In all the time they have held the James Bond license, Activision has never been able to top the critical and commercial success of Rare’s GoldenEye 007, even when they remade the game, as GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, last year. However, they might have a shot with their new game, 007 Legends, which will tie together various missions from Bond’s fifty years of cinematic history spanning 23 films.
Joining the missions already announced are two from the more modern era; the finale from Timothy Dalton’s Licence to Kill, and the Ice Hotel mission from Pierce Brosnan’s swansong, Die Another Day. The latter will see Bond teamed with Agent Jinx (Halle Berry) as they race through the melting ice palace while avoiding the deadly Icarus Solar Array. That mission will conclude with a confrontation against North Korean bad guy-turned-ginger toff, Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens).
The Licence to Kill level will see Bond destroying the drug factory of evil Mexican drug lord Fran Sanchez, and joining forces with DEA agent Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) to kill Sanchez in revenge for the death of CIA agent and friend Felix Leiter. It has also been announced that Toby Stephens and Carey Lowell will lend their thespian vocals to the new game, although no word yet on Halle Berry.
It will be very interesting to see how Activision ties all the missions from Bond’s history together, given that the character exists in a paradoxical bubble; for example, Felix Leiter dies in Licence To Kill but is alive in well in the new slate of films. Let us hope they can finally shrug off the GoldenEye shroud and give us a cracking game that will leave us shaken (but not stirred).
