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The
quintessential spy is back at it again in a new release for
the Playstation 2. James Bond fresh off a new movie (Die
Another Day) is back in the gaming arena to continue to hone
his skills. The previous release last year, James Bond 007:
Agent Under Fire was the first new release for 007 on the next
generation consoles. The original GoldenEye for the N64
started it all off. The latest first person shooter from
Electronic Arts continues the legacy rather well.
The game play is as expected with James Bond and numerous
shapely polygon Bond girls trying to defeat an evil empire. At
least that is what to expect in the Story mode of the game
where there are 12 missions to complete with 4 sub-sections
each. However, this time there is also a
multi-player (up to 4 players) |
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aspect that has
an additional 13 missions and locations to play games like
capture the flag, king of the mountain and deathmatch in
smaller arenas than the story section. More multiplayer games
open up as you progress further through the story mode.
The Story Mode is broken down into different types of
adventures (the best part about the game). Different types
include straight-forward shoot and be shot FPS missions,
driving missions and puzzle missions. The puzzle missions are
few and far between and you typically just have to figure out
which gadget to use to get out of a particular section.
Driving missions either have Bond in his new Vanquish driving
the streets of Paris or converting the Vanquish into a sub for
an underwater adventure. Other vehicles include armor-clad
hummers and an airplane. In the airplane Bond isn’t flying the
plane, he is manning the turret gun – a very cool mission.
Bond has a large number of weapons and gadgets at his
disposal; from pistols to machineguns to sniper rifles, to
laser guns and even a grenade launchers. Most of the weapons
also have alternate fire capabilities where they can be
silenced, changed from automatic to burst mode or even have
armor piercing bullets loaded into them if you were lucky to
find any. Some of the cooler weapons would have to be the
sniper rifle or the Suit Case Chain Gun that you target
remotely. By progressing through more of the game additional
weapons and gadgets become available to 007.
The gadgets are pretty much the same from the previous
revision: grapple, watch laser, night vision sunglasses,
decrypter and others. One improvement NightFire has over Under
Fire is the coaching. There are three difficulty settings and
in either medium (Agent) of difficult (007) you will find very
little coaching, which for me makes
for a more challenging and
intriguing game. I hate to have all of the secrets pointed out
to me. Speaking of secrets each mission normally has different
paths that can be taken to complete it, typically a
straight-ahead guns blazing approach and a stealth sneak
around, try not to be spotted approach.
The graphics for NightFire are better this time around,
especially the character animation. James Bond looks almost
exactly like Pierce Brosnan, the latest film Bond. The
environments are crisp, clean and expansive. The surroundings
are all full and complete no matter where you are. Whether you
are on top of a crane or in an air conditioning duct
everything looks good. While driving at top speed in the
Vanquish or sliding down a cable there is virtually no
framerate loss. The cut scenes used to advance the story-line
are even better that the actual game and look very realistic.
Sound is awesome in this game. During most of the game the
background music is the timeless 007 theme music (dum da dum
dum, da dum dum…) but it gets changed around often by using
different instruments and effects. One of the instruments is a
sax-like sound that reminds me of Lisa Simpson blowing her
horn. Character voices are very well done and the lips even
match the words, especially funny are the Bond-esque
one-liners. Car engines sound good and authentic, even the
submarine sounded perfect. Footsteps are very accurate and
even depict the type of surface you are walking on – snow,
metal, dirt, stairs etc. Sound is an integral point of the
game and improves the gameplay a lot. Warning sounds, alarms
and just the speed of the background music all make the game
that much more absorbing while they help you weave your way
through the different missions.
I had a lot of fun playing this game and will probably go back
and tinker with some of my completed missions, but once it is
finished I don’t think it has that re-play quality. The
multi-player aspect of the game increases its replay ability a
little, but there are plenty of better multiplayer games out
there. The story mode is a lot of fun and enthralling, but it
shouldn’t take an experienced player more than a couple of
weeks to finish the game. The only other gripe and a common
theme of recent game releases is the save frequency. As
mentioned above each of the 12 missions is broken into 4
sub-sections however you can only save after each full
mission. Luckily if you die and continue playing you only go
back to your last sub-section completed, but some of these
missions took me hours to figure out, I wish I could have
saved and continued wherever I wanted.
Either way, for true James Bond fans this is a must have for
everyone else rent it, finish it and be done with it.
Hoover Rating:
3.5 out of 5 Planets
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