|
|
|
 |
|
|
| James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing |
|
|
| Written by Si Holmes |
|
|
Saturday, 12 February 2005
Since being founded in 1982, Electronic Arts has established itself as one of the major publishers in the video game industry. The Californian giant’s dominance is arguably down to the success of it’s ‘EA sports’ brand in the 1990s. Titles like ‘John Madden’, ‘NHL Hockey’, and ‘FIFA soccer’ tapped into the desire – and hence pockets - of sports fans across the world to emulate the success of their favourite teams in the comfort of their own homes. In that respect EA played their hand smartly, using the premise that players wanted to play with realistic team rosters, the yearly EA update was born. Likewise James Bond Everything or Nothing could really be called James Bond 2004, an update on the last outing, ‘Night fire’, but that isn’t the way in non-sports games.
What EA do have are the perfect resources for a multi genre title such as this. For instance they can use the ‘Need for Speed’ engine, which is already a successful game, to power the driving sections. They also have the cash pile to shell out on a galactic cast list: Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, Heidi Klum, Shannon Elizabeth, Richard Kiel, John Cleese, and Dame Judi Dench, no less. Plus a song and appearance by Maya, who sang on the theme to the film Moulin Rouge. It’s impressive for sure. More so is the cinematic quality of the game. The first time the player puts the disc in the drive, the game begins unprompted, just like a film, with Bond doing the classic ‘character in action’ bit as per the start of most of the famous films (maybe not surprising since the game’s plot was written by the screenwriter for the last three Bonds). Once this is completed the game continues in true style by playing the ubiquitous hyper-produced title sequence. It’s awesome stuff. Although after the initial loading the game does default to a drab ‘press start’ title screen.
Generally speaking, though, most people don’t buy games for their cinematic quality, but the argument here is that it is exactly this quality that most warrants the purchasing of this title. That is not to say that the game play is poor, it’s just that it’s all been seen before. The third person sections act like a cross between Splinter Cell’s stealth ethos and GTAs flagrant auto aim shoot what moves action. It works quite well thanks, in part, to some of the nicest enemy AI to be seen for a while. The crouching and wall hugging aspect of it is nice and fun to play. The targeting system is dodgy though, but generally Bond is powerful enough to take out any on rushing enemies without too much trouble, and you cant realistically expected to survive being ambushed from behind by a guy with a machine gun, can you?
The driving sections were this reviewer’s favourite part despite having heard the contrary elsewhere. For instance, without giving too much away, the first scene involves having to chase after a train on a motorbike whilst under attack from assorted henchmen in jeeps and helicopters. The graphics and scripting are superb, the sense of speed immediate, and the scenery fantastic; it is, quite simply, an exhilarating experience. And yes, the evil word scripting slipped in there. Well, it is a little unrealistic that the same cars will appear at the same point each time and the missile will make the same rock drop into your path each time, but on the other hand it is done in order to keep the drama high each time the sequence plays out. It’s more of a test of pattern recognition and skilled manoeuvring than just being lucky. It’s easy to see the negative to this, but in the context of the game it works fine.
No doubt there are other better examples of the genres found in this game (though perhaps few integrated together so well), but no game has the level of pizzazz that a Bond licence brings. It’s a game for fans of the films, people who want cinematic set pieces and cut scenes, and EA handsomely delivers. It’s hard to actually rate the game per se; because as a game it isn’t all that much, but as an experience it harks back to the way it felt to watch the storyline in Halo, with all the scripted twists and turns, evolve. Sure it’s like hiring an expensive movie, but it’s more than just a movie because the player takes part; you, yes you, can be James Bond. Feels great, doesn’t it? So in the end the game gets a slightly better than average review score on gaming merits, but if you love high octane cinema, prefer ‘The Getaway’ to ‘Vice City’, or just plain want to be a British secret service agent and pull Shannon Elizabeth, then this is for you.
6 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Lik-Sang |
| Proudly sponsored by Lik-Sang.com |
| Copyright |
| All content, unless noted otherwise, Copyright © 2005 AltGaming. AltGaming is not affiliated or endorsed by Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft or any other video game publishers or developers. All products, images and other material contained within this website are © and ™ to their respective owners. Duplication of AltGaming content in any way is strictly prohibited. |
|
|
|
|
|
