007: Nightfire

The Good
| The Name is James, Bond James |
From the very start, this games hooks you up as FMV opening sets a unique theme song and as the game starts, you see a typical "James Bond shooting atcha" screen and the story opens with a dynamic action sequence. Being my first and currently the only James Bond game in my collection, I'll put aside my personal feelings for EA and keep getting these games if they keep making them this good, and this James Bond alike. The plot is different yet so perfect for James Bond universe, it has all you need to it, women, loads of badguys, a madman, and secret agent, and captures the essence of James Bond in the best possible sense you could imagine.

| Ready 2 Rumble |
This is basically a FPS (first-person shooter) with some huge exceptions. Aside from regular weapons you may find in other shooters, there are Q's gadgets that James Bond could do without, plus you get to drive Aston Martin (it'll probably be BMW in next one) with explosive Need4Speed experience. But that ain't the only vehicle, you'll drive heavily armored battle jeep, submarine version of your car, or be at a gunman point of a snowmobile or a small plane with, duh, woman at the driving seat. When you're on foot, you can only play in first-person view, though some actions will trigger third-person view automatically (e.g. cable walking), but when in your car you'll be able to switch between first-person and third-person view on the fly. Engine works splendid and graphic and sound effects are top notch as well as James' humorous responses.

| Bond 2 the MAX |
On the fun side, you'll never get bored or see just more of the same, each mission will be unique experience and with extraordinary quality of speed of visuals and dynamics on the screen. There will be stunts like you could only expect to see in James Bond movie, like driving snowmobile through the Alpes and jumping off the cliff and right through the pursuing chopper, or driving a car right through the restaurants due taking the shortcut. This game has a hype that'll live up to your expectations, whether just an action fan or James Bond fan in general, this is something you gotta love to try.

The Bad
Not much, perhaps it might've been a little longer, but when you spot all the details it has, you just take it as one of those masterpieces that end up being short because it simply takes time to make even the slightest level with such quality.

The Bottom Line
| The Game That Injected Me Some Hope About Electronic Arts |
You can forget about watching any James Bond movies after getting this game. It gives you more time to enjoy than a movie, and has better plot than most of James Bond movies, takes you to more exotic locations, and gives you plenty of scenes to let you believe you're being a renowned secret agent himself in the movie of top quality. I used to love James Bond movies as a kiddo, but kinda lots the touch for them a few years ago. This game I actually bought as it was on a special discount. Luckily, I never imagined it could achieve this level of amazement and perfection, and ensure my step back in the world of James Bond series. The reason I liked this one so much may perhaps be it's very similar to Moonraker, the second best JB movie I've seen (first one is The Living Daylights), and the voice actor that gave voice to James Bond fits perfectly, I could barely notice it isn't Pierce Brosnan, since character model is made after him. This is not just a game, nor an interactive movie, this is a true experience which I can hope will be followed by equal in quality series, and not just give-us-more-money-'cos-we're-EA sequels.

The Good
I am a die-hard James Bond fan and so my expectations on this game were high. You can't imagine my joy when I booted this game up and it started right with the Bond eye sequence and then ofcourse the introductory "5 minutes warmup" scene every Bond movie has to have. This scene consists of full motion video sequences (very cool looking!) and player interactivity - first, you need to shoot some enemies from a helicopter and then you need to take over the steering wheel and drive a lady home safe ;) After the intro scene was done, well, what to expect? Yes - there is no Bond movie without the colorful and often weird "women-dancing-with-guns" sequence where the credits are displayed. Sure enough the game sports this and with an original song too!

After user creation, you'll be dropped right into the action. The game consists of three gameplay modes: first person shooter, rail shooter and driving. In the first mission, you need to get into a castle in Austria and steal some chip from the safe, then escape with your fellow woman spy. It's almost dark outside, snow is falling, and the guards are on alert. Here you can use your Bond gear and weapons. You start with the Walther PPK but you'll get a sniper rifle and submachine gun quickly. In this mission, you'll also need to use your watch laser to open a safe and cut some wires (beware: cutting the wrong wires like I did results in alert).

After some shootouts, you'll escape with the female spy in a gondola down the mountain where you'll be attacked by a bad guy in a helicopter. You will need to shoot it down with your rocket launcher ;)

Next on is a railshooter segment where the lady spy is driving a snow mobile down the mountain and James is at the gun, shooting everything that moves. These are very well designed sequences with lots of speed and great full motion video - you feel like you're watching a Bond movie.

The third mode was imported straight from the EA game "Need for Speed" - you need to drive the Bond car and accomplish the given mission.

Most of the sequences will be shooting scenes, but they will be alternated with railshooter and driving scenes so it doesn't get boring. There is always action on the screen, be it hard shooting stuff or tense sneaky intruding into buildings. There also are 10 different locations in various countries.

All movie sequences, be it in game or full motion video, are very nice modelled and of course with full speech. James Bond himself is spoken by the current movie actor Pierce Brosnan.

Ok, so now after all this gibberish I need to tell you what I liked ... well, I liked that it's like a Bond movie. EA didn't do the mistake and waste this license on some stupid shooting game without a proper story, they really put effort into it, wrote a story which is like a typical Bond movie story (crazy dude wants atomic war etc.). They made great movie sequences, used the original actor to speak Bond, created interesting missions with pretty graphics, let you use new and classic gadgets... well - it's a Bond movie! They even designed a sidekick to the bad guy who really looks and talks like Oddjob or his likes, and pretty (!) girls. Even the dialogue is really typical Bond style - on the party in the first mission, the bad sidekick approaches Bond, grinning like a shark, and asks with a threatening voice: "Do you enjoy the party, Sir?" :)

Yes, thank you - I did!

The Bad
The controls are a bit unprecise and the speech is too low - you often can't hear a thing (but there are subtitles). I also found the guards in the first mission were way too dumb - they never even walked around a corner (in later missions they get better though). Also, the sound the guards make are not well positioned - it always sounds like they stand next to you, but they often enough are far away.

The Bottom Line
If you like James Bond movies and action games, it's the one for you! There never was anything more authentic to the original movies than James Bond Nightfire. Hell, there was never a better movie licensed game (apart from Die Hard Nakatomi Plaza, but that was for the PC only I think).

The Good
The storyline is bad, but neither is it good. Some of the missions seem lacking in point. The multiplayer is what makes this game so good. In my book the secret to a good multiplayer, which also in my opinion is why games should exist, is that they should have massive interactive levels, lots of game play options, and a ton of weapons. This game has all of these and even more than that. The levels are incredibly large, almost always with two different sides. The gadgets in the multi. mode are actually used, I have used the grapple to escape on many an ocasion. There are a control scheme for every bond movie and for the game, which is probably the easiest to use. The AI can be horrible or incredibly smart and well capable of you. I have practiced against these AI so much that my friends will no longer play with me because I always .

The Bad
The way that too many elements are introduced to the same game. Leave stealth to Splinter Cell, and driving to Gran Turismo.

The Bottom Line
You should buy this game for its multi.