Some interesting insights on BB’s views of video games. I have long wondered why we haven’t gotten a great Bond video game in a very long time. The general attitude of EON may be the reason (assuming the comments made in the podcast are accurate).
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I heard about this. I’m all for more strategy and less blazing away massacres. But James Bond without guns is just plain bizarre and a non starter.
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I’ve heard before that EON has basically refused to license James Bond for video games since 007 Legends. How much of what is in the podcast is true, we don’t know. But it does seem fairly accurate. It makes me wonder if there is going to be a much greater emphasis on espionage and sneaking than gunplay in IOI’s game.
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I used to be quite fascinated by how seldom Fleming lets Bond actually use his guns in the originals. In the first book we’re told Bond travels with no less than three handguns* (of varying calibres and for different purposes), but uses none of them. Live and Let Die sees significantly more gunplay, but by Moonraker Bond again shoots only at cardboard targets**.
During the next two books, Bond gets to shoot various opponents, but the Spang brothers are actually the last main villains until Scaramanga - the For Your Eyes Only/Spy Who Loved Me interludes aside - to be shot by Bond.
Handgun/close quarters shooting does happen frequently, but often isn’t decisive in bringing down major baddies. Two of the worst, Goldfinger and Blofeld, are strangled by Bond. He would no doubt have preferred to shoot Grant, but had to make do with his knife and a horrible wrestling-stabbing fight instead. Fleming seldom makes it easy for Bond to dispose of the monsters he’s fighting.
A Bond game toning down on the gunplay might be an interesting, fresh approach - but would no doubt have to substitute handguns with other means and tools of violence. Probably just as brutal, bloody and unsavoury as the gun variety. Let’s face it, the nature of the Bond adventure is such that he’s on collision course with some evil operation that’s not going to fold to a stiff letter or a single karate chop.
Difficult.
Addendum: I just remember Grant finally is shot with his own electric book gun. But he isn’t the main villain of the piece anyway.
*Which may be counterintuitive to the concept of cover, even in the much more permissive years after the war.
**That the rocket then downs Drax’ Russian submarine is merely a lucky shot.
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I think IO will be more creative with their killing methods. I’m not against Bond using machine guns, especially if the situation dictates it. The stealth boat is the biggest example, and really, what choice did he have? Same with the NTTD finale. But at the core Bond is a spy and not a soldier. I like it when he’s presented as discreet and sneaky. We can go back in time with OHMSS where Bond has a Sterling L2A3 in the finale, but having backup and not being a one man army helps balance things out. The showdown with Whitaker is exciting because the PPK isn’t cutting through, he’s outgunned and needs to find another solution.
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I do vaguely remember one of the staff at IO saying that BB had said she hadn’t been happy with the more shoot em up style the games had gone for. I could see that she had said that to activision and it’s got hugely exaggerated over time.
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