A mate and I have been contemplating the idea of writing a James Bond film script for next year's ScriptFrenzy. Obviously we have no pretentions of getting it made, but it should be fun none the less.

So I have been mentally reverse-engineering the Bond format and it has occurred to me that, outside of the usual reoccuring characters of Bond, M and Moneypenny, there are six character archetypes that appear in virtually every Bond film.

On the good side:

The love interest (aka The Bond girl)

The woman who Bond falls very temporarily in love with over the course of the story. I find the strongest love interests are the ones that complement Bond's weaknesses (eg Vespa Lynd, Natalya Simonova), female Bonds (eg Jynx) are somewhat redundant and dumb ones (Mary Goodnight) are just annoying.

The ally

A non-Brit who shows up from time to time to give invaluable assistance to Bond. Quite possibly just there to avoid the impression of Britain acting unilaterally. The best example of the ally archetype is Felix Leighter.

The lamb

Someone (Normally female) who pays the ultimate price for assisting Bond in some way. This archetype exposes Bond's biggest weakness, his tragic inability to protect his loved ones.

And on the Evil side:

The villain

The mastermind of some evil plot to upset the power of the free world.

This archetype embodies some of the negative elements of Bond, typically being a well mannered, intellectual socialite and man of action who isn't afraid to use violence to get what he wants. Some have even seen Bond as a kindred spirit of sorts.

The dragon

Typically the villain's bodyguard or most trusted confidant. Usually someone that Bond either has to defeat to get to the Villian, or someone who catches Bond off guard after the evil plot has been thwarted.

There are two main variants of the dragon. The first one is the henchman, typically stronger than Bond but is defeated by Bond's superior cunning. Jaws and Oddjob are well known examples. Could also be seen as a dark parody of Bond, being a dumb brute who resolves situations through extreme force.

The other is the femme fatale. A beautiful woman who can again can be seen as a dark parody of Bond, being someone who uses seduction as a means to control people.

The accomplice

Typically a traitor whose position or skills initially make him key to the Villain's plot. It's not unusual for the accomplice to be killed off by the Villain himself once his usefulness has expired.

Of course these archetypes can overlap somewhat and don't apply to every single Bond movie, but to make my point I have done a table listing characters in each official Bond movie that I feel fit the archetypes. (Warning - potential spoilers)

The E3 trailer for Activision's Goldeneye 007 has been leaked to the Internet and can be watched at Nintendo Everything.

Having spent probably well over one hundred hours playing the original Goldeneye (Including marathon multiplayer sessions and getting every unlockable - twice!) I have a strong connection to it and have been craving a re-release. However I am skeptical, as I suspect most are, that this reimagining is anything but a shameless, mediocre money grab.

There are a few questions floating around in my head about the game, which are.

1. Activision clearly have the right to make a game based on any Bond film, including Goldeneye. However it's interesting to note that the scene depicted at the start of the gameplay section of the trailer came from the N64 game and was not present in the film. Shouldn't this be a copyright infringement? If not, then why not?
2. Why was the Wii picked as the exclusive platform? (For that matter, why exclusive at all?) Because the original Goldeneye was released exclusively on a Nintendo platform, or does Nintendo have some control of the IP of the original game?
3. Is the guy in a beanie supposed to be Trevelyan?
4. How will the fact that the game is set in the Daniel Craig continuity affect the storyline? Will Quantum play a role?
5. Will the original developers receive credit or royalities from this game? Haha, okay that was a dumb question.

Yet another vanity post. Here is a scan of the Kiwi's Tale review in NZ PC World.

Thanks again to Harley Ogier and New Zealand PC World for allowing me to post this free of charge.

I had planned to be productive this weekend. I was going to do my blog posts for the week, tidy everything up, sort the bills, reply to outstanding emails, do some more XNA tutorials etc.

Yet, for some reason I felt compelled to play Wing Commander II. I had it on an old Creative Labs OEM CD and thanks to the magic of DosBox I was able to play it again for the first time in perhaps a decade or more.

(Incidentally, I found out that the D-Fend Reloaded utility is the best way to play games through DosBox. Not only does it include DosBox in the install, but has profiles for automatically configuring 1000s of games).

So, long story short, Wing Commander II ate my weekend (Fortunately Monday is a public holiday!). I was hooked until about an hour ago, when I finally managed to play the game through start to finish. I was really surprised that such an old game held my attention for longer than any modern titles in recent memory.

Just so that the experience wasn't a complete waste of time, I thought I might share my thoughts on the game.

• Old games really can be just as immersive as newer ones, even if the poorer graphics and sound makes it harder to suspend disbelief.
• The missions of the game are relatively short (On average less than five minutes playtime) yet some of them are still very difficult. The result of this is an addictive 'one more try' hook.
• Even if you fail badly on some missions, the story still continues  (Although the player is punished with harder difficulty and a sadder plot). In my opinion, this is a good thing, it's unfortunate that many games will simply not let you continue if you fail an objective.
• It's a perfect example of the 'less is more' concept. There are only a handful of playable spacecraft in the game, but the small number means that each has a unique purpose and gameplay style. This is also true for weapons and enemy spacecraft.
• Although the story had some silly parts, overall it was pretty well told. Every scene kept me interested in learning what was going to happen next, and there wasn't a bland character to be found.
• A major plotline in the game involves the characters attempting to discover which one of their comrades is a murderer. I thought it was really amusing that they named the victim 'McGuffin' since he had absolutely zero relevance to the story otherwise.
• Since it gave me the ability to name the player character after myself, did that mean I was playing it from a second person perspective?