

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent exposed!

Exclusive: Going undercover with EA to talk in-depth about its super high-profile GoldenEye pseudo sequel

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"Ultimately, the HQ for all the villain activity in the Bond universe, is the volcano lair. This is a place you'll get to experience multiple times in the game. Pussy Galore is your personal pilot. She works for Goldfinger in the film and she'll take you from this volcano lair to all your great missions throughout the game. As you rise up through the ranks you'll get to know Pussy better and better."

GoldenEye - it was great!

"Our team is really passionate about the original GoldenEye game from a gameplay standpoint. That was a very aggressive, run-and-gun style first-person shooter, and to really recreate and do justice to that style of game... And today's technology, when you think about it, is much more detailed, much more graphic.

"James Bond can't really do that stuff, but the villains, that's exactly what they do, and so marrying those two things together we can deliver a style of gameplay that people and know and love about the original GoldenEye and do it in that universe by taking people to the dark side.

"And I think another thing that our team thought was really cool about the original GoldenEye - and this is something we also heard from a lot of GoldenEye fans and just Bond fans in general...

The most powerful plot thread in the original GoldenEye was this idea of a 00 agent gone bad. And what was so cool about it Alex Trevelyan was you knew he was a bad ass because you knew he was trained by MI6 - he was like James Bond, he was as bad as James Bond but went to the dark side. We are essentially letting you live out that role in GoldenEye: Rogue Agent."

The magic formula

"The two most important parts of our game formula are the multiplayer and the E.V.I.L. AI system, so everything touches those in one way or the other. The multiplayer's really important to us because it's what some of us are still playing from time to time with our friends around the couch with the split-screen on the original GoldenEye.

"We have more multiplayer maps than we have campaign maps in the game. All of our game modes can be played in a multiplayer capacity, and when there's not real people there to play against the E.V.I.L. AI will step in for them. That is just something that from day one has been a focus."

Something E.V.I.L. lurks...

"The E.V.I.L. AI - this is what all the game systems basically touch. To make a great first-person shooter experience we needed something to be the centrepiece that everything needs to be focused on and E.V.I.L. AI is that for our game.

"What that stands for is, first it's emotion-based - that's what the 'E' is - all the AIs in the game are basically motivated by real human motivations which the player can exploit. The more you're playing like a villain, the more you can actually exploit those emotions to your advantage.

Essentially what it means is, by using emotions likes pressure, aggression and composure to determine behaviour, it means that the AIs are going to behave somewhat unpredictably but completely believably. That was really important to us, because we wanted encounters to be replayable, we wanted you to never be quite sure what the AI is going to do next. Depending on what other AIs are in the area, they're going to behave differently.

"The 'V' is for visceral. What we mean by that is we wanted all the visceral moments that you get from most first-person shooters that usually come in the form of scripted moments, we wanted those visceral moments to come through the AI instead.

"When my friend calls me up and says 'Dude, this guy grabbed his team mate, freaked out and used him as a human shield', and I'm like 'No, that guy, I capped him in the head and blew up this grenade' or whatever - that's exactly what we want, we want those cinematic moments to happen through the AI instead of through gags.

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