GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, if you haven't heard, is the first Bond game in which you don't play Bond. Instead you play an expelled MI6 agent, who starts working for Auric Goldfinger in his underworld war against Dr. No. The action plays out as a first-person shooter, but this GoldenEye is no relation to the last one; in fact, the title refers to your bionic eye, replaced after Dr. No got the drop on you.
EA started things with a super-slick presentation. We learned that Bond luminary Sir Ken Adam has worked on the game, providing production design that will recreate several classic Bond locations (such as the Moonraker base) and also introduce us to new ones, like Goldfinger's Las Vegas casino, Midas. Costume designer Kym Barrett (of Matrix fame) also did some work for EA, togging up the bad guys in appropriately evil-looking gear.
As for the game itself, we learned a few pertinent facts. As it's a first-person shooter, the emphasis is on the shooting, and you'll be able to do that with two weapons - which can be mixed and matched for explosive effect - if you wish. You can also fire each one separately, so if you fancy using a machine gun in one hand and a pistol in the other, well, you're the evil agent here.
Speaking of being evil, GoldenEye will give you plenty of opportunities to sin. One example we saw was pushing a poor soul off a high balcony instead of helping him up, but we're assured there's plenty of 'evil AI' in the game.
EA is also promising 'stunt action physics', which roughly translates as 'cool stuff happening all the time'. Shoot someone with a shotgun at close range, and they'll go flying. Blow up a barrel behind them, and they'll sprawl by your feet. In other words, the game should look like a Bond movie, full of action and explosions galore.
Any game called GoldenEye wouldn't be worth its salt, however, without multiplayer modes - and Rogue Agent has them. We tried a spot of four-player, split-screen action, battling through a ruined Fort Knox level (shades of Goldfinger there) and came away impressed.