of Call of Duty, but there’s no denying that the presentation is decent and the story, reworked for the modern age and to slip it into the Daniel Craig continuity – this version of Goldeneye sits between Quantum and Skyfall – are actually improvements over the original. It may lack a bit of heart and feel like a cog in the machine, but if Bond is in your blood, you’ll enjoy it all the same.
4 – 007 Blood Stone
Mix Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted, and James Bond into a blender and you get… blood and guts. Mix it into the corporate check box machine and you get 007 James Bond Blood Stone.
It’s not as bad as it sounds, to be fair, and for hardcore fans of the suave super spy, this original story serves as a standalone tale between the Daniel Craig movies. It doesn’t hurt, either, that one of the film franchises’ writers, Bruce Feirstein, penned the story, giving it the authentic Bond flavor. It wasn’t well received back in its day, but if you get the chance, go back and give this one a go and you’ll find a surprisingly decent third-person action-adventure propped up by the Bond license.
3 – Quantum of Solace
Blonde Bond Daniel Craig’s first video game outing as the character was, admittedly, James Bond with a lick of Call of Duty paint, with some third-person cover mechanics thrown in because Activision paid to use Daniel Craig’s likeness and they wanted to make sure we bloody saw it. To be fair, it was actually fairly well done and gave players a taste of what a first/third-person Call of Duty cover shooter could look like.
Quantum of Solace follows its movie source material very closely, even diverging at times to expand on the story to offer some extra explosive gameplay.
2 – 007 Goldeneye Remastered
The one that started it all… Instead of naming the original, we’re just going to go with the modern remaster because it’s essentially the same game made good for modern machines, especially if you’re playing on Xbox where you get proper modern first-person shooter controls. The less said about the Switch version’s dodgy controls, the better.
It may not be up to the standards of modern shooters – we’ve come a long way since the days of shooting a soldier on the potty – but for us older players with countless hours spent screen cheating our mates in multiplayer, like tomorrow, Goldeneye never dies.
1 – James Bond: Everything or Nothing
And our number one on this list of Everything or Nothing, and not just because its opening tune is absolute fuego. The gameplay, the graphics, the controls – it all holds up today, mostly. Well, if you’re playing on an emulator with the ability to tweak the presentation and switch a few buttons around on your gamepad of choice.
Everything or Nothing marked the end of era as it would be the final James Bond game to feature fan favorite Pierce Brosnan. At least he went out with a bang.
