Why Pierce Brosnan Will Always Be Gaming's Greatest James Bond

Due respect to GoldenEye 007, but Everything or Nothing will always be my ultimate Bond gaming experience. Its third-person gameplay has aged much better than early first-person fare, and its cinematic nature is unrivaled among Bond games. Bond Moves return, the cast is truly stacked (how did Willem Dafoe never appear as a Bond villain in the movies?), and the game even features a banger of an original Bond song performed by Mya. It’s the most impressively elaborate blend of Bond films and Bond games we’ll likely ever see, and Pierce Brosnan was at the center of it all.

To some, though, the most notable thing about Everything or Nothing may be the fact it was the last original Bond story Brosnan ever starred in. That may seem like relegation for the actor that helped bring Bond roaring back to the big screen, but I’ve never seen it like that. I’ve always seen it as more of a testament to the ways that Brosnan was uniquely qualified to be gaming’s greatest James Bond.

The Man With The Golden Controller

The only thing more intense than the best Bond actor is the debate over the best Bond movie. We’ve shared our opinions on that topic on numerous occasions. However, with the exception of 1995’s GoldenEye, it must be said that Brosnan’s films tend to fall towards the middle or bottom of such rankings. 

It’s a curious legacy for an actor whose Bond tenure started off with such a massive hit. For that matter, it’s a curious legacy for an actor who people had long said was pretty much the perfect person to play James Bond. What should have been a dream run of Bond movies was partially undone by an overall lack of creative vision, a questionable desire to keep up with certain trends, and perhaps even a failure to understand what, exactly, it was that Brosnan brought to the table. Brosnan’s Bond movies are enjoyable, to say the least, but there was always the feeling that they could have been more.

It’s not that Brosnan’s Bond games were strictly better than the movies but rather that they often felt like a more natural home for Brosnan’s era of Bond. Brosnan’s impossible good looks stood out during the early days of 3D graphics when chiseled features were practically a necessity when trying to render things that looked remotely human. His distinctive voice carried a lot of weight at a time when video game voiceovers were rare and often limited to a relatively small amount of dialog. He had a presence in those games as both a celebrity and the ideal version of what Bond may look, act, and sound like if he was originally created to be a video game protagonist.

Even the growing absurdity of Brosnan’s Bond movies felt more at home in an era of gaming that often demanded as many absurd set pieces from its source materials/inspirations in order to justify a campaign. Many have pointed out that Brosnan’s Bond movies suffered from some rough CGI (even for their time), but it must be said that some of those rough CGI film sequences often inspired some fantastic video game levels.

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