From Russia With Love given gold finger

This week, Sony Pictures revealed that British actor Daniel Craig (Layer Cake) will be the new film James Bond. However, the latest Bond game sees the original actor who played Agent 007, Sean Connery, return to the role. Developed and published by Electronic Arts, the game is a reworking of the 1963 classic From Russia With Love, which critics consider the second-best Bond film after 1964's Goldfinger. It also marks the second time Connery has played Bond since he officially left the series following 1971's Diamonds Are Forever. He also starred in the sole "unofficial" James Bond movie, 1983's Never Say Never Again.

Today, Connery's first game outing took its penultimate step toward release. EA announced the From Russia With Love game has gone gold and been sent to the factory for duplication. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions will ship on November 1, while the GameCube version will be released in the middle of the month.

From Russia With Love will feature most of the major events of the film, which sees Bond dispatched to Istanbul to obtain a code machine from a slinky Soviet agent who wants to defect. In fact, the agent is an unwitting pawn of S.P.E.C.T.R.E., the sinister multinational crime syndicate that wants to acquire the machine for itself and kill Bond in the process. However, the game also contains many new sequences not found in the film, such as an opening scene that sees S.P.E.C.T.R.E. raid Parliament in London. The now-septuagenarian Connery recorded new dialogue for the scenes, which his much-younger onscreen incarnation recites.

For more details about From Russia With Love's gameplay and story, check out GameSpot's previous coverage, including our recent hands-on preview.