GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64 is my favorite video game of all time and among the best ever made. Even with some of its technical flaws and how viewing it from a modern perspective makes it look dated, the game holds up as being a masterpiece of its time and still has so much replay value and lessons to teach.
However, we've all praised GoldenEye constantly. Sometimes, it's more interesting to pick apart the minor problems, if not just for a different discussion. That's what I'm going to do here as something recently struck me as quite annoying:
Why is Jack Wade not in the game?
There's this weird thing about GoldenEye (the movie) where Jack Wade comes in to replace Felix Leiter as James Bond's CIA contact ally. It's somewhat understandable, as the last time we saw Felix, his wife was killed and he was fed partially to a shark. He's probably no longer an active agent.
Wade is played by Joe Don Baker, which is odd, since he was one of the primary villains of just TWO films ago, Brad Whitaker. But that's not where the weird stuff ends.
Remember how Bond gets that car from Q with the stinger missiles behind the headlights? Do you remember what he does with it in the film? Nothing. The car chase is actually Bond inside of a tank (which is in the game in not just Streets, but also Runway, replacing the motorcycle, which is odd, especially since the bike was rendered and in the code but not accessible to ride). Bond tosses the keys to the car to Jack and tells him not to push any buttons. Wade laughs, drives off and that's about it.
I think we're missing a level here. They couldn't have created a whole new driving mechanic for a car chase or something, but this game took liberties all over the place with the story. Bond never went to the bunker in Severnaya, for instance. There are two Surface and Bunker levels along with Silo. What is Caverns, exactly?
So while I agree there should have been a Casino level, I think there also should have been a better version of the Jungle/Caverns setup and Wade should have been part of it.
The mission should have been something like Beach. Perhaps it would have involved you setting up some kind of rendezvous with Wade and then passing information along to him so he can get it to the military guys that pop up later.
But even if that couldn't have been practical to add that sort of level, the very least that should have happened was for him to be a multiplayer character. Take a variation of Zukovsky, slim it down a bit, craft Baker's face as close as you can get it, slap on the patterned shirt and light pants, give him his hat and you're good to go.
In a game that has so many characters to pick from, even if they were small parts of the film (helicopter pilot) or not in the movie at all (Siberian Special Forces), Jack Wade is the most glaring omission. He's not even a character like Anna that wouldn't make sense as a playable role. Wade is a CIA agent. He should be able to handle a gun and shoot people and such.
I'm assuming it has to be a likeness rights issue, but I hadn't come across that information when I was playing this as a kid, so it always felt strange. Why would they not be able to lock that down when they could with everyone else, as well as people from previous Bond films? Baron Samedi is in the game with an Egypt level and the Golden Gun and none of that makes any sense, but Jack Wade isn't in the game in the movie he was a big supporting character for?!
Crazy. Toss out your theories and thoughts in the comments below.
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