Top 10 Best and Worst James Bond Video Games

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Best & Worst James Bond Games.

For this list, we’ll be looking at 007’s best and worst forays into gaming.

Which classic James Bond movie should be adapted into a modern game? Let us know in the comments!

As the next console Bond title after a certain influential game by Rare, "Tomorrow Never Dies" arrived on the scene with lofty expectations that it could never hope to meet. Even forgetting about its predecessor, however, the PlayStation game struggles to ever get out of first gear as it trudges along ten uneventful missions lacking any sort of depth. The gameplay does not encourage approaching scenarios in any other way besides shooting everything and hoping something hits. The third-person shooter does not control well enough to make up for its uninspired levels or frustrating inventory system.

There is no other console that 007 is more synonymous with than the Nintendo 64. While "The World Is Not Enough" cannot take any credit for Bond’s legacy on the system, the Nintendo 64 version of the game is still an admirable early first-person shooter with varied missions, impressive visuals for the console, and solid mechanics for the time. Although not without flaws – the multiplayer is nothing more than serviceable and the enemy AI leaves a lot to be desired – "The World Is Not Enough" gets plenty of things right and delivers a thrilling adventure with a fair amount of replay value.

While Bond games came out at a steady rate throughout the '80s, most have been lost to time for a reason. "A View To A Kill: The Computer Game" is an oddly ambitious title that tries to incorporate three different play styles; it’s a shame that none of them are particularly well-executed. Whether slowly driving through the streets of Paris or scouring a mine to find the codes needed to stop a bomb, "A View To A Kill" manages to be consistently boring. Bond would star in some good games towards the end of the '80s, but this was certainly not one of them.

Globe-trotting, missile-stopping and underwater-driving is exactly the type of stuff that we expect from a James Bond adventure. Freed from a movie to adapt, "Nightfire" tells an archetypal 007 story that makes fun use of the franchise's penchant for outlandish scenarios and extravagant gadgets. The single-player is an enjoyable ride while it lasts, and it shakes things up just enough to keep things from growing stale. Although "Nightfire" plays like a bog-standard early 2000s FPS, the missions do leave room for some experimentation and stealth. Like the campaign, "Nightfire's" multiplayer was unspectacular but still a good time.

Remember that sequence involving a speedboat in 1973's "Live and Let Die?" Well, this 1988 game remembers. To its credit, "Live and Let Die" is at least unique among Bond games, mostly because it started as a boat-centric racing title that had nothing to do with the 007 brand. Split into four levels that last only around five minutes each but feel much longer, "Live and Let Die" is a monotonous racer with little to no diversity or excitement. Except for the speedboat spitting out bullets and sounding awful while doing it, there is nothing remotely Bond-worthy in this game.

During the early and mid-2000s, 007 games became a reliable source for respectable B-grade shooters. "Agent Under Fire'' does not attempt to set a new standard for gaming in any way, but not every release has to be revolutionary. The FPS tells a derivative but inoffensive original Bond story while putting together a solid compilation of shooting galleries, driving sequences, and set pieces. ‘Bond Moves’ make for a cool feature that’s sure to satisfy MI6-themed power fantasies; they were such a highlight, in fact, that they made a return in “Nightfire.” All in all,“Agent Under Fire” runs well and looks pretty good, especially on the GameCube.

On paper, a mission-based racing game highlighting 007's expansive collection of cars sounds amazing; in reality, "007 Racing" is nothing but a disappointment. Once the initial excitement of driving the Aston Martin DB5 or the BMW Z3 subsides, all that is left is an awkward racer with bad graphics, frustrating controls, and an inconsistent framerate. "007 Racing" is not without its occasional moment of adrenaline, but they are so few and far between that they end up making the game's lesser qualities stand out even more. Honestly, games like "Nightfire" and "Everything to Nothing" have far better driving sections than "007 Racing."

Of all the James Bond games released over the years, none feel more like a summer blockbuster than "Everything or Nothing." A third-person action game with a Hollywood cast and production value to match, EA's game blends gunplay, a cinematic presentation, fantastic driving sequences, and moments of unadulterated popcorn nonsense to create a pure Bond experience. Any game that has 007 getting into shootouts on the side of buildings must be doing something right. Even though the gameplay is not perfect, "Everything or Nothing" has more than enough variety to deliver a thoroughly enjoyable campaign.

A game so bad, Bond decided to retire for the best part of a decade. Playing out like a greatest hits collection of some of Bond's movie romps, "007 Legends" throws Daniel Craig into the mix and then strips away any personality from these sequences. For a game so driven by nostalgia, "007 Legends" shows very little interest in celebrating Bond's legacy, opting to play like a generic first-person shooter with no finesse, style, or intelligence. While the films sought to take the franchise in a more mature direction, "007 Legends" dumbed down the experience to such an extent that it lost Bond in the process.

Really, is anyone surprised? A landmark release in console gaming history, Rare's "GoldenEye 007" showed that a mouse and keyboard are not required to craft brilliant first-person shooters. The robust single-player campaign highlights the game's impressive environments, deep gameplay, and clever mission structures that require some thought to complete. As great as the story is, "GoldenEye 007" is all about its frantic four-player multiplayer—a mode so fun that this experience alone was enough to warrant investing in a Nintendo 64 at the time. Every Bond game released after 1997 exists in the shadow of "GoldenEye 007."