For as long as gaming has been in the mainstream, there have been games based on movie licenses. It’s no surprise, really; when you’re spending millions of dollars making a movie, it’s only natural that you should look to whatever outlets you can find in order to recoup some of those costs. So you see lunch boxes, pajamas, action figures…and video games.

It’s no coincidence that much of the marketing for the biggest movie tie-ins has been aimed at kids; there’s has been (and remains) a common perception that kids have no taste (how else, one might ask, to explain the rampant success of McDonald’s?). However, it’s worth noting that the video game industry isn’t the fledgling it once was. Ten and twenty years ago, the Hollywood-Silicon Valley synergy gave us crap like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Back to the Future III. It’s a credit to the youth of the 80s and 90s that those games sold quite poorly - E.T. so poorly that Atari buried thousands of copies in the New Mexico desert once upon a time, or so the tale goes. Still, that didn’t deter video game publishers from eagerly seeking the license to make games based on hit movies.

I remember reading a video game magazine in my youth – probably EGM – wherein was published an article on what was then a growing trend regarding the collaboration between the two industries. I don’t remember who precisely was quoted, but the effect was along the lines of “Theoretically, we could have movie sets constructed for the purpose of using that footage in our games,” as well as the obvious allusions to the use of video and audio likenesses of the Talent in games.

The march of progress is well and good, but it was lost on a generation for whom it was akin to saying “Someday, we’ll all live on Mars and have personal jet packs.” It was a nice thought, but when confronted with the piles of really, really bad games coming from major licenses, it was taken with a liberal dosage of salt. Time passed, and the kids of the 80s and 90s grew up. So, too, did gaming technology, and suddenly, we find ourselves confronted with that dream become reality.

The revolution, as it were, started with audio collaboration, as it always had to. The cartridges used by the 16-bit systems were capable of carrying sound, but realistic visual presentation of humans was more or less out of the question. Hence, it was possible to render Mickey just as he looks on a movie screen, but Tom Cruise was another matter. The CD-based revolution of the early-to-mid 1990s brought things full circle, as it was now possible to incorporate actual video footage into games to further connect the two worlds.

I like to think that I have a healthy dose of jaded cynicism. I seldom take things at face value – particularly where games are concerned – because that, over time, has proven itself as the best way to wind up with egg on one’s face. Cautious optimism, that’s the watchword of the day, and none of the “irrationale exuberance” against which Alan Greenspan cautioned in the US stock market in the late 90s. So I find myself somewhat at a loss for words regarding what EA has managed to cook up with their latest game using the James Bond license: 007: Everything or Nothing. This isn’t a review – that will follow, but I can tell you right now it’s going to be very positive – although I can understand where what’s to come might read that way.

Essentially, if you had asked a Hollywood director or a video game producer 15 years ago what the definition of ‘convergence’ was to them, they would have described something very similar to Everything or Nothing. A game that looks, sounds, and feels like a movie, while still retaining the interactive element. That sort of convergence is what Enter the Matrix tried, and failed, to achieve, which makes it all the more astonishing that Electronic Arts have managed to pull it off. Their track record with licenses of late has been superb, although admittedly it’s hard to go wrong when two of your highest-profile games are action/combat types representing the distillation of all the best action scenes from the movies.

Everything or Nothing, though, does more than just throw up some accurately-rendered character models to make you feel like you’re actually controlling Pierce Brosnan. The script for the game was well-written, with dialog that wouldn’t be at all out of place were this actually Bond 21, as opposed to an original Bond game, and the voice acting is not only top-notch, but chock-full of celebrities. Pierce Brosnan plays the role of 007, of course, but Judi Dench is also on board as ‘M’, with John Cleese as ‘Q’. Willem Dafoe is the bad guy, with Heidi Klum and Shannon Elizabeth, and Mya all making appearances as well (heck, Mya even did the theme song for the game). Top to bottom, the production values are superb.

This isn’t, of course, the first time that big-name Hollywood talent has popped up in voice acting roles. Mark Hamill, best known as Luke Skywalker, has lent his voice to many a Wing Commander game over the years. Christopher Walken, part of the Creepy Bad Guy Duo with Dafoe, had a prime role in the recent True Crime: Streets of L.A., and Ray Liotta was excellent in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Now, the quality of the games themselves has been varied, but in each case, the voice work was excellent from the talent in question, which links itself right back to my earlier assertion: the revolution was heard before it was seen.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that because of Everything or Nothing, every licensed game from here on out is going to automatically be a worldbeater. A glance around at other recent movie licensees puts that notion to bed without a whimper. What I am suggesting is that the standard has been set. For so many years, we’ve seen hints of everything that such games could be, as well as overt examples of what they shouldn’t be, but this is the first time I can remember seeing and playing a game that just stood up and shouted “THIS is how a high-profile license should be treated.”

Such hyperbole doesn’t come freely to me. It goes against the grain of everything I generally stand for where games are concerned. Heck, a big part of why I do what I do is to help discerning individuals slice through the hype and determine which games are worthy of the hype, which games are blatantly unworthy, and which games perhaps deserve the hype, but don’t get it. There are jewels to be found, but finding them requires sifting through a mountain of garbage, to put it another way.

This is already running a little bit longer than I had planned, so let me just wrap this up with one final thought. The game industry is rife with examples of copycatting – and heck, EA’s more recent use of the Simpsons shows that they’re not above that fray. I would suggest, however, that if game developers are looking for concepts to adapt to their own purposes, that they take a long, hard look at Everything or Nothing. I don’t mean to imply that they should make a game that plays exactly the same way. I don’t mean that at all. What I mean is simply that they should look at how EA approached the use of the Bond license this time around, and how they managed to seamlessly meld the 007 experience with a game that’s truly a joy to play.

It goes without saying that even the greatest license in the world can’t save you if the gameplay concept is trash (Superman is an unfortunate example), and it’s true that there are some movies for which licensed video games are just plain bad ideas. It’s for that reason that I fear we’ll always have licensed dreck of one sort or another to deal with. However, if more license-holders follow EA’s lead, then perhaps we’ll one day have a world in which many of the best games make equal use of the talents of Hollywood, as well as the brightest minds in game development. It’s an exciting concept. I hope I’m here to see it come to fruition.