Among plenty of other reasons, the Bond films have stood the test of time because they offer a unique brand of male wish fulfilment. Sex, cars, gadgets, guns; enough booze to down an African elephant. The best Bond games go one further by literally placing the player in the shoes of England's most famous martini-swilling lothario, pitting us against 007's greatest-ever foes - and each other, when splitscreen gets involved.
It wasn't the first Bond game - there were plenty of retro efforts before it - but GoldenEye 007 is widely considered to be the starting gun in a modern Bond game era that extended into the early 2010s. And a new era will begin, belated as it may be, with 007 First Light - the first Bond game in 16 years when it arrives in 2026. The new double-O origin story from Hitman developers IO Interactive looks to be the most exciting attempt at polygonal Bond since at least 2002's Nightfire. Maybe even since GoldenEye, which remains the consensus standard bearer.
But which are the best Bond games, and which make us want to hit the ejector button? Our ranking below, from The World is Not Enough and Agent Under Fire to, yes, GoldenEye 007. Slappers Only at the ready!
9. Tomorrow Never Dies (PlayStation, 1999)
The first console Bond game to follow GoldenEye 007 switched up to third-person, took the action to an entirely new console (the original PlayStation), and more-or-less followed the plot of the film, albeit in truncated, gamified form. It was an unenviable task for Black Ops Entertainment and EA to try to match one of the greatest movie tie-ins ever made, and save for some fun missions - like an early sequence wherein you hit the slopes on a pair of skis - Tomorrow Never Dies was a subpar effort. The janky control scheme, which even back then I recall making me want to chuck my controller at the TV, certainly didn't help.
8. Goldeneye: Rogue Agent (PlayStation 2, 2004)
If Rogue Agent wasn't such a barefaced attempt to siphon nostalgia from the original GoldenEye, it might've gone down better; there are exciting elements at play here, from its various gameplay innovations to an early plot fake-out that flirts with killing off 007. And look, if you're a big fan of the Bond baddies, you'll probably get some mileage out of Rogue Agent; with its cast of franchise villains present and past, it's basically Avengers: Endgame for the various ne'er-do-wells who have tried to best Bond. Nonetheless, it's tough even 21 years later to get over the stolen valour of its title, not least when the game itself is a lukewarm FPS.
7. The World Is Not Enough (Nintendo 64, 2000)
There were two The World Is Not Enough game tie-ins that came out around the same time: the PlayStation version by Tomorrow Never Dies developers Black Ops Entertainment (bad), and this one, Eurocom's attempt on the Nintendo 64 (pretty good!) Once again, it's a fairly straightforward recreation of the 1999 film, following many of the same plot beats. You're Bond, you shoot a litany of bad guys in first-person, and deploy a variety of gadgets along the way. The biggest upgrade on the PS1 version? The inclusion of split-screen multiplayer. I can't imagine that many will remember playing it nearly as much as GoldenEye, but hey! At least it was there.
6. From Russia With Love (PlayStation 2, 2005)
Sean Connery reprised his most famous role in this loose PS2 adaptation of From Russia With Love, which switched back to third-person after the FPS action of Rogue Agent. For licensing reasons, a string of changes were made from the original film - there were also additions from later Bond films, including the jetpack from Thunderball - but it's still From Russia With Love, more or less. And can playing as Connery, through levels based on one of the best Bond movies, be that much of a bad thing?
5. Agent Under Fire (PlayStation 2, 2001)
The first Bond game to feature an original storyline, Agent Under Fire started life on the PlayStation 2 in 2001, and came with all of the attendant next-gen upgrades on its N64-era forebears: better graphics! Voice acting! Character models that didn't look like walking Easter Island heads! Although it received so-so reviews at the time, as a child in the early '00s, I remember this one pretty fondly: between its driving levels, mobile phone loaded with gadgets, and doses of sneaky espionage, it's arguably the first Bond game that really made you feel as though you were in the shoes of a double-O. What I don't recall much of is the plot, which probably says it all.
4. GoldenEye 007 (Nintendo Wii, 2010)
I initially refused to play the GoldenEye 007 remake out of principle. How dare they tease an Xbox remaster of the OG, only to come out with a Craig-era reimagining on the Wii! With 15 years of distance - and a little more objectivity - does it hold a candle to the 1997 version? Let's look at the pros and cons: on the one hand, it offered a major graphical upgrade; on the other, there are no pencil Kalashnikovs. It was a respectable move to modernise the original plot, bringing the post-Cold War action into the dreary post-9/11 present; there is no simian Sean Bean. Yeah, this is an easy one: game, set and match to the N64.
3. Everything or Nothing (PlayStation 2, 2004)
In a parallel universe that is kinder than ours, 2002's Die Another Day never happened, and Pierce Brosnan was spared the low-blow of ending his Bond tenure with the only film in the franchise that lacked a single redeeming feature. (Alright, Brosnan himself. And maybe the Madonna song.) But we do not live in such a utopia, hence why fans online have taken to consider 2004's Everything or Nothing as Brosnan's true swansong. Look, the bar is extraordinarily low, but it's a damn sight better than Die Another Day. It even saw the return of Jaws (Richard Kiel) as part of its impressively star-studded cast - not least for a video game in the '00s - featuring Heidi Klum and Willem Dafoe, among others. More to the point here, it was a very fun game, with plenty of cinematic action and Splinter Cell-style espionage.
2. Nightfire (PlayStation 2, 2002)
Everything about Nightfire, the unequivocal champion of Bond games to arrive after GoldenEye, absolutely ripped. There were thrilling car missions, beginning with a rip-roaring tour through the streets of Paris. The sneaky stealth levels that saw you infiltrate mountainside galas and Japanese estates. On top of that, it was a great FPS in its own right. And the plot? So brilliantly batshit, maximalist Bond, culminating Moonraker style with a mission that took 007 to outer space. Then there was the split-screen, the only Bond multiplayer to lay a glove on the joys of Slappers Only on Facility - it even had AI bots so you could deathmatch solo. An absolute gem, and the single-most worthy rival to GoldenEye's throne.
1. GoldenEye 007 (Nintendo 64, 1997)
I have played through GoldenEye so many times that I can remember each level down to the specific detail, from the boiler rooms of Facility to the streets of... well, Streets. You probably can, too. There aren't many games that find themselves so profoundly fused with the bit of our brain that stores memories, but then again, not many are such generational masterworks. It's not just the best Bond game by a distance; even in the age of Call of Duty, Battlefield and Counter-Strike, it remains the best FPS ever made. Dated, sure - to be fair, it has been almost 30 years since it came out. But the years have done little to diminish the magic. Case in point: over Christmas, with GoldenEye now on Xbox Game Pass, my brother and I dove into a bit of splitscreen. What a joy it was to kick his arse again.
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