GoldenEye 2 confirmed

It had to happen: EA – as it’s been doing all year – has confirmed our suspicions and announced a follow up to GoldenEye, and will be releasing the game on PS2, Xbox and GameCube this Christmas.

As reported nearly three weeks ago, the game is in development at EA’s Los Angeles studio and allows "players [to] become the ultimate villain in the Bond universe," according to EA big cheese John Riccitiello.

Yes. You get to be the bad guy for a change.

GoldenEye 2 will be a departure for Bond games in that you don't actually play as Bond. This time you'll play as GoldenEye, a Brit secret agent who has been kicked out of M16’s double-O programme for “reckless brutality” – much like the disgraced Sean Bean’s character in the original 1995 movie.

EA furnished us with the following update this morning: "You play a 00-agent gone bad, you're hired by Goldfinger to help take over the criminal underworld from Dr. No". Blimey. "Why be good when you can be bad, and why be bad when you can be evil?". I ask myself this every morning.

EA has also confirmed that GoldenEye 2 will be a first person shooter and it's "a successor to the original GoldenEye game, not a sequel. Bond movies are not sequels - we're simply taking some great elements from the GoldenEye movie storyline (key: a renegade 00-agent) and have created an all new original story".

Meanwhile Everything Or Nothing looks certain to take the top spot on this evening’s UK chart. A rather sickly Tom emerged from his death bed over the weekend to report that he’d nearly completed all 27 levels, so expect a full review as soon as the germs that be are vanquished by Bramwell’s mighty constitution.