When is a sequel not a sequel? Certainly when the sequel in question is Electronic Arts' GoldenEye: Rogue Agent. Rogue Agent is an obvious attempt to ride the coattails of Rare's Nintendo 64 classic, GoldenEye 007. Like the older game, Rogue Agent sports both a single-player adventure and an involved multiplayer mode. However, EA has failed to replicate the overall quality of Rare's effort, leaving Rogue Agent as nothing more than a vaguely competent FPS with a big-name license.

What Rogue Agent does have is a neat twist, as it puts you into the role of the titular bad guy. A former MI6 agent, the vile villain GoldenEye works in the employ of Auric Goldfinger, who is engaged in an underworld war with the infamous Dr. No. GoldenEye also has a personal stake in this, as it was No who took his original eye. Enhanced with a cybernetic golden eye implant from Goldfinger, GoldenEye sets out to cause some damage.

All That Glitters

Let's get right to the point. The problem with GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is that it does nothing especially well. It's competent in most areas, but good? Great? No, not really. Take the control, for instance. Turning is inexplicably sluggish, even when the analog settings are cranked to the max. It works, but poorly. Or how about the single-player in general? It's boring, consisting mainly of shooting hundreds of uninteresting thugs. The baddies are supposed to be endowed with "Evil AI," but heck if I could tell. They just seemed dumb.

You can even take Robocop hostage! Now that's evil!

To be fair, Rogue Agent makes a few attempts at having interesting foibles. Your special eye has four powers, such as the ability to create a shield or hack machines. These work okay, if unspectacularly. There's also a dual-wielding weapon system, which is reminiscent of the similar feature in Halo 2. Again, this works alright, and it's kind of satisfying to blast with two guns sometimes. (Other times, you watch blue sparklies fly off the enemies and wonder why your machine gun is so weak.) Last and least are the environmental traps -- deadly chambers, super-heated gold, crushing pistons -- you can use these against enemies, as well as them, you. Traps, again, are okay, but aren't frequent enough to tout as a serious feature.