Jessica Biel as Pussy Galore? Scrimmage mode? MI6 looks back at GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and ponders what could have been...

The Game That Never Was
11th March 2005

When GoldenEye: Rogue Agent hit shelves back in November 2004, a lot of gamers were left puzzled by a number of omissions from the game that had previously been mentioned. A number of ideas during development were also changed or dropped. MI6 takes a look back at "GoldenEye: Rogue Agent", and ponders what could have been...

Recasting A controversial idea during development of GRA was to recast the classic characters with modern day actors. Since Gert Fr�be who played the infamous Goldfinger in the 1964 film of the same name had died in 1988, at least one of the game's characters would have to be re-voiced. With other main cast members advanced in age (Joseph Wiseman who played Dr. No is 86), the idea to use modern day Hollywood talent to portray the classic characters was born. Without Bond, could there be a "Bond Girl" in GRA? Yes, thought EA, and she would come in the shape of Pussy Galore - before 007 had turned the pilot away from Goldfinger's organization. As Honor Blackman was well into her 70's, the idea was to recast the character with a young actress to supply likeness and voice. The top choice for the role was 22-year old "Blade: Trinity" star Jessica Biel , but how far this idea progressed before it was eventually scrapped is unknown.

Above: Jessica Biel was proposed as a possible actress to play Pussy Galore

In the end, EA elected to re-voice the classic characters (with the exception of Christopher Lee who provided his voice for Scaramanga), and maintain the original actors likeness for the digital character models.

Above: Honor Blackman (left) and the digital Pussy Galore (right)

Missing Maps
Throughout the course of GRA development, various mutliplayer locations were mentioned in interviews and pieces in the gaming press, but only a subset of those touted made it into the final game. Two of the high profile casualties were St. Cyril's Monastery (although one of the lesser known Bond locales, this mountain-top building from "For Your Eyes Only" made for a superb multiplayer map) and Piz Gloria (a restaurant in real-life, Blofeld's lair from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" not only offers great ski slopes and a bob sleigh run - but was a top capture the flag location).

Missing Models
Similarly, a few high-profile characters are missing from the multiplayer modes. Skins missing in the final game include some of the key villains: Scaramanga, Pussy Galore and Number One. Jaws was also linked to the game early on, but dropped out of development plans.

Above: End credits songstress Natasha Bedingfield

Theme Song At the EA Community day in July 2004, another regular component of the James Bond franchise was tipped to also feature in GRA. A main titles sequence with a theme song performed by a well known artist was said to be on the horizon, but again plans would change. In the end, the main titles of GRA provided the background to the story of the game with a remix by game composer Paul Oakenfold, and the traditional theme song was shifted. "If You're Gonna Jump" by Natasha Bedingfield can be found on the end credits sequence instead. An odd choice of song some have argued anyway, as like the original N64 "GoldenEye", the game does not allow the player to jump.

AWOL AI
Alarm bells began to ring with fans when GRA producers said there would not be any bots for a single player to battle against in the multiplayer modes. But an alternative was unveiled... Instead of traditional bots, a new type of human vs machine death match would be created, utilizing GRA's "E.V.I.L. AI" in a special "scrimmage" mode.

Senior Producer Chris Plummer explained the idea to MI6 back in October, "We're supporting the E.V.I.L AI in offline play rather than designing a new bot system... What we've done is set up a skirmish mode where you play against the E.V.I.L AI, it's a little different to bots because our E.V.I.L AI does things that bots don't do - like using cover. When you think about bots they usually run around as fast as they can, which is sort of what the player does honestly, but we've found it more fun playing against the AI rather than just bots. So that's the way we're approaching that one. You won't be playing with players and AI in sort of a death match though for example. So it's specifically for skirmish mode".

Unfortunately the scrimmage (or "skirmish") mode never made it to the final release. In the shipped version of GRA, multiplayer modes were renamed "split screen" and single players could not enjoy the non-campaign features of the game without additional players. As the game was falling behind with only months before the scheduled release date, "scrimmage" mode is perhaps the biggest casualty of the rush to get the game out on time.

Related Articles
GoldenEye Rogue Agent Coverage