Posted October 24, 2023 I personally think that dual analogue suits the game a lot - it was the first game to have them (you just needed to use two controllers). James Bond 007 (Game Boy) Original Release: 1998 Developer: Saffire Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Game Boy The other James Bond game published by Nintendo. Released in 1998 (the same year the Game Boy Color came out), this quietly drifted by and is mostly forgotten now. I must admit that I didn’t expect that much from this game – with the generic title and releasing quite late in the original Game Boy’s life, I had my own biased expectations: this was probably just a basic side scrolling shooter. Unfortunately, while some Game Boy games were suited to palettes and would automatically load them to have colour on a Super Game Boy or Game Boy Color, James Bond on Game Boy remains entirely black and white – possibly none of the combinations of colours worked for the game, so you have to make do with an entirely monochrome experience. However, my disappointment wavered when I realised that this wasn’t just a lazy side scrolling shooter/platformer: It’s a Bond adventure that takes some cues from Zelda (particularly Link’s Awakening). You collect items and weapons, using them to progress he game and fight. From the select screen, you can assign these items (as well as Bond’s punch and block abilities) to the A and B buttons. The game starts out in a Chinese village, the way is blocked by a broken bridge and you have to find a the repairman’s hammer to fix it – this serves as a simple but effective introduction to finding and using items. From here, you investigate the temples village looking for clues of an international smuggling ring, where you have to fight Zhong Mae, the dojo sensei and the Bond Girl of this adventure, then fight your way though villages before escaping on a boat. Returning to MI6 headquarters, you get your next mission from M and gadgets from Q, where you can mess around with a few thing (much to Q’s dismay). The dialogue in this game is simple but charming, and captures the spirit of the characters surprisingly well, and the structure of the plot fits the style of Bond films, with lots of neat little touches that just adds to the charm of the game. You get sent to Kurdistan to investigate the disappearance of 008, who was investigating the warlord currently in control of the region. One absolutely tiny detail fascinated me: a flies. They’re only three pixels flapping about, but such a tiny detail just helps make the game more alive. You’ll be using a lot of trading and solving a few puzzles here before finding and defeating the warlord and getting information that Oddjob is operating out of a market in Marrakech. This was my favourite level. It’s quite vast with three parts to it: luring a middleman to a casino, finding a diamond and searching catacombs for a “ratman”. This level is where the “maze-like” structure starts to crop up, but the levels aren’t so expansive, so you can learn how to navigate them. In the casino, you need to make money playing Blackjack, Baccarat and Red Dog in order to reach the high earners table and attack the attention of the man who never wins. In the market, you take part in a large trading cats, where you end up with all sorts of things in your inventory, such as a cat. When you first explore the area, you’ll get hints so when do you find items, you’ll have an idea of where you’ll need them. The catacombs are more combat-based, where you’ll need to find a secret entrance to what is very clearly a brothel (but portrayed in a kid-friendly way), the “ratman” and also a back door to the casino. Once you’ve done all this, you’ll gain access to Oddjob’s room, where Bond is unequipped to deal with him. Before you die, Oddjob decides that it’s more fun to have Bond be trapped in the desert, near an oasis but too far to get anywhere without being able to carry water. Luckily for Bond, a man on a camel happens to pass buy with a spare canteen, and then MI6 contacts him to let him know that there’s a nearby airfield. If you found the satellite map on the previous level, it’s easy to follow the coordinates. If not, you’ll have to wander around until you find it. The next place is investigating another temple in Tibet, where you have to find objects to help you scale a mountain to the temple at the top. Here the game gets a bit more combat heavy, with less attention on the puzzle side, which is a bit disappointing, but still fun. Once you make it to the temple, you have to fights far too many rooms of sumo wrestlers, only for it to be a trap as Bond gets taken to Oddjob’s secret base. This is where Zhong Mae makes a reappearance, breaking Bond out because she’s realised that letting these smuggle to help her village is actually something much, much bigger than she expected. She goes off to disable the base’s security as you need to reequip, find a way to counter Oddjob’s attack and finally defeat him, getting him to tell you who is behind everything. Oddjob doesn’t know, but lets you know of a middleman that does, back in Kurdistan. In the power vacuum caused by getting rid of the previous warlord, war has broken out. Scattered around are dead bodies being picked apart by birds, a pretty grim sight for a Nintendo-published Game Boy game. After fighting both warring leaders (one fighting to the death and the other being an abject coward), Bond finds who it is and where their secret base is located. The final section of the game is much more combat orientated, with the only puzzles being playing with switches until you get the right combination (made clear by a Bond theme jingle). I’m not sure if this is the intended way, or if I missed a clue somewhere. After defeating the villain, you have to make it past his defences to stop his missiles from launching, as wall as saving Zhong Mae (who got fed up of waiting for Bond and found out the base’s location on her own). The game ends in regular Bond fashion, and there’s also a secret ending: if you mess about in Q’s lab, you can find a hidden item, this item unlocks the final scene. The credits also give you some codes that allow you to play the card games by entering the codes as names when creating a save file. James Bond on Game Boy is fairly short, but is far more than it ever needed to be. It’s very enjoyable and captures the spirit of a Bond adventure as a whole more than any other Bond game. I’d love to see a modern interpretation of this style of game for James Bond – there’s more to the character than just shooting everyone. --- GoldenEye 007 Grip Game Original Release: 1998 Developer: Tiger Publisher: Tiger Platform: Electronic Handheld Not played: Very rare The Grip Game was a different format to the standard Tiger Electronic Handheld. This mimics a vertical scrolling shooter where Bond uses a pistol, machine gun and shotgun to gun through waves of enemies. The final boss of the game is the GoldeneEye satellite, which shoots back at you. 2 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 24, 2023 I've always wanted to try that 007 GB game at some point, alongside Daikatana GBC. Looks like a really neat Zelda-alike 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 24, 2023 I still recall getting the Game Boy Bond game from Woolworths one evening for 20 quid. Had to have been 25 tops. Went through it a couple of times. Never thought of it like Link's Awakening... at the time, it was just a game. I remember lots of baccarat? Blackjack? Both? And going through the catacombs with the machete. Think I relied on the machete a lot to conserve ammo. No idea what the general consensus was or what the boys at EMAP Towers said about it but I was riding high on the joys of GoldenEye 64 and had cash in the moneybox. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 26, 2023 Tomorrow Never Dies: The Mission Continues Original Release: Cancelled in 1996 Developer: Black Ops Publisher: MGM Interactive Platform: PlayStation Not Played: No leaked prototypes After the success of GoldenEye and Rare turning down working on a game for the next Bond film, MGM decided to buy the rights for James Bond games back from Nintendo so they can create their own game for Tomorrow Never Dies. A short trailer was released on the VHS for the film, where it was explained that the game would carry on from where the film ended. The brief clips we see are a car section, scuba section, a skiing section and a shooting segment in first person. When Electronic Arts purchased the licence, the game was moved under them, where it was reconfigured into a game following the film, instead of set after it. -- Tomorrow Never Dies Original Release: 1999 Developer: Black Ops Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: PlayStation After GoldenEye and the Game Boy games, the Bond license moved from Nintendo to Electronic Arts, with their first game based on the film Tomorrow Never Dies and developed by Black Ops Entertainment. While with GoldenEye, I recreated something close to the original experience, I want to give the other games the best chance possible, so I played games in emulators with improved resolution, widescreen and adjusting the controls to be more comfortable. Tomorrow Never Dies is a third person shooter with a focus on auto aim (although the auto aim is deliberately inaccurate). You can manually aim, but it’s very slow. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t take advantage of the DualShock controller, instead oping to focus entirely on the original controller. While it’s understandable they didn’t want to prevent anyone from playing, it’s a shame that they didn’t support additional options. The original control scheme uses X to shoot and the shoulder buttons to strafe, but I managed to make a more comfortable control scheme more like a standard third person shooter, just without the ability to look up and down. The first level has you fight through a snow base and target a communications tower by targeting it with a special camera (the best gadget use in the game), then escape by skiing down the mountain. The skiing is awkward but not terrible, although both Bond’s and the enemies attacks of flailing their arms looks absolutely pitiful. The health bar was an issue for me, I’m colourblind and could not make out any visual differences as I took damage. The life system is also a bit strange: you have limited lives and when you die, you just flash and carry on from exactly where you were. Each mission has one extra life hidden in it. After this first mission, you have a mission where you take pictures of some machinery and steal a jet (which I got in an it span around oddly until the mission ended). The missions in this game are fairly short and there are only 10 in the game. After the end of this mission, it cuts to a clip of the film, followed by the full opening credits, featuring the song from the film. I always found that the movie clips makes the game feel more disjointed, especially as everyone’s voices sounds different due to different voice actors. The next two missions are also fairly simple: obtaining information form Carver’s Media building and newspaper press. Gadgets are pretty much keycards, and you just shoot your way through the levels, even though the mission briefing implies stealth, other than manually aiming and shooting before the enemy is fully rendered, there is none. The next level is about rescuing and protecting Carver’s wife, here you are introduced to the game’s boss fights (they all work like this). You have to dodge their main attacks while either using an immense amount of ammo, or risk manually aiming for a headshot to take off a decent amount. It’s not an enjoyable way to do boss fights at all, and they’re all the same except for different projectiles. Next up is the game’s best mission: a car chase where you have to blow up an enemy convoy. It’s very basic, and like many other missions, is incredibly short, but it manages to not be frustrating and the handling is passable enough to have a bit of fun. This is followed immediately by another skiing mission that ends in a boss fight, before you infiltrate Carver’s headquarters, get captured and escape with Wai Lin – who has not been seen or mentioned at all in this game until she randomly appears when Bond gets captured. Without knowing the plot of the film quite well, you would be lost playing the game. While she randomly turned up at the end of the previous mission without being seen or mentioned previously, you now get to play as Wei Lin for a mission. M explains that she can’t send Bond as the guards have been ordered to shoot him on sight, so while playing as Wei, you turn around a corner and immediately get shot at by guards, so having Bond sent would have made no difference. She gets to fight a boss to get a rocket launcher and then use that to fight a helicopter, before having to decode information (done via a simple Mastermind-style minigame). This is the most action-spy level of the game, and Bond isn’t even part of it. Now you’re onto the final level, which has a confusing layout and lots of corridors that look exactly the same. You have to stop Carver from launching a nuke, and he is as strong as all the other bosses in the game. After you defeat him, you have to quickly cancel the nuclear launch then escape the boat. If you’re not playing on the hardest difficulty you’ll then get a message: finish on 00 Agent mode to get unlock the final cutscene. This is the only unlockable of the game, and if you trudge through the hardest difficulty, you’ll unlock this final cutscene: a two second long clip from the film of the boat exploding, followed by random clips of previous missions. It’s such a hilariously bad reward. There’s no fun unlockables, no difference other than enemy health and damage between difficulties and no multiplayer. It’s a very short, bare bones games and isn’t even a fun one. --- James Bond 007: Special Mission Original Release: 1999 Developer: Cabajou Publisher: Cabajou Platform: Board Game This one of the most difficult ones to track down, I found lots of low quality imagery, and most of that was from the French version – I eventually managed to convince someone on Board Game Geek to send me images of the English rulebook and text-heavy sections. From the vast amount of text and large looking rulebook, I initially thought that this was going to be a very complex game, but now I’ve seen the English version, it’s quite simple. It’s a time management and risk taking game where you have to travel the world using either slow public transport, or quick Q transport that requires spending tokens. Each player starts off a mission based on the newest 10 films at the time – from The Spy Who Loved Me to The World Is Not Enough. They will have to collect Q tokens (representing weapons, equipment and transport), move around and take part in combat. The easiest way to move between each location is handily listed on your mission sheet, although if you want to take a detour to London to get more equipment, you’ll have to use a bunch of charts and wheels to figure out the best way to move around. Events are very simple: you roll the 00 dice while the player to the left rolls the enemy dice, both are numbered 1-3, highest wins. The agent can spend tokens to beat the enemy – either weapons for combat events or equipment for intelligence events. Players have reliable “counter-intelligence” cards that list what their actions are – this is entirely flavour text as all you really need to do is roll a dice when told – really, each player could do it on their own. Still, it’s a nice touch to provide some kind of interactivity as this is essentially people playing their own games. To get equipment, you need to go to the MI6 headquarters in London. You choose a type and roll the relevant dice, drawing tokens to the value of your dice roll. You can stay in London and roll again on the next turn – it’s up to you to decide how much you want in reserve. However, if you don’t have enough and get beaten in combat by an enemy, you fail that mission and have to start a new one, gaining no points. Once you finish a mission, you score the points listed on the mission sheet, along with bonuses for having equipment left over. Then you pick the next mission. The goal is to be the first to collect 4000 points, which will take at least 2 missions to do. The winner gets the coveted 007 title. Special Mission is an interesting board game. It has a lot of writing but is ultimately a very simple game. Globetrotting to complete the missions is a good idea, although even with that, a lot of the planning is worked out for you. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 27, 2023 The World Is Not Enough (N64) Original Release: 2000 Developer: Eurocom Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Nintendo 64 While Tomorrow Never Dies skipped out on the Nintendo 64, The World Is Not Enough made a return, developed completely separately from the PlayStation version of the game. The N64 version of TWINE is heavily inspired by GoldenEye, following the same style of missions and level structure, but also tries to make the game more cinematic. Eurocom managed to fit a lot onto the N64 controller. Jumping is now an option, and crouch is just one button. Through button combinations, you can switch between items and gadgets separately, as well as activate alternative fire modes for the guns. Looking up and down is a bit awkward as you either have to hold down the aim button, or use the D-pad (which is a little bit out of the way on an N64 controller) – but this means that it’s quite easy to reconfigure the game to fit a dual analogue controller. Starting off with a nice simple tutorial level in a bank, this serves as a good introduction of the game’s mechanics, using gadgets and (on harder difficulties) erasing camera footage – this had a few extra objectives for harder difficulties, just like GoldenEye. The cutscenes in this have voice overs (but not the actors from the films) and are recreated in the game engine, with the story being rewritten so that the game itself makes sense without having to have seen the film. I much prefer this way of doing things, as it helps keep the game’s identity throughout the whole thing. Back at MI6 headquarters, not only does a bomb go off, but it gets invaded by goons, you have to fight them off, as well as putting out fires, protecting staff and enabling the security systems. It’s a really fun level, and is a great example of how the game expands upon scenes of the film. After the boat chase (which you don’t get to play), you chase the assassin through docks along the Themes, a straightforward level that introduces the grapple function of the watch, which can be used in certain spaces to climb upwards, adding some verticality to some levels. Taking advantage of the London setting, the assassin then proceeds into the Underground, having her goons take hostages and setting up a Bomb to try to slow Bond down. The trains are a bit crazy as you have to dodge them, but it’s very enjoyable, and you have to reach the assassin’s hot air balloon before she escapes. The levels in The World Is Not Enough to a good job of feeling alive and like real locations. I would have liked a few that are less linear, but they’re still enjoyable. Next up is a skiing mission, which is done in quite a simple way, feeling a bit like a light gun shooter. You can move left/right a bit and can speed up and slow down. There are a few targets that you need to hit, which can be a bit difficult and require restating the mission, which can be a bit annoying. Next up is the main stealth mission – in most other missions, stealth is optional, but works quite well. Your watch has a “stun” function which, really, is utterly useless – it just makes enemies wiggle and it stops right after you stop firing it at them. Luckily, your watch has a dart which does knock enemies out – or you can punch them to sleep. Here, you sneak around the grounds of Elektra’s house (and a little bit inside), tapping phones and taking photos of evidence. There are are few villains you need to avoid completely. I remember as a kid taking ages on this level, but once you have the guard patterns down, it isn’t too difficult. The following two levels are probably the weakest, but still not bad. One has you chasing after a henchman to replace him, you can be stealthy or as loud as you want (just be prepared for a lot of enemies). Then you try to stop Renard from stealing a bomb, meeting up with Christmas Jones and escaping from an explosion. The “cities of walkways” mission is split into two levels. The first is a fairly typical level as you fight some enemies to reach a computer containing evidence, while the second has you dodging helicopters with buzzsaws and is a great level, as you jump around on platforms that are being sliced then grab a fancy rocket launcher and guide missiles into an attacking chopper. A few more decent levels follow as you chase a traitor though Istanbul, then you get captured and have to rescue M and kill Elektra, then it’s on to infiltrating Renard’s submarine. You start off on the docks and have to kill the guards efficiently enough to avoid them setting off the alarm. Then you climb into the submarine – with no loading screen, which I thought was impressive when the game came out in order to rescue Dr. Jones and disable the submarine controls. The final level has a lot of swimming as you navigate the damaged submarine. The controls take some time to get used to, but it’s not so bad once you do – although as you had limited time in this mission, I think the game could have done with some swimming in an earlier mission. You need to navigate through the submarine, kill Renard (which is similar to the film, they don’t force a boss encounter) and then escape, finishing the game. The N64 version also has a multiplayer mode which is a lot of fun, complete with bots (although, strangely, you can’t play against bots on your own without cheats). Beating the main game on higher difficulties will unlock more characters to play as. While it doesn’t reach the heights of GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough is an extremely solid game and is a ton of fun. --- The World Is Not Enough (PS) Original Release: 2000 Developer: Black Ops Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: PlayStation While Eurocom made the N64 version of The World Is Not Enough, Black Ops – the developers of Tomorrow Never Dies – still made the PlayStation version. From playing the games, it doesn’t seem like there was any cross development or sharing resources, both games were developed completely independnatly. While TWINE on PlayStation is a first person shooter, it still feels a lot like Tomorrow Never Dies. The HUD (which I still can’t see properly) and controls from the previous game are still here, with the developers still not taking advantage of the PlayStation’s analogue sticks. I could create an dual stick FPS-like setup, but without the ability to look up and down (without manual aiming). The game stars off in the bank but the layout is very different. You go up a lift and then down an oddly long corridor with a lot of cameras – these are a massive pain to shoot due to the game’s shoddy controls and I just gave up and accepted the extra guards. One thing also evident is that the levels in this games are small “rooms” with short loading screens when going through doors, which make the levels feel disjoined. After this, you get some long clips from the film, as it skips through the attack on MI6 headquarters and we go and chase the assassin down some short, narrow London streets. At the end of this level, the game automatically selects the grapple watch to fire at the hot air balloon. This watch isn’t used to help level design, but instead just triggers cutscenes. Next up is the game’s skiing level which is just really odd. You have full control of Bond’s movement, but his acceleration has been altered. You awkwardly shoot some enemies and start going own a slope – for around 4 seconds. Due to the game being made of lots of tiny areas, you need to go through a pipe and load the next area, so you get the awkward controls and none of the fun of actually going downhill for a decent amount of time. Next up is a level that the N64 game skipped, as Bond infiltrate’s Zukovsky’s laughably small casino. This is both the best and worst level. There’s only a few room and your mission is to win money at blackjack, which is more enjoyable than the actual game. I did nearly have to restart this mission due to an NPC blocking a path. You also have to use Bond’s credit card lockpick to open a door, which is neat the first time but is used far too much and the animations for it are far too long. Next up is this game’s stealth level. This takes place entirely inside Elektra’s house, as you “stealth” by running and punching guards. There are a few items you can turn on to distract them. The level design for this mission is just bizarre, as the house doesn’t feel like a house due to its nonsensical layout and completely lacking a front door. You skip from here right to infiltrating Renard’s men, who are trying to steal a nuke. This level feels really strange as you have to sneak past guards (having to punch some out) as you sneak into an area where you were invited into. Another mission that wasn’t in the N64 game (apart from a multiplayer level) is Elektra’s pipeline, as you try to reach a bomb. You have to shut off the oil and rescue hostages to reach another part of the facility, then protect Christmas Jones as she fixes an oil pipeline maintenance vehicle. The “City of Walkways” is a single level in this game, and feels far less dynamic, with the helicopter fight being extremely dull and then it’s onto another chase level, which coincidentally involves a bomb being placed in a train station (this time in Istanbul instead of London). After Bond gets captured, you get to see a lovey, large room with big windows transform into a tiny room in a dungeon. The film footage and game design don’t match in any way whatsoever and I don’t know why they included the torture chair – they could have omitted it and it would have seem like Bond had moved to the next room instead. You need to go back and forth then fight a few bosses. The first requires you to unload a few rounds from your assault rifle, the second is immune to all of your weapons due to “special armour” (he’s wearing a suit) and you’re told that you need to throw his explosives back at him. Headshots don’t do anything and the game gives you a grenade launcher, which also does nothing. You can only kill him by throwing his own pipe bombs. It’s just odd. The final mission is on the submarine as you chase Renard. You have to navigate a really strange room filled with toxic barrels. When you reach Renard, you have a boss fight – but not against him, but against a reactor instead. There’s no flooding, and then you run back through the level. The ending to the level isn’t locked away this time, however there is a secret video if you complete the game on the highest difficulty – which is just the sex scene from the end of the film. There are a few cheats to unlock, but there’s no multiplayer. It’s amazing just how different these two games are, with the N64 version of the game being a much better game all around. The PlayStation version is stiff and disjointed. 2 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 27, 2023 Being an N64 owner, it was doom clone central. I thought TWINE was a decent enough successor to GoldenEye. While it didn't recapture the magic, it offered something more cinematic as you point out, and wasn't the complete abomination a lot of people were braced for with the passing of the license from Rare. I knew Eurocom worked with 3D Realms on Duke Nukem 64 so they had some pedigree. And hey, the more value I got out of the Expansion Pak the better. TWINE v TWINE says you, but I'd say it was TWINE v my controller pak. TWINE was the frequent victor in this contest. If only it had on-cart saves. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 27, 2023 Seems crazy that they made two completely different games based on the same film in the same year. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 28, 2023 (edited) 14 hours ago, bob said: Seems crazy that they made two completely different games based on the same film in the same year. Ahh, the days before multiplatform development and common hardware standards. Where each console would often get entirely unique games from different developers. Tell the truth? I miss it. Even in this era (3DO/Jaguar/Saturn/PS1/N64), multiplatform releases were pretty rare (and almost exclusively western-developed). It wouldn’t be until the following generation (DC/PS2/GCN/Xbox) where multiplatform development really started to become the norm; and a big reason for that was the popularity of newly developed middleware engines (especially Renderware), and the introduction of formerly Windows PC-focused developers being brought onto consoles. Edited October 28, 2023 by Dcubed 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 30, 2023 007 Racing Original Release: 2000 Developer: Eutechnyx Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: PlayStation The must surprising thing about 007 Racing is the complete lack of one thing: Racing. This is a vehicle combat game with missions you need to complete. With the game utilising multiple famous Bond cars, you might then expect to be a “greatest hits” of Bond car movements, but this is a new story (a very dull one, mostly in told via walls of texts in briefings) that doesn’t even attempt to justify why these cars are being used. Developed by Eutechnyx, who are now best known for the infamous Ride to Hell: Retribution, this takes an interesting concept (a vehicle-based Bond game) and butchers it in every way possible. Starting off with a mission where you have to cancel the Bond Girl from a courtyard and escape, I was able to adapt the controls – as this lets you use the right analogue stick for acceleration/breaking, I was able to map it to the analogue triggers. You start the level off with a machine gun, all the other weapons and gadgets (mainly health and shields) are scattered across the map. Your main weapons for stronger targets (like tanks) are hellfire missiles, but these damage your car whenever you fire them, and aiming them is a pain (they alternate what side of your car they fire from, which changes their aiming). Special missiles are required to take down a helicopter – use it wrong and you need to restart. Next, Bond is in New York and there’s a bomb on his car! You can’t to too slow or else it will blow up, you need to rush around following the Crazy Taxi arrow to collect…things to increase your time, then drive the car into a river. Incidentally, the simplicity of this mission makes it the most enjoyable in the game. The handling isn’t atrocious, but it doesn’t feel very natural or reliable. This BMW also seems to handle exactly the same as the Austin Martin from the first, and as all weapons are pickups, none of the cars have any identity or special abilities, so the one thing this game might have going for it – the Bond cars – just strips away what makes them Bond cars. The next level is one where you get ambushed and is in three parts. The first is simple: kill all enemies in a small arena. One thing to note is that foot soldiers never count as important targets, they just whittle down your health. You also can’t run them over, removing another potentially satisfying element from the game. The second part of this level has forklifts driving at high speed and ramming into you. R (played by John Cleese) tells you to look for a weak point in their armour to exploit – this is a lie. This game has immensely unclear instructions, and you’ll fail many objectives simply because the game never makes it clear what you are supposed to do. The third part has you using an EMP to destroy “computers”. This is a weapon that shoots a little bit our of the right side of your car. I’ll be honest: this mission was so frustrating that I just started using cheats. The next level has you shooting tires on a truck using lasers that fire out of the sides of the car. The next three levels are set in the Mexican jungle. The first is fine, trying to keep ahead of a helicopter then hiding the car in a truck. The second has Bond taking on an enemy compound from within, using a device to blow up mines (which the enemy has oddly placed right next to all their artillery – the device to blow them up is just lying around), setting up a laser and escaping (although you have 10 seconds and no direction). The third is almost a race – Xenia pops up out of nowhere. You need to race her while collecting objects, although the game doesn’t make this clear, so you’ll probably be fighting and then get a cutscene of Xenia escaping with a British parachute attached to her car. If you do beat her, make sure to pick up and use the parachute, or else you’ll just die. When you succeed, Xenia falls to the bottom of the pit and explodes, but obviously is fine by the time of GoldenEye. The most annoying level is up next: you control a car remotely from warehouse cameras, planting mines. To make it more annoying, the cameras are low quality and fizz every now and then, and there are some tiny thing driving around. Then you have to collect missiles and destroy a boat driven by Jaws, go close to limos in New York to collect data. The next mission sounds intriguing: take out an underwater base in the Lotus Esprit. But then the level starts with Bond driving out of water. Using it is the same as all of the rest, and we have another tedious level that doesn’t utilise the car’s unique abilities in any way. R even clumsily explains that many of the underwater features were removed for weapons – but then the weapons are on the map, not on the car, so it still makes no sense. The final mission is then horrendously designed. It sounds simple: destroy a plane’s engines, destroy the plane and escape off a cliff. The execution, however, is atrocious. You can’t use the car’s gun at this point (no idea why), so you have to ram the engines. The engines are only vulnerable when they flash (there’s no shielding or reasoning for this), and there’s no consistency when you ram them. If it doesn’t work first time, the plane flies off and you have to start again. You have to do this with all four engines. After this, the plane turns around (very quickly) and rams you. This is where you use the car’s gun, except that instead of the usual method, you have a first person view to manually aim. Where you start aiming seems completely random, it’s not ahead of you so you have a 50/50 chance of turning to the right direction. You have a few seconds to aim and shoot a little box hovering under the plane, and then very quickly dodge the plane and drive off a cliff (thankfully, you get an arrow for this). It’s by far the worst designed level in the game, and it’s the climax! There’s also a multiplayer mode for two players. There ate two modes: shoot each other or ram into each other to pass a bomb over. These take place in small areas and aren’t much fun at all. Again, I’m completely baffled by the complete lack of racing. A vehicle combat James Bond game isn’t a bad idea, even a racing game with classic Bond cars can be done well. This game, however, is just a complete mess that throws away everything unique about Bond’s cars. --- The World Is Not Enough (GBC) Original Release: 2001 Developer: 2n Productions Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Game Boy Color After the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation version of The World Is Not Enough comes the Game Boy Color version, which is very obviously different. It takes a top down view with Bond shooting, punching and sneaking his way though levels. Graphically, the game looks quite nice on the GBC, with the simple sprites and detailed backgrounds working well together. Starting with the bank level, you wander around the large, empty level, there are no staff working for the bank, so you start wandering around empty rooms. Eventually you’ll find a lift and find Lachaise’s office and trigger a cutscene, you then get into your first fight and punch a few guards. The first time playing I missed the briefcase and the game lets you walk to nearly the end of the level before encountering a locked door. The lift you used no longer works, so you have to move through the nonsensical winding corridors to reach stairs, killing guards along the way. I tried using a pistol, but Bond takes so long to fire that I kept getting punched in the face, so running towards them and punching is much more effective – although even easier is just running past the guards and ignoring them. You’ll eventually reach the exit and find the next level. MI6 is under attack, taking cues from the N64 level, you have to defend the building and get to Q’s lab. However, you need to undo the lockdown to progress. To do this, you need to find hidden buttons and activate them – although they don’t sometimes don’t seem to work. I found myself pressing both buttons on a floor, going to the doors and finding them shut, and going back and forth multiple times, pressing the buttons, until they actually worked. I did manage to skip some backtracking in this level: you’re supposed to find a secret code to unlock Q’s lab, but it’s very easy to just work out the combination anyway. The Themes Chase level is also clearly inspired by the N64 game, as this goes through some docks, a warehouse and the London Underground. The fist part is straightforward, but the other two sections are extremely tedious maze-like sections. The odd thing is, the mazes are incredibly simple. You walk to a blocked path, then go down a side path to press a button. The problem is that these winding paths are extremely long, and most of the game is just boring padding like this, especially as you usually encounter enemies one at a time where they aren’t a problem (in some select locations, fights are extremely difficult). In the Undergrown, you have to blow up a wall because some turnstiles only move in a certain direction. Electra’s House is up next, with this level having three distinct parts. You can’t be spotted by enemies here, and punching doesn’t stun them for long enough, so you can’t do that, either. You have to navigate the level collecting keycards, perfectly moving through laser traps (they don’t hurt you, they just alert the guards and you instantly fail the level) and avoiding cameras. Then you go through the hedge maze in the garden. You can kill enemies here, and you can find a hedge trimmer that is slow, but timed right can kill enemies in one hit. Some paths to ammo/health pickups will cause the ground to collapse, so when you return you have to fall down the hole and get transported to a random shed. I found a dead end and had the idea of using the hedge trimmer on it, but it didn’t work, after lots of aimless wondering around, I ended up looking up a guide. It turns out I had the right idea: you do need to destroy the bit of hedge to progress, but you need to shoot it three times. In the third section, you have to chase Davidoff through a forest. If he spots you, you fail. He’ll randomly run and turn around, making this part incredibly annoying. You’ll eventually reach a part where you get to kill him, and the game takes control away from you and does it. After this, you have to find the Bomb that Renard is after. This borrows more from the PlayStation game: even tough you’re authorised to be there, you have to sneak around. This combines the stealth of Elektra’s house with the back and forth nature of the Thames level, making it both tedious and annoying. You’ll eventually reach the bomb and have to chase Renard. However, the game is now a 2D side scrolling platformer. The shoot button now makes Bond jump, where he has a very specific jumping arc with zero control once you hit the jump button. If you take any amount of time to get used to the controls, you’ll fail, as this is actually a timed section (the game doesn’t let you know about this). Once you make it to the end, you have to make it all the way back, collecting mines and blowing up doors along the way. The next level is fairly basic, more back and forth finding keys and unlocking doors, with plenty of backtracking. At the end of the level, you have to face the buzz saw helicopter. This is another platforming section as you use ladders and jumping to navigate, like a badly made copy of the original Donkey Kong. You’ll need to find the rocket launcher (but if you take too long it gets destroyed) or grenade launcher to fight it. It’s quite neat that the higher platforms get destroyed as the fight progresses. Skipping straight to Bond getting captured, you get to play the torture scene in this game, using the A and B buttons to regain health – a bit like Metal Gear Solid. Do it well and you get full health, do poorly and the torture will end just before Bond dies. Elektra than locks herself away, and actually survives this version of the game. It’s another back and forth maze level as you trudge through to find a watch laser to use on a cell door to save M, then rush out to the submarine. On the submarine, instead of trudging back and forth to navigate a linear path, you have to trudge back and forth to find bombs to blow up each part of the control room. What makes this even more “fun” is that enemies respawn in this level. You need to press a button to open every single door, for absolutely no good reason. Once you blow up the control room, you head to the reactor. Back to 2D platforming as you have to make your way up a very long room. As said before, Bond’s jumping arc is terrible, and with the moving platforms (some that become electrified), this section is utterly horrible. Some of the platforms look like background objects, and some of the background objects look like obstacles. Bond doesn’t take any fall damage at least, which is handy, especially when you land on an edge of a platform where Bond stays for a second and then falls down. Once you reach the top, you’ll find Christmas Jones tied up and Renard – yet again, this is oddly reminiscent of Donkey Kong. As Renard and Bond are face you face, you expect a boss fight, but not. The game takes control away as Bond strangles Renard for half a second and Christmas Jones goes form being tied up to just jumping around. You get the final screen of a hole in the submarine and then the game cuts straight to the title screen. The Game Boy Colour version of The World Is Not Enough is terrible. The game is difficult in the wrong ways, and most of the game is just padding in the form of walking back and forth through very basic mazes. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 30, 2023 On 28/10/2023 at 12:59 PM, Dcubed said: Ahh, the days before multiplatform development and common hardware standards. Where each console would often get entirely unique games from different developers. Tell the truth? I miss it. Even in this era (3DO/Jaguar/Saturn/PS1/N64), multiplatform releases were pretty rare (and almost exclusively western-developed). It wouldn’t be until the following generation (DC/PS2/GCN/Xbox) where multiplatform development really started to become the norm; and a big reason for that was the popularity of newly developed middleware engines (especially Renderware), and the introduction of formerly Windows PC-focused developers being brought onto consoles. Wow it really does seem like an age since we had similar consoles having completely unique takes on the same game. I personally don't miss it, after all it usually transpired that someone felt as though they'd missed out with one version being better than the other. The likes of Aladdin, Batman and Jurassic Park were all very different for example. Nowadays though, we have the likes of Mortal Kombat 1 where the same games are released but are easily compared and it can become VERY evident where one console has the inferior version, so there's still much to be said for releasing different takes on a game! Not to go diverge too much though. Great job @Cube it's really interesting reading up on the many different games in a series, and I certainly didn't realise the TWINE differences back in the day. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 1, 2023 The World Is Not Enough (PS2) Original Release: Cancelled in 2001 Developer: Unknown Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: PlayStation 2, PC Not Played: No leaked prototypes On top of the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions of The World is Not Enough, another version was planned for PlayStation 2. It was going to feature 11 large environments, 30 weapons and gadgets, motion capture, dialogue from the film and 20 minutes of film footage. A short trailer was released, but the game was cancelled half way through development, opting to make a unique adventure instead. --- James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire Original Release: 2001 Developer: EA Redwood Shores Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2 Version Played: GameCube with Reloaded Mod A first person shooter with an all-new storyline. This one doesn’t license the likeness of Pierce Bronson, so at least we don’t have the issue of someone else’s voice coming from his face. The default controls are dreadful, but the options provide a modern style shooter setup. I played using the “Reloaded” mod, which adds widescreen, some nicer textures and removes the screen turning white every time you get shot. The game starts off in a really nifty offshore biodome facility, straight away you have the option of hacking the front door or using a grappling hook to sneak in through the roof. When you perform “Bond moves” you get a flashing golden 007 and a Bond jingle. This level serves as a good introduction to the mechanics. You’re trying to locate a box containing a virus and rescue a CIA spy, Zoe Nightshade. You find her strapped to a submarine, with sharks circling in the water. After escaping the facility, you get a vehicle section…but unfortunately it’s an on rails turret mission. There are some cool set pieces (and probably hundreds of civilian casualties), such as blowing up a petrol station to take out multiple cars and a helicopter. After recovering the case of viruses for the second time, R pops up to advertise Bond’s new car. Considering they have a new Bond, I have no idea why the went with “R”, especially as that name for John Cleese was a joke from Bond, not his official title. A few earlier games had John Cleese as “R”, but in this, he’s an old man and the voice actor chose a voice much more like Desmond Llewelyn. After Nightshade gets a rocket to the face from the villain’s super assassin, we get to control the car this time. The driving feels great, and the level has lots of branching paths. Like 007 Racing, the power ups are dotted across the paths, but you can overlook it more as this is very enjoyable to play. You need to get a pulse and knock out an armoured van. Time for a stealth mission as you infiltrate a British embassy, you have a dart gun with limited ammo, but you can also knock out enemies via punching. There are a few alternate routes through the level using gadgets, which is common across the game. Bond nearly breaks his cover by spending too long ogling a woman. Bond comes across a bit like a clumsy oaf in this game, getting distracted by women instead of seducing them. After discovering the use of clones, it’s time to pose as a journalist and speak to the CEO behind them. As Bond is told to wait in the CEO’s office, he realises that his cover has been blown immediately – the CEO is the woman he got caught perving on in the previous mission. This mission offers a bit of optional stealth as you go through grates and take photos of evidence, before hacking the computers and escaping through an underground lair. This level is actually a lot of fun, although I don’t think it needs a timer (apparently it’s a timer until you get sealed in the base, but that happens later on anyway). There’s some hidden routes and a fancy weapon through a secret door – or you can smash through a window and set an alarm off to get it. You found out that the super assassin from earlier is attacking a different British embassy to find someone who has stolen information from their group. I found this part confusing as you get told to go to “R’s” safehouse on the other side of the embassy, but its down a few other streets. You rescue hostages as you go though, get given a puzzle to find a hidden door (I worked it out and opened the door before M finished the clue, it’s very obvious) and fight the super assassin, who takes a lot of damage. You then have to take our a helicopter, which is easier to deal with. Time for another driving section in a classic Aston Martin. You have to locate a few objects in the city, and I enjoyed this mission a lot – it shows that something like 007 Racing could be a really good game. If you perform well enough, you can even unlock a Lotus Esprit. Having to jump over a river, Bond ends up crashing his car into a warehouse. Luckily for Bond, there just happens to be a fully armed tank right where he crashed. Sadly, this tank part is very disappointing, as it’s another turret section and you spend almost all of it using a minigun (you have very limited tank shells). It goes on for far too long. The final part is also very confusing, two tanks turn up near a bridge and if you start shooting them, you’ll fail the mission. You have to carefully aim for fuel tanks on a train passing on top of a bridge. If the game was good with checkpoints, this would be a mild annoyance, but you go back to the very start of a tank section. Mess up two or three times (depending on difficulty), and you’ll end up at the start of the car mission. The lives system is just annoying, especially as the only checkpoints are when a new section of the level is loaded. Now we have to investigate an oil rig using a jetpack, which sounds a lot cooler than it is. When fully fuelled up, you get a single burst upwards. The level itself is enjoyable, with some fun hidden routes and a few ways to climb up the tower at the end. Bond gets distracted by a woman and the main henchman pushed him off the tower. Luckily for Bond, diving off the tower into a pool is actually the entrance to the villain’s secret base. Unfortunately for Bond, this is another tedious and overly long turret section. The henchman climbs into a large machine at the end for a boss fight. If you don’t figure out what to do quick enough it’s back to the last checkpoint…which is the start of the level. Now it’s time to take care of the cloning lab. While in the previous mission, M said that this facility was too shielded to talk to Bond, she tells Bond that he’ll have to figure out how to take out the place without explosive, then straight away tells him how to do it. This mission introduces the elite guards, which take more damage and are more aggressive. There are also two possible endings to this, depending on if you find a hidden keycard, which alters the start of the next mission. As Bond tries to escape in a submarine, he meets the CIA agent he saw get killed before, who is freely wondering around the submarine. She claims that the person that was killed was the clone, who was supposed to infiltrate the secret services before the super assassin accidentally killed her instead of Bond. Bond finds none of this suspicious. Now on a aircraft carrier, either escaping from the ship’s brig or infiltrating from a boat (depending on the ending of the previous mission), M contacts Bond to tell him that he needs to get to the ship’s communications room so she can inform him about the current situation (couldn’t they have Bond do some of these briefings so they made sense?). You get to take out the clones of the world leaders and foil the plans of this group using them to replace the real ones from taking over the world (it probably would have been cheaper to bribe them). With the clones taken care of, it’s time to rescue the real world leader in the final mission…which is probably the most boring mission of the game. While the outside view is nice, the base is really boring internally, as you go between missile silos killing enemies that are holding the world leaders hostage. The CEO sets off a self destruct timer and the main henchman returns (you killed his clone earlier) and you shoot him a lot before he flees into the CEO’s office. Your first instinct is to strafe to dodge rockets, however if you do, you’ll die due to the rest of the floor blowing up (and having to do the whole fight again). If you manage to resist this urge you’ll shoot him a bit more then escape on a jet piloted by Nightshade. The game then fades to black. And…that’s it. There’s no actual ending cutscene. We have no idea if the main villain or world leaders escaped, or if they all blew up. If you complete the game on the highest difficulty you do unlock a bonus video…which is just a clip show of the Bond moves in the game. Agent Under Fire has really fun gameplay. The main missions are enjoyable and the car missions are great. The turret missions are tedious and something about the game makes it feel like a parody of James Bond instead of an actual Bond game. It feels like a decent starting point to expand on. Other Versions PS2 and Xbox The game itself is mostly identical to the GameCube version, just with minor changes in graphics settings. The PS2 version has the least compressed textures. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 3, 2023 James Bond in…Phoenix Rising Original Release: Announced in 2002 Developer: Eurocom Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: PS2, GameCube, Xbox I found conflicting reports about Phoenix Rising, such as claims that this was a Bond Game in the style of Everything or Nothing, but a sequel to Nightfire, and that it was dropped and replaced with From Russia With Love because Pierce Bronsan was no longer James Bond. The truth seems much, much simpler. An IGN article from 2002 talks about the announcement of Project Rising as a working title for the next James Bond game. Project Rising isn’t a lost and cancelled James Bond game – it’s simply a working title for Nightfire. I wanted to include this in this write-up due to it being mentioned in a few places as a cancelled James Bond game, to clarify what it actually is. --- James Bond 007: Nightfire Original Release: 2002 Developer: Eurocom Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2 Version Played: GameCube Returning after the N64 version of The World is Not Enough, Eurocom make the next EA Bond game with another unique story. This time, it stars Pierce Brosnan’s face (but still not his voice), although is still a sequel to Agent Under Fire, with some returning characters. The game starts with a cold opening, going straight into the game (which is a good idea, but you can’t access the game’s settings until you reach the main menu) where you have to rescue a French spy, who is in the middle of a car chase. It starts off with a turret section where you’re shooting from a helicopter, which I usually find annoying but this has a good spectacle and is fine to introduce the game. Before long, you get to transition into the Vanquish, driving through the streets of Paris. It doesn’t have the cloaking device from Die Another Day, but will have its own surprises later on. The driving missions are more linear than Agent Under Fire, but still a ton of fun. This one is very short, though, which is a shame. This is followed by the first unique Bond Opening Credits with a new song, which very much sets the tone for the game: This is definitely a Bond adventure. A space defence station has been stolen by an unknown organisation. MI6 have a suspect: a company that deals with disarming nuclear missiles. They’re having a party in a remote castle and it’s up to Bond to infiltrate it and meet up with other secret agents. You have a few ways to get into the courtyard, stealth or full on assault. There’s a handy truck that you can use to get past a few of the guards. The shooting in the game is solid and enjoyable, and a good amount of the game has a few options for proceeding. As Bond gets rid of his snow gear to infiltrate a party in his tux, we get a good look at his face – which his is very well detailed – so much it has an uncanny valley effect as it looks so much better than his body or any other face in the game. You get to sneak around the party and sit in on a secret meeting until one of the other spies are discovered, you have to shoot though enemies to get to her (there’s more alternative routes) – although she’s already saved herself and stolen important documents. Escaping via a cable car, you get attacked by a helicopter, which you need to defeat. The next section is an alright turret section, but is again followed by a car section I love this mission, it captures the spirit of a Bond car chase very well, having to combat enemies as well as slowing down police without harming them. As you swap between weapons, you get to see them come out of secret compartments and there’s even a proper first person view if you prefer. You can also unlock a race version of the level – so not only are the vehicle sections massively better than 007 Racing, but it even has an actual race. Gadgets are done in a very simple way: in different parts of the level it changes to what you need, such as a smokescreen when the police are nearby. It’s a bit too basic and lacks player choice, but it helps keep the pace of the driving. Off to Japan to pick up someone defecting with information on operation “Nightfire”. His house gets attacked, so you need to protect him – he’s actually pretty good at staying out of the way. It’s a fun level with plenty of hidden secrets, and the rain makes a nice atmosphere. At the end, your informant gets killed by a ninja that you have to deal with, but he tells you where you need to go to get the information with his dying breaths. Time for a stealth level. Unlike stealth levels in previous games, I enjoyed this. You have a dartgun, but ammo is scarce so it’s only for emergencies, but it’s definitely enough. Some areas have detection lasers (which you can see with one of the modes of your glasses), but exploration rewards you with ways to disable these. One you get the data, you have to fight your way to the roof, fight another helicopter and jump off the building. Time to find out what this organisation is really up do, infiltrating one of the facilities that they are “disarming”. This level comprises of two warehouses connected by a fairly open area, you discover a jetpack and a laser turret that you use to blow upon a door. It’s a solid level that uses Bond’s grapple more, along with climbing over wires. Bond gets double crossed and captured by the enemy. You’re back in the phoenix level from earlier, but you get to blast your way through everyone this time. It’s simple, but it’s nice to revisit the stealth level in this way. At the end, Bond is rescued by an Australian agent, but Bond isn’t flirty due to a death at the start of this level, which is a nice moment for Bond. Time to return to the Vanquish….underwater! This is what I wanted from the underwater base level of 007 Racing. The controls work very well and you have a remote controlled torpedo. It’s a very fun level although is let down at the end: you encounter an enemy sub that can take you out in seconds. Trying to figure out how to defeat is isn’t an issue – the problem is that you start from the very beginning of the level when you die. Onto the island and you take on of their weaponised cars, blasting through their turrets. This is fun, but also has the same problem as the previous level: there’s a section at the end where you can die very quickly, with no checkpoints. The second part of this level is some decent turret sections. Infiltrating the hidden base…I really hated this level. The first part is a fake chase – the progress of the enemy is based on when you hit certain locations. You then have to blow up some panels. I kept dying when this happened so had to look it up. Turns out there are red and green parts (I’m colourblind) and if you shoot the red, you die. Someone you blew up in a helicopter returns, announcing he’ll deal with Bond himself to pay him back for his injuries. The level is mainly shooting through lots of enemies in really boring looking corridors. You do get access to a neat laser and have to escape the blast pit of a space shuttle (with an anti-climatic fight against the guy vowing revenge). Bond is now in space. You have to break the launch mechanism of nuclear warheads and deal with waves of enemies. You can move around quite freely and a handy HUD display helps you keep track of which missiles are launching and when new enemies appear. It’s very cinematic and is a great spectacle to finish on. Nightfire is a great Bond game. This story captures the films really well, with really fun combat, nice use of gadgets to find secret and alternative routes and very enjoyable driving missions. Other Versions PS2 & Xbox The game itself is mostly identical to the GameCube version, just with minor changes in graphics settings. The Xbox version has the highest quality textures, but the GameCube version ran the smoothest, running at 60fps. --- James Bond 007: Nightfire (PC) Original Release: 2002 Developer: Gearbox Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: PC In the 2000s, you would seemingly expect that the PC version of a game like this would be a port of a console version. However, the PC version of Nightfire was developed separately by Gearbox. While they had access to some of the same resources of the console version, the differences are rather interesting. The biggest difference is how the game feels. The PC version is built using the “GoldSrc” engine that was built for the original Half-Life (and Gearbox-developed Counter Strike). While this may sound like a positive thing, in Nightfire it just feels floaty and dethatched. Its limitations are very clear in this game and you can see why Valve created Source for Half-Life 2. This version completely skips the opening section – it skips all vehicle sections. It opens up at the castle where M tells you to get into the truck (in the console version, they let you figure this out). The problem is…this is a closed top truck. There’s no way to get in it. You can get on top of it and crouch, but enemies still stop you. You get a “Bond move” jingle but it really doesn’t feel deserved. Inside the castle walls and the game feels a lot more linear. Gadgets are used to find extra ammo and armour, but not for alternative routes. It’s very straightforward and just feels restrictive. Upon getting inside the party, I was surprised to find that the cutscenes, while pre-rendered, actually reflect the different level design of this version. You also have an extra objective here: take photos of all the women. The game has a reason for it (which doesn’t affect the story in any way) and it just feels a bit strange and creepy. On that note – the X-ray glasses show skeletons for men, but reveals underwear for women. Escaping this castle and everything just feels less detailed than the console version, and this section once again is just a single path. Instead of the car chase escape, we have to sneak into an airfield to disable backup and get a plane to escape. Get spotted before a certain point and it’s game over (on the plus side, this game does let you save mid-mission). You get asked to deal with searchlights, but they make no difference: enemies in this game have amazing eyesight and you’ll find yourself randomly failing the mission often, having no idea who spotted you. Also, while this level looks open, there’s still only one way to progress. Half way through the mission and it becomes an escort mission as you use a sniper to protect your ally, Zoe. At least in this, the enemy’s extreme eyesight means they often take pot shots at you instead of their target. The enemy AI is pretty non-existent, they never look for cover or dodge. On multiple occasions, they lost track of Bond and just shot at nothing for eternity. The Japanese house level is more of the same feeling: this is a toned down and linear version. There are some nice secret routes in the console version which are just gone here. That said, even though it feels linear, it’s oddly also easy to get lost. The lack of enemy AI also makes the ninja fight extremely easy. Back to stealth. One positive change is that your dart gun is now a pen, which suits Bond more. The problem is that the level design is still terrible and the enemies can see you from astounding distances (the game, knowing this, puts enemies on walkways you can’t get to). I also had to look up how to progress – turns out a keycard wasn’t being rendered. Half way though this level you get to climb up the wall. This is very cool…to start with. This section goes on for what feels forever as you wait under windows for enemies to turn around. There’s more tedious stealth but on the roof, you get to enter a penthouse, which is a nice change to jumping straight to the helicopter fight. Next up is the game’s best level – and one that wasn’t in the console version. You have to infiltrate an astronaut training facility. You also get a cutscene that happened in the second to last level of the console version, as one of the villains vows revenge on Bond. The first part of this isn’t anything special, but then you get into a space suit and enter the training – cleverly done by being underwater. You don’t get full underwater or space controls, though, it’s more of a low gravity with Bond jumping higher and slower. It does end with a good battle with the villain, so he has a better moment in this. Bond gets captured in the same way, but this level is different. Bond is trapped in a lift and enemies take out huge chunks of their building to take pot shots. It’s incredibly tedious and ends with a really hard to see grapple point (the first time you have to use it) and if you don’t use it quickly enough, you die. The rest of the level is an extremely long slog. It felt like it would never end. Time for another vehicle-replacement mission. As you start, your objectives pop up saying “Agent McCall has been taken hostage by Phoenix Commandos. Find and rescue Alura”. This capture doesn’t happen in a cutscene (even though this cutscene is exclusive to this version) and isn’t mentioned in dialogue, that objective is all you get, after she was just introduced saving Bond a few seconds earlier. This mission is fine, there’s some surprisingly open sections – although inly in terms of empty spaces, the level progression is still extremely linear. This mission is decent. While I hated the penultimate mission in the console version, this one is just very, very tedious and boring. Difficulty in this game is all over the place, and done entirely by just throwing a ton of enemies at you. Enemies on the island also take a lot more hits than previous missions, because bullet sponges and more enemies are all the game can do for difficulty. The final mission is extremely anti-climatic. You have an annoying jumping section (using a similar jetpack mechanic as Agent Under Fire where you get one burst upwards, although it likes to just not work sometimes) and disarm the nuclear missiles in a small room, before shooting the big bad as he stands around. The first time this level loaded for me, I didn’t have the spacesuit or laser, which was quite confusing as I couldn’t progress. The PC version of Nightfire is just strange, and comes across in many ways like a PS1 title. It does have one mission which would have been nice to see in the console version, and a few interesting ideas, but ultimately, it’s not fun to play. 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 6, 2023 007 Ice Racer (ExEn) Original Release: 2002 Developer: In-Fusio Publisher: Vodafone Platform: ExEn Mobile 007 Ice Racer is a mobile game published by Vodafone that had two different versions. This one was developed by In-Fusio for the Execution Engine, a special Java-based engine specifically developed for mobile phones, although it was only available on certain handsets. Luckily, an emulator for this engine exists – while it’s extremely laggy on menus, the game itself runs really well. Ice Racer is a Rad Racer-style driving game. The objective is to reach the end of the level before the time runs out, avoiding obstacles and collecting bonuses (points, speed or time) along the way. It’s loosely based on Die Another Day, with you driving the Vanquish. Before each of the four levels, you can buy power-ups from the Q Store, which requires sending an SMS. Luckily, the game is so incredibly easy that none of this is needed. Each level starts with a blurb of text which has nothing to do with the level. For example the third level mentions following Jinx, but this level is different to the others: in this, you have to battle Zao by collecting rockets and firing one at him. Instead of a timer, you have limited fuel and can collect more by picking up cannisters. The final level seems to have the superweapon from the end of the film blasting down (or it could be a waterfall), yet is the least icy level of the game. You get to the end and you win – it takes about 6 minutes to complete the game. It plays quite smoothly, but there isn’t much to it. --- 007 Ice Racer (Java) Original Release: 2002 Developer: Handy Games Publisher: Vodafone Platform: Java Mobile As the Execution Engine was only available on select mobile phones, Vodafone commissioned a second, more basic, Ice Racer game for the phones that couldn’t run the main game. This version does actually resemble the film more – it depicts a battle on the ice between Bond and Zao, using the weapons on their cars to combat each other. You can play as either Bond or Zao. Within the time limit, you have to blast apart the opponent without taking too much damage yourself. Each “level” has the same background, but you just have different bonus weapons to use. In the second Bond level, you have a strange shunt attack which seems to damage Bond more than Zao, and doesn’t seem possible to defeat, meanwhile playing as Zao is incredibly easy. This is a very basic game, just move up and down and shoot. --- 007 Spy Files Original Release: 2002 Developer: G E Fabbri Publisher: G E Fabbri Platform: Board Game Spy Files was a partworks 32 issue magazine that was released as a lead-in to Die Another Day. Each issue came with a pack of random cards for their Spy Files game, with subscribers also being able to get tins to keep the cards in. The cards game in four types: Allies, Location, Q Branch, Vehicles and Villains. You choose one of these categories to play and shuffle that deck of cards between each player. The game is a Top Trumps style game – one person picks a category and whoever has the highest number on their current card wins. There are also two joker cards, which players can use to take all cards in a round when they don’t win. There aren’t that many cards in each deck, so games don’t last long. --- James Bond 007: Nightfire (GBA) Original Release: 2003 Developer: JV Games Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Game Boy Advance For the Game Boy Advance, this is a very ambitious game, attempting to recreate Nightfire on the GBA and keeping it as a first person shooter. The controls are similar to the PlayStation Bond games, using the shoulder buttons for strafing, so I was able to remap them into a more comfortable setup similar to dual analogue. Some things, like jumping and changing weapons, use multiple button presses, which takes time to get used to, but makes sense with the GBA’s limited buttons. Similar to the PC version, this skips the intro and has no vehicle sections. It starts with the castle and you can’t even stay on the truck this time – but it’s more understandable this time. You can use it as cover as you navigate the impressive-for-GBA 3D environment and shoot the sprite enemies. Sneaking inside and there’s some curious things about the cutscenes. They’re comprised of screenshots of cutscenes that look similar to the other versions and text. The rooms in the screenshots look like the PC cutscenes, however, Bond is the Agent Under Fire design and not Pierce Brosnan (even though he’s on the box). The inside of this is just a corridor and a door you have to shoot with the watch laser. Escaping, this time the cable car doesn’t move as you fight the helicopter, although there’s no homing rockets. The levels are linear but, again, you expect that more on the GBA. This section of the game ends right here, not using the awful airfield mission from the PC game. At the end of the mission you’ll get a store based on kills, accuracy and Bond style. You also lose a lot of points if you take your time with the level. If you don’t get a bronze score, you can’t progress to the next level. I thought this was ridiculous and used a mission select cheat for the few times I didn’t get a bronze. The Japanese house is more straightforward, but still enjoyable. I did get stuck on one part, turned out a few blobs of pixels was a target for the grapple hook. Ammo also seems limited in this version, so you’ll often be using the same weapons as the enemies. The enemies, incidentally, will roll and crouch to dodge your shots, meaning that the enemy AI in this version is much better than the PC version. Stealth in a GBA FPS is…actually not that bad. You have the dart pen from the PC version, but enemy sight isn’t as superb, which makes it more playable. Climbing up the window also makes an appearance again, but is thankfully just a cutscene. After collecting the data, it’s time to investigate how they disarm missiles. Surprisingly, we have the console version of this level, and it features some very impressive recreations of the open areas. Considering the previous missions have been closer to the PC version, it’s great as to how well this recreates a console level, although this version has some more platforming instead of using wires to cross the level. This then flows into the training facility level from the PC version. It skips the boring start and goes straight to being in a space suit underwater. You have full space controls, letting you move freely. It’s a fun level and shows how the two levels expand upon each other: the first has you investigating test jetpacks and lasers, the second has you testing out the spacesuit in underwater training. Back to being closer to the PC version when Bond gets captured, this starts at the end of the lift segment, which I was grateful for. This mission isn’t as tediously long, so is quite enjoyable. I did notice enemies ducking a lot more here, so it’s nice that they don’t rely on just more health to make enemies more challenging. Onto a much more condensed version of the beach level. Alura is with you from the start to help you take out enemies – no off-screen kidnapping. Due to its length, I enjoyed this more than the PC version of the level. The same is true of the penultimate level, which is based on the console version, but is less frustrating. The final mission is, surprisingly, a recreation of the cinematic final mission from the console version, and a really good way to finish the game. Apart form the annoying mission advancement requirement, this is a surprisingly good handheld port of the game. It’s fascinating that it uses elements from both versions of the game. While it would never happen, I would love to see an updated version of Nightfire that is mainly based on the console version, but also includes the best parts of the other two. -- James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (GBA) Original Release: 2003 Developer: Griptonite Games Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Game Boy Advance While the Game Boy Advance version of Nightfire came out after the home console version, the GBA’s version of Everything or Nothing came out a few months earlier than the main version. This time, it’s an isometric third person shooter. The game throws you into a level after Bond has set up a bomb, he needs to escape, shooting some enemies and grappling down a wall (which doesn’t play any differently to moving on solid ground). No context is ever provided for this level, and after the around 40 seconds of running and mashing A, it’s over. Bond has to investigate someone at a Casino event. This level serves as the game’s tutorial, explaining the shooting and stealth mechanics. You have to get very close to behind an enemy to do a stealth takedown. Quite often I thought I was close enough only for Bond to pathetically kick nothing but air. The screen space from the isometric view gives you very little room to actually be stealthy. The stealth is optional, though, usually being a bonus objective for points to buy extra upgrades. The shooting is mainly just run around and mash A. There are three guns, but they don’t feel any different. You can crouch behind tables to lessen damage, but it’s far less effective than just shooting enemies. After you infiltrate the casino, the guy you need has to go, so Bond may as well have just waited outside the door. You get a car chase, which is a lot like the classic Spy Hunter. In these, you have to destroy a boss vehicle while being attacked by other cards. Like stealth killing, it’s fun for about 30 seconds, but then it’s just the same thing over and over. After this it’s time to scan things to get information in an old trainyard. You start to realise at this point that there isn’t much variety to the game. Here you stealth kill/shoot enemies and press B to do your scans. You get access to a hologram to make a decoy, but the limited screen space means it isn’t very useful – there’s very little actual gadget use in this game. At the end of the level you’ll face off against Jaws, where he throws barrels at you. You’ll need to lure him over to the barrels he throws and blow them up. The story in this version very much takes a back seat. You’ll occasionally get some dialogue on missions, but most of it is a tiny bit of exposition given by M and Q. Next you’ll team up with 003 (and then immediately split up) to attack a base in a jungle. There’s one section where you need to press three buttons within a time limit and the rappelling sections start up again. Other than that, it’s more aimlessly running around and shooting enemies. The levels are split up into small segments with checkpoints, and your health is restored at these moments. This level ends with a car segment that’s the same as the first. Discovering their secret base, we roam a graveyard until we find the door, and then have to sneak in when someone enters, which is the only required stealth in the game. You discover that the villain has created nanobots that can eat through any metal (except platinum). These are then used as shields that stop bullets, so you have to punch these enemies. The plan is for his army to take over the world using these shields. Ascending down into the secret underground levels of the secret base, this level is the nicest looking, as it’s built inside an ancient hidden temple. You just move down, shoot and then get ready for the most annoying mission of the game. In the secret base, you get told that you can’t kill “civilians”, which are the guys in white suits. Unlike most games with objectives like this, these civilians are far from innocent. They’ll help the enemies out by firing darts at you. These reverse your controls, which is one of the laziest and most annoying things that video games do. You can punch the scientists and it doesn’t count as a kill. Another car chase follows and it’s time for the final mission. This is just one long corridor. You do get given a cloaking device, but this is very useless as enemies are positioned in a way where you can’t go past them (they see through the cloak if you get close enough). At the end you get two boss fights. The first is Jaws again as you lure him into broken computers, the second is against the main villain who is immune to all of your attacks for seemingly no reason. You have to kill waves of enemies then shoot flashing laser towers that zap him for some reason. And you’re done. The game is around 2 and a half hours long if you’re taking your time. The game is more suited to the GBA than Nightfire, but is far less interesting as a result. --- 007 Hover Chase Original Release: 2003 Developer: IOMO Publisher: Vodafone Platform: Java Mobile Not played: Not compatible with Java emulators Another Java game for Vodafone mobile games based on Die Another Day – this time from the hovercraft chase at the start of the film. Unfortunately, this uses specific Vodafone Live! Java components, which are currently not part of any J2ME emulator. In this game, you try to see how far you can last in an unending level, shooting enemies, avoiding obstacles and collecting powerups. There were some additional unlockable game modes, such as racing round a set track and battling another hovercraft in a small arena. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 6, 2023 I spied Quantum of Solace DS in the bargain bin at the weekend. You need it, @Cube? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 6, 2023 1 hour ago, darksnowman said: I spied Quantum of Solace DS in the bargain bin at the weekend. You need it, @Cube? Surely he's going to go through the James Pond games first, which are naturally a canon part of this series and should not be ignored? 1 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 6, 2023 6 minutes ago, EEVILMURRAY said: Surely he's going to go through the James Pond games first, which are naturally a canon part of this series and should not be ignored? I think he's said Dr No to Dr Maybe, though Robocod would lead naturally into a full playthrough of the Call of Duty series... 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 6, 2023 11 minutes ago, EEVILMURRAY said: Surely he's going to go through the James Pond games first, which are naturally a canon part of this series and should not be ignored? Does this include Aquatic Games? 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 8, 2023 Sorry to disappoint you all, but no James Pond. James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing Original Release: 2004 Developer: EA Redwood Shores Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: GameCube, PS2, Xbox Version Played: GameCube EA went all out with the story and presentation of Everything or Nothing, using writers that worked on the Brosnan Bond films as well as getting Pierce Brosnan to actually provide the voice of James Bond, and Willem Dafoe playing the main villain. It also moves to a third person view, which thankfully works well for this game. Even though I played the GBA version first, the story was so weak that this was practically brand new. It starts off with a cold opening of Bond stopping the sale of a briefcase nuclear missile, which provides a way to get used to the aiming mechanics. You can’t just shoot where you want, you need to lock-on to enemies. While locked-on you can make fine adjustments to go for headshots. The system takes a bit to get used to. After the epic cold opening, we get a great Bond opening credit, with a great song to go with it. After a brief tutorial showing you the other main aspects of the game, Bond gets sent to investigate a building, but you skip to Bond setting off a bomb and escaping, using the rappel mechanic, which lets you navigate up and down walls with ease. It’s an epic set piece and it’s moments like this where this game feels like an early Uncharted game. When the game flows, it flows really well. Once you reach the ground, you get a vehicle section. One little thing I appreciated about this is that you start out on foot and get into a car. While you can only get out of cars at certain points, it does help with the feeling of controlling Bond and not just a car -it merges the two gameplay styles well. The car handling doesn’t feel quite a smooth as Nightfire, but is still enjoyable, especially the more open stages later on. Catching up to a train, you then board it and take out Jaws. While this game has a lot of levels, many are short, which really messes up the pacing of the game – going through the stats and saving takes ages. It doesn’t help that some levels just seem to end abruptly, sometimes in the middle of a room with no cutscene. The game would be a lot better if you could paly from start to finish without having to return to the save/mission select menu. With your target fleeing on foot, you give chase in a helicopter. It’s a Star Fox-style on rails segment, but is a lot of fun and has some very impressive moments as you shoot through Egypt, causing a mass amount of damage to culture in the process. It ends in a nifty boss battle. You save the nanobots and give them to your partner, who hands them over to Dafoe of the film, a student of Max Zorin. The next mission is “MI6 Interlude”, which is just a cutscene briefing you on the next part of the mission followed by Q explaining your gadgets – although oddly, he already explains them in the menu at the end of the previous mission. This kind of “interlude” pops up multiple times and it’s disappointing that you don’t get to walk around or test out your new toys. Investigating the disappearance of 003, Bond heads to Peru, having to sneak by corrupt police using the stealth mode of his car. This map is fairly open, and there are multiple routes you can take. Bond tracks down a geologist that can help direct him to the Platinum mine he needs to find. These mine missions are probably the weakest part of the game, with some tedious level design. The gunplay mechanics still make it enjoyable. Though a few levels, you’ll find 003 but fail to save him. In your escape you’ll encounter one of the few sections where you need your thermal imaging, which is handy for highlighting enemies. This section is also when my frustration with the targeting system surfaces, as shooting things like explosive barrels is a massive pain. You have to use “bond sense”, but it doesn’t like to target what you point at half the time. As you escape, the villains throw the Bond girl, Serena, off a cliff. This is a very cinematic segment, but is by far the most difficult part of the game, requiring perfect moment and timing. You really need to start moving forward before the cutscene ends to have a chance of succeeding. Aftet this you take control of a tank – but unfortunately just the guns. After this an impressive motorbike chase as you board an MI6 plane as it takes off. Off to New Orleans and there’s a new little open world driving section. You have to steal a truck to sneak into their warehouse to investigate. You then discover that your ally in the area, Mya (played by the singer Mya, who performed the song for the game) is in danger, and you have to race to save her. I was impressed that the game let me fail in the way it did: I didn’t think of stashing Bond’s car in the truck, so I couldn’t defeat the cars I needed. I had to quit the mission and start again to do it correctly, but I like that it doesn’t spell it out to you. The next few levels are a bit of a detour as you chase Mya and eventually rescue her in a boss fight, having to flee in a limo with a bomb attached to it. You go get to use a remote control car to blow up a huge warehouse and then investigate the secret base where you discover what is actually happening: these nanomachines are programmed to dissolve metals. The villains plan to weaponize it and attack cities (a bit more ambitious than “shields” from the GBA version). After destroying the manufacturing plant, you need to catch up to Jaws, who has escaped with a truck full of these nanobots, leading to a great chase scene as you rush down a highway in a motorbike, using the bike’s sliding gadget to dodge under tankers and then its flamethrower to melt the truck’s tires. With the full plan discovered, it’s time to head back to Peru. Bond wants to meet the villain, Diavolo, face to face. Luckily for Bond, he has a policy of meeting winners of a rally face-to-face and there is one happening soon, so Bond stealthily murders an entire hotel to take the driver’s racing suit and proceeds to win the race, which is a lot of fun, then heads to the meeting. Diavolo knows that something is up right away (possible due to all the deaths, or the fact that he knows what Bond looks like) and both fail to kill the other. Bond does learn that Diavolo wants to take Russia first. After Bond escapes in another car chase, he heads to the secret facility in Peru, but ends up getting knocked out by a dartgun. We wakes up strapped to a wall, with a giant drill in front of him. You get to perform the escape yourself, which is nice, before you sabotage the facility and escape. Time to head over to Russia, where Bond steals a “platinum tank”, equipped with shells and metal-eating nanomachines. And this time, you get full control of it. This is a very enjoyable mission as you disable a bomb, destroy some supports holding up a road and then proceed to melt a helicopter. The helicopter is holding a giant statue of Diavolo, which smashes through the wall, creating a sinkhole that takes out all of the tanks. M contacts Bond to let him know that Diavolo has fled to a disabled nuclear missile facility. Another cool repelling sequence as you dodge lasers and then fight Jaws for the final time. You make your way through the facility to the control room, where Bond discovered that the disarmed nukes have now been equipped with more nanomachines. You shut down the launch and blow up Diavolo in a rather anticlimactic way. But he’s not dead yet! As you take the lift back up, Diavolo comes up in a fighter jet in a very difficult battle (especially due to the limited amount of rockets and the difficulty of aiming them). You blow up a payload of nanomachines and the jet crashes and explodes. But Diavolo isn’t quite done yet. He escapes and sets off a final missile, directed at London. You fire a few rockets at him in his tower (so his final death is once again anticlimactic) and take out the missile, saving the world. Everything or Nothing is a very fun game, but does feel disjointed to how the missions are cut up into small chunks. I personally prefer Nightfire, but they’re both great games. Everything or Nothing is a great early example of a game trying to be more cinematic feel, and it pulled that off really well, making this game feel like an adaptation of a film that never existed. Everything or Nothing doesn’t have a normal multiplayer mode, but it does have co-op, where you play through four missions. These are mostly fighting through enemies until you reach a section where you both press a button, but they are enjoyable. One small feature I haven’t touched upon is that this game works with the GBA version: link it up to the GameCube and you can get some hints and view your stats mid-mission. A very minor use. Other versions PS2 and Xbox The PS2 and Xbox versions are the same game with slightly different graphic settings. These versions do have a benefit in that the thermal view can be toggled with a single button. The PS2 version also had online coop instead of just split screen. --- James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing: Agent Attack Original Release: 2004 Developer: Electronic Arts Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Browser A flash game made to market Everything or Nothing. This is a very short lightgun-style shooting game. James Bond stands out in the open and enemies pop up, click on them to kill them. You can switch between a pistol and SMG. After you run out of time or health, you could submit the score. The game takes place during the game’s “Nanotech Facility” mission, which has the description “Descriptive text about mission, very brief but similar to Everything or Nothing game to be placed here”. -- 007 Ice Race (Flash) Original Release: 2004 Developer: EON Publisher: EON Platform: Browser A simple flash game to celebrate the launch of the James Bond DVD Collection “Buy Bond Get Bond Free” offer and the release of Die Another Day on DVD. You can choose between the Aston Martin Vanquish, Lotus Esprit or Aston Martin DBS, but this has no impact on the gameplay. You move up the screen avoiding ice domes and other cars (which consist of copies of Bond’s cars and Zao’s Jaguar XKR) and see how long you can last before losing three lives. Despite its simplicity, the game is buggy – the AI cars will often bounce off obstacles and quickly warp side to side, taking away most of hour health while being unavoidable. 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 10, 2023 GoldenEye: Rogue Agent Original Release: 2004 Developer: EA Los Angeles Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: GameCube, PS2, Xbox Version Played: GameCube A blatant cash-in trying to use the name to bring up memories of the N64 game, this certainly had a lot of competition in the first person shooter genre. Not only does the name invite comparisons to the classic GoldenEye, but Rogue Agent also came out two weeks atter Halo 2 and one week after Half-Life 2. In this, you don’t play as Bond, but another 00 Agent that became unreliable and brutal after getting shot in the head by Dr. No. The game prided itself on letting you play and evil and brutal character. Rogue Agent starts off on a simulated mission to getting into Fort Knox and stopping Goldfinger from setting off a bomb. Your helicopter goes down and Bond is killed. You get introduced to the main mechanics, which focus heavily on dual wielding: you can mix and match any of the single-handed guns in the game, firing them independently. This system works well, and would be good in a better game. You fail this mission and M blames you for the death of virtual Bond (who is somehow the best spy even though all his villains are still alive) and for the bomb going off – even though you’re not actually responsible for either, and you did nothing particularly “evil” that slowed you down. You then accept an invitation from Goldfinger to join him, because we know an organisation like MI6 would just let a violent, dangerous person that knows all sorts of secrets just leave with no issues. Joining the organisation (the game wants to use SPECTRE but the licensing was still strange, so avoided the name itself), Scaramanga, who is surprisingly voiced by Christopher Lee, has created a special replacement eye that is equipped with features, such as seeing enemies though walls. Obviously, Scaramanga loves the colour gold, so your fancy new eye is gold in colour….a golden eye. Yup, the name “GoldenEye” is the nickname of the character you play as, that’s the weak justification they went with. Goldfinger reveals his new creation: the OMEN, a weapon that can dissolve anything biological. Dr No launches an attack so you need to fight your way though waves of men, blow up the base and escape. You’ll notice an arrow on screen at all times showing where you need to go, because the level design is so bad that it needs it, with lots of copy and pasted corridors and no sense of direction. Next you get sent to Hong Kong to assassinate Dr No. As Goldfinger doesn’t own a single sniper rifle, he relies on someone placing one next to the firing spot. This turns out to be a trap and you need to run across rooftops to escape – well, walk across rooftops. This feels like a game that where your should be speedy, brutally moving between enemies, but movement is really stiff. You get blocked by low walls and just walk slowly. Other attempts at making you feel “evil” are using environmental hazards to kill enemies and taking hostages, neither of which feel particularly different from other shooting games . When you’ve finished with a hostage, you just throw them forward slightly and they die – no neck snapping like other games where you take hostages. You also only ever fight other baddies – MI6 never get involved. Goldfinger has moved the OMEN to his casino and it gets attaceked by Xenia. No idea why she’s working with Dr No, but at least she’s from GoldenEye. Each level has a nice setting, but you never really do anything different in them, and the levels repeat so often that you’re tired of them by the end. You’ll also encounter some generic goons that have names when you hover over them, these take more hits than standard enemies. You reach the vault and set off the OMEN as you leave, although it must be a small blast as Xenia is unharmed. By this point, you’ll have likely finished experimenting with combinations of guns as there aren’t many at all. A pistol, SMG and shotgun along a few guns with specific uses, like one that shoots little remote control bomb and a poison one that stuns enemies (on you, it slows you down and is very annoying). While the dual wielding is the game’s defining feature, I found myself sticking to double handed guns as much as possible. Oh look, it’s a dam. Specifically Hoover Dam, Dr No has a secret base inside (why? because they needed a reason to have a level involving a dam). He has a bomb inside so that the US government doesn’t attack him. You’ll blow up a lot of vehicles in this level, but it’s mostly the same as everything before it. Your objective is to get inside and blow up the bomb yourself – probably the most evil thing you do, and it’s in a cutscene. After you send the bomb down a put to blow it up, Goldfinger’s right hand man (Oddjob) comes running at you and you throw him down the pit (all in a cutscene). I looked online to find out what just happened, and it turns out nobody else really knows. As you escape, Xenia knocks you out and it jumps back you you being in control and she’s in a aircraft shooting at you. I have no idea why. In order to find the location of Crab Key, Dr No’s hideout, you need to attack “The Octopus”, a secret underwater base where members of not-legally-SPECTRE buy their weapons and make deals. The level starts with a hologram accepting you, while enemies suddenly start shooting you. The AI is quite decent, and they’ll use environmental hazards against you, but form this level onwards I noticed they quite often took each other hostage, and I have no idea what that’s supposed to achieve. This level looks the nicest, with the evil lair them in overdrive and an octopus motif, but unfortunately has the same copy and pasted bland corridors as all the other levels. You do get to spend Goldfinger’s money, which is somewhat amusing. Time to take on Crab Key. You’ll have to use your eye’s hacking ability in this level to activate bridges. You set up some bombs than disable Dr. No’s satellite, before defeating Dr. No himself in boss fight where you have to hack a bunch of buttons and then shoot him. As you head off to escape, Goldfinger says he doesn’t trust you and say he’s going to kill you. Luckily, you’re right next to Dr. No’s hanger bay. After this, Goldfinger takes control of the organisation’s volcano lair by vaporising everyone with the OMEN. Scaramanga has a plan: first, you must free the prisoners in the detention centre (even though a second ago, it was stated that everyone was wiped out), then fight your way to Goldfinger. It’s very hard to distinguish between allies and enemies, but there’s no consequences for killing them and they aren’t helpful anyway. You also encounter a new weapon based on the OMEN: a weapon that an vapourise enemies in one hit (other than the stronger enemies, who require multiple hits). While this sounds good, enemies have these and can also fire them repeatedly (much faster than you can) and you also die in one hit, so most deaths will be a shot from somewhere you haven’t seen. Once you reach Goldfinger, he dies in a cutscene and the game is over. No final confrontation or anything. For a game about you being a brutal, violent bad guy, it’s just a very generic shooting game with no blood or anything more violent than any other. You only ever fight other villains, and there are no innocent civilians in the game. The “dark and gritty” attempt at gameplay just doesn’t do either properly, and it at odds with the cheesy and silly story. This is a very poor game where the only enjoyment is how bad some parts are. The game also ahs a basic multiplayer mode, which has a level based on the end of GoldenEye (the actual GoldenEye). It’s uses the same tedious gameplay, but catching each other out on the death traps provides some entertainment. --- Scene It? 007 Original Release: 2002 Developer: Mattel Publisher: Mattel Platform: Board Game Scene It? is a series of DVD games that use a mixture of trivia cards and a DVD for asking questions. You move around the board and roll a dice to select category, which can be an answer from a card, or a DVD question that is either for all players or exclusive to you. The DVD is nicely produced, with some good effects and well designed menus that make it look a lot more than it actually is. You select different options form the menu, but the questions themselves are from the same video files, regardless of what options you pick. These involve imagery appearing, sound clips or questions based on movie scenes, although these questions can range from being unrelated to the scene to asking for a tiny detail from it. The big problem with Scene it? games – like most themed trivia games – is that you really need a group of fans who know a lot about the franchise. While some questions are about the other roles of the actors, it’s not enough to allow others to have fun. I think it says a lot that it’s easier to find a copy of Scene it? still in shrink-wrap than it is opened. -- GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (DS) Original Release: 2004 Developer: n-Space Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Nintendo DS While this game isn’t being helped for being based on a console game that wasn’t very good, Rogue Agent on the DS is a great early example at what the DS can do. This is a full first person shooter that recreates the full game surprisingly well. That said, it also shows the downsides of the DS, too, particularly in the controls. There are a few options: you can use the thumb stylus on the DS for something similar to dual analogue, but it feels awkward, especially pushing the buttons to activate powers and change weapons. Using a stylus is even worse and stops you form being able to fire weapons independently. Finally, you can use the ABXY buttons to look around, although there’s no analogue movement at all. However, the level design is very impressive. A lot of the main elements from the levels of the main game are here. While levels have been shortened and some parts removed, a lot of this was boring copy and pasted corridors, so these versions of levels flow nicer. On top of that, there’s no loading screens between areas, it’s just one smooth run from beginning to end. All the gameplay mechanics are here, with dual wielding being a focus, and taking hostages. Abilities make use of the select button, while your eye powers are activated from the touch screen. It captures the feeling of the full game extremely well, which is impressive for the DS…but unfortunately the original game wasn’t a good one. There is one new gameplay feature in this version – buttons that you have to decode. This is a colour-based “Simon says” activity, which I found extremely difficult due to being colourblind. With the use of save states, I was able to get through these, but with if I was playing on the original cart, I would have been unable to get past these points. In the hotel level, we start getting some deviancy from the main game. I realised that I hadn’t unlocked any extra eye powers yet, which was odd. This level features multiple simon says locks in a row, and when you escaped and set of the omen, Xenia is killed in the cutscene. And that’s because the game skips the next few levels – the dam and the Octopus (so missing the best looking level of the game). I still hasn’t unlocked any other eye powers, but still encountered a bridge that requires the remote hacking, so I was stuck and had to look up what I needed to do. It turns out that the “virtual missions” I had been unlocking and I was saving for the end are how you unlock the eye powers. The one for the hacking owner is a fun recreation of the final fight form The Man with the Golden Gun. After this, I was able to go back in the game and defeat Dr No, time for the final mission. This skips out the pointless rescue of prisoners, so you can focus on Goldfinger. His death isn’t entirely a cutscene, as you get to use a “Simon says” minigame to take him out. You then have to escape by running back through the level, encountering Oddjob at the end (as we skipped the Dam mission, he didn’t have his random death), so it’s nice to have an actual final boss. While this version of Rogue Agent doesn’t help it become a good game, it’s a good example of what the DS itself can do. 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 11, 2023 For an outsider looking in, they must think that the video game industry is obsessed with Goldeneye because it’s the greatest Bond movie ever… How ironic that so much attention gets placed on such a middling film! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 13, 2023 From Russia With Love Original Release: 2005 Developer: EA Redwood Shores Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: GameCube, PS2, Xbox Version Played: GameCube After Everything or Nothing, EA still wanted to make James Bond games, but Pierce Brosnan was no longer James Bond, and the next Bond hadn’t been chosen. They decided on two things: one was a “Bond” game where you don’t play as James Bond (which ended up being the terrible Rogue Agent), the other: look into the past. They opted for From Russia With Love and even brought back Sean Connery to record new lines (although his Scottish accent is stronger than it used to be). The game doesn’t officially support widescreen, but I managed to find an Action Replay code that creates a proper widescreen, as well as improved framerate. Starting off with a brand new introduction, we get an unelated mini adventure as Bond protects the Prime Minister’s daughter from being kidnapped, fighting enemies from a criminal organisation around the Houses of Parliament, starting form the terrace (for me, it’s nice to see a place I’ve been to in a game – reminds me of the worst chips I’ve ever had, sat on the terrace). The aiming is similar to Everything or Nothing, however now there’s an extra button which activates the precision aiming, something that I think works extremely well. It zooms in and a few important points are highlighted – such as grenades. I found it very easy to pull off headshots due to this mechanic. The aiming still has some issues, though – you still can’t aim freely and targeting objects (like explosive barrels) is still a big pain. As the villains flee with the Prime Minster’s daughter in a helicopter, Bond stops a jetpack pilot and takes it for himself. The jetpack is loosely based on the Bell Rocket Belt seen in Thunderball (which was a real, functioning jetpack), and this one is equipped with a machine gun and rockets. The controls for it are extremely fluid and it’s a joy to use as you blast enemies around Clock Tower and save the Prime Minster’s daughter. You then get treated to a fantastic opening titles, with some really cool effects mixed with footage from the film (plus new live action footage of the new characters) and elements of the original opening titles. The names used are of the actors the likenesses are based on, rather than the voice actors (who all do a great job) We then get to where the film opened: you play as Bond sneaking (well, mostly fighting) through a hedge maze to infiltrate a mansion, until Red Grant kills him. As with the film, it was a fake Bond, with a very smooth transition of Grant throwing the fake Bond mask to the real Bond’s hat landing on the coatrack in Moneypenny’s office. You get to walk around MI6 and talk to Moneypenny, M and Q – this is exactly what I wanted from the “MI6 Interlude” sections in Everything or Nothing. From Russia With Love does a great job at capturing the style of the film and the period that it is set in, with a wonderful style throughout the entire film. The presentation of the game is outstanding from start to finish, and even though the models and textures don’t look the best for the GameCube, the damage done to the environment more than make up for it to make the levels feal more real. During the briefing, M explains that Russian defector Tatiana wants to help MI6 obtain a Lektor (a soviet encoding device), but specifically asking for James Bond. It’s deemed that it’s a trap but still worth the risk, so Bond heads to Station T in Istanbul. On the drive there, Red Grant blows up a Russian car, resulting in a horde of cars attacking Bond. The driving mechanics are good, but unfortunately you can’t use the shoulder buttons to accelerate or break. The map is a similar “small open world” type map. After a bit of driving, you’ll have to get past a tank by sneaking around to a turret on foot – again, it’s nice to transition between driving and on foot sections. As you get to Station T, it gets attacked. You’ll need to rescue hostages and diffuse bombs. Here you’ll get to test out one of the new gadgets: the miniature Q copter, which you can use to fly though vents and detonate to activate switches. Bond also has a rappel belt and laser watch, making their appearances slightly earlier than the films. At the end of the level, a helicopter enters the building for a brutal boss fight. After another car sequence where you have to obtain a disguise, you need to reach a secret underground tunnel to spy on the Russians, this involves a dreadful turret section as you get driven around in a boat, having to blast open doors. Once you spy on the Russians, you discover an attack on a Gypsy camp and that the Lektor has been moved to a secure vault, so your ally, Kerim, heads off to warn your friend while you make your way into the building to steal blueprints to the vault. You’ll encounter some large armoured guys with gatling guns, and you’ll need to shoot off the straps holding their armour to kill them. As you escape, you’ll discover a jetpack, the opening wasn’t the only appearance of it. You blast your way out of the building, although there are a few spots you can land on to find secrets. These secrets let you update Bond’s weapons and gadgets, giving you an incentive to explore the levels. After you escape, you help defend the Gypsy camp. Red Grant saves Bond and you then defend Kerim with a sniper rifle. Grant’s desire to kill Bond is expanded in this game as something he’s really looking forward to, and is his main motivation. After the KGB agent retreats, Krenim really wants to go after him, so it’s time for more sniping, although this level is much more fun to the really nice setup as Krenim makes his way though some buildings. Now it’s finally time to meet up with Tatiana and grab the Lektor form the Russian consulate. She doesn’t have a standard health bar, but a “threat” meter that goes up when enemies are targeting her, so escorting her isn’t too bad. You’ll have to make your way through gas to activate buttons to progress, as well as a go through some very long vents with the Q copter. As you flee, it’s a race to the train station to board the Orient Express as you leave. As you take control of the car…you have to randomly drive around and blow up 30 Russian vehicles before proceeding. It’s a really strange an unnecessary mission, simply having to deal with enemies as you rush to the train station would be enough. Now it’s time for the pivotal train section…which unfortunately is the weakest part of the game. Bond and Grant fight in a cutscene before Grant flees with the Lektor (and his new sidekick), telling his goons to sort Bond out. I’m not sure why they built up Grant’s desire to kill Bond in the right way only to have him run away like a coward. You fight through a train station (where the escort of Tatiana does become annoying as she sits out in the open for no reason) and then have to fight a retro sci-fi Octopus train – due to rights issues with the SPECTRE name, they got renamed, but Octopus just sounds a bit too silly for this game, surely something like GHOST or PHANTOM would be better? You finally get to fight Red Grant, and you just shoot him a lot across a train track. After shooting him with around 100 bullets (including targeting specific points on his body), he collapses and gets ran over by a train. However, his assistant has escaped, taking the Lektor with her. Following the new villain, Adara, to an Octopus factory, you once again don a jetpack as you blast through the first bit, before having to do the rest on food. This is a really nice villain lair, with secret underground portions and a boss fight against some kind of space rover-like machine. It’s a very enjoyable mission. Once you set some explosives and flee, Bond escapes trough a tunnel in a vehicle in a really fun car section, shooting your way through obstacles. After this, you regroup with Tatiana. Another fun car mission mixed with on foot sections. You have to find a key to the docks and then make your way back, fighting helicopters that blow up portions of the road. Once you make it to a boat, you need to flee the country and make it to the border. This is unfortunately a very long and dull turret section that feels like it never ends. After this, you get a cutscene recreating the end of the film as Klebb attacks Bond and Tatiana, before it abruptly jumps to the next scene. While the film has ended now, the game has an additional tacked on action scene. Story-wise, it comes from nowhere: it just cuts to Bond parachuting and M explaining that Octopus are launching a nuclear missile towards, demanding £100 million to cancel it. It’s completely unrelated to anything else, which is fine for the cold opening, but feel really out of place. That said, the mission is a fun one as you make your way through the secret Octopus base and sabotage their missile. You get a short jetpack section and you have to take out Adara, who is firing missiles form a jet on the ground, at the end of the mission she flies the jet into the hanger door, attempting to take Bond out with her, but missing. As you escape the building, Bond gets attacked by a large machine equipped with gatling guns and lasers, controlled by Red Grant. Turns out he didn’t die earlier. You blow it up and Red Grant still survives the explosion, getting shot by Bond in a cutscene. While the From Russia With Love has flaws, it’s a very enjoyable game. This smooths out the problems Everything or Nothing has and is a lot of fun to play. The missions also flow a lot better, with missions having multiple parts to them before you go back to the menu, including proper endings each time. While I have the handheld port to look at still, From Russia With Love ended up being the last James Bond game from Electronic Arts, which is a shame as they seemed to be figuring out their style of Bond games. Other Versions PS2 & Xbox The PS2 and Xbox versions are similar to the GameCube version, with slightly different graphics. --- SilverFin: Learn to Drive Original Release: 2005 Developer: Puffin Books Publisher: Puffin Books Platform: Browser Young Bond is a series of Young Adult books about Bond during his teenage years at Eton collage. To promote the books, the series had a few online and Java games, starting with this one, which is about a scene from the book where Bond’s uncle, Max, teaches him how to drive. The game was simple, do three laps around James’ uncle’s estate within the time limit. You can switch to high gear to faster. It’s also a lot more difficult than it looks. The car will bounce backwards whenever it hits a fence, wall or other objects, with a few very tight sections of road. The faster you go, the more you will bounce back. For a very short flash game, it’s quite good fun. -- 007 (Warp Spawn Games) Original Release: 2005 Developer: Lloyd Krassner Publisher: Warp Spawn Games Platform: Board Game This is an unlicensed free print-and-play game developed by Lloyd Krassner, based on James Bond. It’s a set of rules followed by a list of cards – I used this and screencaps from the films to create this Tabletop Simulator version of it. You take turns moving a pawn across a series of 10 cards. You have two action points per turn, which can be to move and/or activate a card. Allies, Action and Gadget cards are place in your “ready area” and can be used to defeat Enemy Agents and Traps, which are then place in your “Danger Pile”, you can then use these Danger cards to defeat villains and complete plots – these cards go into your Mission Pile – the person with the most cards in their mission pile when the cards run out wins the game. There are also “Woman” cards. These can be used to defeat dangers, but instead of being discarded, they get placed in the “Seduction Pile”. The player with the most women in their seduction pile wins a “minor victory”. The game is quite simple as you get going and flows very nicely. You need to be aware of other cards near you to avoid helping your opponents too much, and there’s some nice manipulation of the cards using powers. --- Guns & Gadgets 007 Original Release: 2005 Developer: Cartamundi Publisher: Cartamundi Platform: Board Game This is a pack of playing cards that contains a stats for playing a version of Top Trumps. It has imagery from all the films up to Die Another Day. --- Heroes & Villains 007 Original Release: 2005 Developer: Cartamundi Publisher: Cartamundi Platform: Board Game This is a pack of playing cards that contains a stats for playing a version of Top Trumps. It has imagery from all the films up to Die Another Day. --- From Russia With Love (PSP) Original Release: 2006 Developer: Rebellion Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: PSP The handheld version of From Russia With Love went to the PSP instead of the DS – and was the only Bond game to do so. It’s essentially a highly compromised version of the home console game, so I’ll be going through the things that are different in this version – the graphics are an obvious point, with Sean Connery’s dead, unblinking eyes staring at you whenever he faces the camera. The game opens and you get the exact same level layout as the home console version, it’s initially very impressive how it captures the lighting and style of the home console version. However, Bond’s movement is incredibly stiff (partly due to only having one analogue stick), and he often gets stuck on objects. Bond’s targeting is much more accurate though, which was useful as I had no idea how to activate the Bond focus mode at this point. The jetpack is back and also feels very clunky. It does the job somewhat, but is nowhere near the fun as the main version, and turning is not nice at all – it isn’t a problem in this mission, but is later on. Strangely, you can blast away the clock faces around Big Ben. Another thing about the level is that sections are broken up, with loading scenes in between them. It’s not too bad here, but the game feels a lot more disjointed. Reaching the start of the film, I was impressed with regards to the flow of the game between missions: choose to save then the next mission starts, a big improvement over the many more button presses due to returning to the menu of the home console games. As the sections of the hedge maze is small, the camera issues start to become evident. I eventually worked out that Circle and Square rotate the camera, but it still likes to get stuck on things and is very slow to move, especially when enemies are behind you. I found myself just constantly tapping the lock on button to help with moving the camera. Another thing is that vaulting is also removed, although I can’t see any reason why. After the section at MI6, it’s now onto the Gypsy camp. The four missions in Istanbul have been reduced to a few clips of cutscenes (partly because the vehicle sections have been removed completely). The cutscenes are from the home console version, to remind you about how toned down the graphics are. Incidentally, I got the most enjoyment from the game by crouching because the animation for it is so bad. In this level you’ll encounter more frustrations: the gas mask is something Bond puts on straight away, with the short timespans it lasts depleting from that point. It’s also very difficult to see the gas itself. You’ll reach the sniper sections and the aiming is horrendous, just completely stiff and not easy to adjust. The one saving grace in these levels is that the enemies spend most of the time ignoring Krenim and instead just sit down and take wile pot shots at Bond instead. In terms of weapons, some of them just appear in your inventory at the start of levels. You can also upgrade them – a little bar in the weapon icon shows your progress to the next unlock and when it’s full, you can do one upgrade. In the Russian consulate, I actually figured out how to use Bond focus – it’s the same button as turning the camera left. This was useful for long distance targets, but headshots don’t seem as deadly and due to how slow it is, you’re better off mindlessly blasting people up close (which is most of the game). The train level is mostly the same, although in one part it just throw multiple waves of enemies at you for padding. The armour piercing rifle is in your inventory early, which makes dealing with the train a lot easier. After dealing with Red Grant, we get one of my favourite levels from the main version, but this one is no fun at all. The outside section is removed completely and the level feels so disjointed due to skipping large chunks. The level again tries to compensate for its length by throwing a few waves of enemies at you for no reason. After you finish this, the rest of the film portions become a cutscene, missing some fun vehicle missions but also avoiding the awful boat level. It does feel a bit strange that the main parts removed are sections based on the actual film. In terms of matching the home console version, the Octopus base is one of the best conversions. The route through the mission is partially streamlined (which is an improvement), but the whole level is there. One issue is that the camera and aiming is your main enemy in the central room, with enemies appearing from all sides. You sabotage the nuke and defeat both villains in the same way. While this version is lacking multiple levels (including all the bonus levels), it does have something new: challenge missions. These are simple objectives (kill enemies as quickly as possible, survive for x time, finish a section quickly) that take place in parts of the levels. From Russia With Love shows how the PSP can somewhat replicate a home console experience, but at the same time, this game is incredibly compromised that its also an example of why it shouldn’t be done. 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 15, 2023 Casino Royale (Java) Original Release: 2006 Developer: Javaground Publisher: Sony Pictures Digital Platform: Java Mobile A 2D platforming/shooting game for Java Mobile phones, this loosely follows the story as you go through 14 short levels based on events in the film. For a Java game, the controls are surprisingly smooth, with Bond jumping, rolling and running across platforms, using special “Bond Moves” to cross large gaps and climbing up and along pipes. Moving around works really well, even with the limited controls. Combat is also simple, but effective. The same button activates shooting or – if you’re close to an enemy – punching. I focused a lot on punching and after a few hits, you can perform a quick time event for an instant takedown. You’ll find a few different kinds of guns, including a sniper rifle that can be used to activate buttons. You can also use “Bond move” in some places to kill a group of enemies using the environment, or sneak up behind them for an instant kill. A few levels are stealth-based, but the game is very lenient and gives you a 10 second window between a guard spotting you and failing the level – kill them and the timer is cancelled. I was able to run through the stealth levels, quickly punching my way through enemies. If you complete a level without dying, you can also upgrade your skills to be better at shooting, brawling, defence and stealth – although I focused on brawling and defence. This is a short but sweet platform game. While it’s easy, it’s also a lot of fun. This is definitely one of the better Java mobile games that I’ve played. --- Casino Royale Strategy Game Original Release: 2005 Developer: Big Spaceship Publisher: Sony Pictures Platform: Browser Not played: Servers down This flash game – made to promote Casino Royale – was a multiplayer turn-based strategy game where the objective was to capture a briefcase and return it to the base before the opposing team. Your team was made up of five classes named after playing cards: Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Joker. These had different weapons and abilities – the Queen was able to revive downed members, while the Joker can make himself invisible but can’t move, only attacking if an enemy comes close. Each turn, you have 45 seconds to spend your action points moving, attacking or using special abilities. The game is square-based, with your vision and movement based on a set amount of squares. If you don’t use all your action points within the timer, you lose the remaining ones and the next player takes their turn. Due to the online nature of this game, there is no way to play it now. --- Casino Royale: 180 Seconds Original Release: 2006 Developer: Sony Pictures Publisher: Sony Pictures Platform: Browser To market the release of Casino Royale, the official website released a series of Flash games. This one started off as “120 Seconds” before having the timer increased to “180 Seconds”. In this, you have to race to the Casino Royale in order to be seated at the Poker table in time. You use the arrow keys to steer, trying to avoid enemies, which leave oil slicks in front of you. It’s a very simple game, and even though you can finish in less than 2 minutes, it still manages to drag. --- Casino Royale: Line of Sight Original Release: 2006 Developer: Sony Pictures Publisher: Sony Pictures Platform: Browser The second of four Casino Royale flash games from the official website of the film. This one is incredibly basic, where Bond must avoid guards for as long as possible. You move around with the mouse, while the guards bounce around the edges of the screen. If you hit a guard or the edge of the game, it’s game over and you’re given a high score. There’s nothing else to this game. --- Casino Royale: M’s Assessment Original Release: 2006 Developer: Sony Pictures Publisher: Sony Pictures Platform: Browser This isn’t really a game, I’m only including it because it’s a part of the four Casino Royale website flash games. This is a simple personality quiz. Answer the questions and M will tell you which MI6 division you are suitable for. --- Casino Royale: Card Shark Original Release: 2006 Developer: Sony Pictures Publisher: Sony Pictures Platform: Browser The final flash game from the Casino Royale website. This one involves shooting cards. You have one minute and 200 bullets to fire, trying to hit as many cards as you can. Some cards will move behind others, allowing you to hit multiple in one shot. There’s surprisingly few card types in the game, so you’ll see lots of repeats. You’ll likely be playing by repeatedly clicking the mouse to get a decent score. --- Casino Royale (EA) Original Release: Cancelled in 2006 Developer: Electronic Arts Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Xbox 360/PS3 then Xbox/PS2 Before From Russia Was Love was finished, Electronic Arts started working on a Casino Royale game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. They got early access to the cast and sets so they could start development before filming had even begun. The game was planned to be a 3rd person shooter similar to Everything or Nothing. Early in 2006, development was only 15% complete and EA shifted to making the game for Xbox and PlayStation 2 to try and get it ready for release. Despite expanding the James Bond contract prior to this, MGM were unhappy that the game would not be ready alongside the film and ended up cancelling the game and signing a deal with Activision instead. MI6 HQ managed to obtain a few early renders of the final level. -- James Bond Trivia (Java) Original Release: 2006 Developer: 8-Bit Games Publisher: Sony Pictures Digital Platform: Java Mobile A simple trivia mobile game about the James Bond franchise. It includes films up to Die Another Day, however there are a lot more questions about the earlier Bond films. There are also quite a few questions about other media inspired by Bond – TV shows, films and music. Every five questions, you can earn extra points in a target shooting minigame, using a bullet for every question you get right. When you get a total of five wrong, you are given a score, although you can continue answering questions form the same point as the 100 questions are asked in order. --- SilverFin (Java) Original Release: 2006 Developer: Morpheme Publisher: PlayerOne Platform: Java Mobile SilverFin is a Young Bond novel - one of a series of young adult books about James Bond's time at Eton College. The Java game is a stealth/puzzle game that plays across 15 levels and three settings: Eton College, a Scottish castle and a secret laboratory. The game is in an isometric view with simple mechanics, mainly resolving around pushing blocks into holes or out of the way. Guards move around in set patterns and if you’re spotted, will raise the alert level (but won’t chase you): get spotted three times and you fail the level. Although most failures will be a result of making a mistake with the blocks, which, due to the view, can be easy to misalign, although you do get used to it. The game starts very simple and easy but ramps up towards the end, with some thoughtful and challenging levels. I ended up enjoying it a lot, especially in the laboratory section which mixes things up with a few new mechanics, including another enemy type. SilverFin is a great Java Mobile game, and is a great example of a game that works really well on the platform. It’s a shame they never made more games for the other books, but sadly these games died out for more online-focused mobile games. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 15, 2023 I know I've been late on commenting, but I commend your committment to the cause Surprised at how positive you were on the EA era of Bond, didn't think you'd enjoy them so much. And yes, Nightfire on GBA is an utter technical miracle! SO impressive! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 15, 2023 18 minutes ago, Dcubed said: Surprised at how positive you were on the EA era of Bond, didn't think you'd enjoy them so much. And yes, Nightfire on GBA is an utter technical miracle! SO impressive! They're all pretty solid games, just not the best of the best. I do think it helps playing them without spending £50 on them. I think I would have been a bit disappointed when I was younger and I only had one new game every few months, but they're all enjoyable. I actually liked a couple of Activision's games, too (one I was really surprised I enjoyed so much, as you'll find out soon - don't worry, it's not 007 Legends). 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 17, 2023 Blood Fever: Sea Urchin Sprint Original Release: 2006 Developer: Puffin Books Publisher: Puffin Books Platform: Browser This flash game was made to celebrate the release of the second book in the Young Bond series. It depicts a scene from the book where James has to crawl past sea urchins in order to reach Casa Polipe. You rotate using the left and right arrows and move forward with the up arrow. The urchins sway back and forth, so you have to time your movements right to get past. The maze is very short, but you do have a (generous) time limit to content with. Once you reach the shore, you win. --- Monopoly: 007 Collector’s Edition (2006) Original Release: 2006 Developer: Hasbro Publisher: Hasbro Platform: Board Game A James Bond themed version of Monopoly. These versions of Monopoly don’t do anything with the actual theme, it’s just the basic game with different pictures and player pieces. If you’ve played one licences Monopoly, you’ve played them all (other a small amount of special ones). Monopoly is a terrible roll-and-move trading game. The mechanics were originally designed with a runaway winner in mind to demonstrate how bad landlords are, only for the game to be stolen by someone else and mass produced. The game is also often made worse by people incorporating “house rules”, such as putting fine/tax money under “free parking” – something that just makes the game drag even longer. Almost everything you do is determined by rolling two dice. For the first few turns round the board, there is property you can either buy or send to auction (a rule most people forget) and the it’s the case of trying not to land on ren, although as it’s all dice based, there’s to tactics for doing so, other than not paying to leave jail early (it’s actually beneficial to stay in jail). There’s also a lot of negotiating and trading properties with other players to try and create sets. In order to buy houses and hotels. --- Avenue of Death Original Release: 2006 Developer: TAMBA Internet Publisher: Ian Fleming Publications Platform: Browser This flash game was made to promote the release of the Young Bond novel Hurricane Gold, the fourth book in the series. It depicts a few scenes from the book as Bond has to make it though the Avenue of Death, getting past traps and Mayan gods. The game is mostly a simple platformer, jump past obstacles and collect coins and matches for bonus points. The of the levels are just about getting to the other side of the screen, while a few are slightly different. One has you leaping over a serpent god, you have to time the angle of the jump and charge up your jump power. One has you swimming in the dark to find a hidden fuse and the final one requires you to light a match and use it to light a fuse. It’s very short but enjoyable enough for a quick Flash game. --- 007 Spy Cards Original Release: 2007 Developer: G E Fabbri Publisher: G E Fabbri Platform: Board Game This is a sequel to 007 Spy Files, also coming with a series of Magazines. It’s another Top Trumps style game, but with a few differences. This version uses all cards rather than separating them out by category. Gadget card are now bonus abilities and you can only have two in your deck. Interestingly, there’s no “James Bond” card in the game. Instead, each actor has cards in their names, both a main one and multiple “costumes”. This one only supports two players, but you now have a hand of cards to choose from rather than being stuck to a list. One player picks a card and category, and their opponent may choose any card from their hand to combat it. The first set of 275 cards was called “Commander”, which suggests they were planning on making more, but these never came about. --- 007: Quantum of Solace Original Release: 2008 Developer: Treyarch, Beenox (PC, Wii Port) Publisher: Activision Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii Version played: PC With the Bond license now going to Activision, they gave Treyarch the task of creating a new film tie-in alongside making Call of Duty: World at War. Naturally, this involved using the Call of Duty game engine, focusing on shooting with very little in the way of gadgets – that said, Daniel Craig’s Bond was less about gadgets anyway. Starting out at the end of Casino Royale, with Bond trying to kidnap Mr. White and you get thrown straight into the action. It’s a first person shooter that feels a lot like Call of Duty 4, but also has a cover system that turns into a third person perspective. It’s a surprisingly intuitive system, and the core shooting mechanics are enjoyable. In this level, you have to get around the gardens to find another way into Mr. White’s house, gathering intel and then having to escape as a bomb sets the building on fire – this game has some good set pieces. After kidnapping Mr. White, the car chase that follows is unfortunately not a mission – it’s all shooting in this game. However, instead of using the opening credits from the film, the game has its own really good opening using that car chase – and it has a much better song than the film, too. When questioning Mr. White, M’s bodyguard betrays MI6 and you need to chase him through some ancient sewers and then above rooftops. If you didn’t figure it out yourself in the first level, this introduces the melee mechanic – run up to them, hit and then perform a quick time event to knock them out. This involves moving over a reticule and hitting the fire button, so it’s not as annoying as the random button kind. The boss fights, unfortunately, just use this mechanic. Tracking down Mr. White to the very impressive looking Bregenz Opera House. This is a fantastic level that has a wonderful atmosphere throughout due to the opera music accompanying the soundtrack. This level encourages you to be stealthy, making headshots, knocking out enemies and disabling cameras. There’s no game over for failing – but you will have to deal with armoured guards if you get spotted. In one section, you have to climb across part of the moving stage as you get a camera view from the point of the snipers, it looks very snazzy and these parts are stylish, even if they’re simple. After spying in on the meeting (finding out about a man called Greene and a British advisor called Haines), you have to do a bit of sniping (which is very satisfying) before escaping. This is a great level. From the best level to the worst – the game skips forward to a sinkhole, with Bond already teamed up with Camille (who has previously not been mentioned). It’s a very drab looking level, shooting enemies and helicopters then an extended stationary turret section. At the end of the level, Camille explains that she wants revenge on a general, and asks Bond why he’s invested, this brings us to the main part of the game. You see, this isn’t just a Quantum of Solace game – in fact, the Quantum of Solace parts make up less than a third of the game. This is mainly a Casino Royale game in disguise, the flashback starts off with the opening scene of Casino Royale with two levels of Bond chasing a bombmaker. The first level has the bomber being protected by waves of henchmen to fight through, but is still a lot of fun, while the second is a parkour chase through the construction site, which works surprisingly well for a game like this. After disposing of the bomber (off screen), Bond discovers a contact in Miami and tracks him down to the science centre. If you turn around here, you’ll see a massive billboard for some gum – this game has plenty of product placement (mainly Sony Ericsson phones and VAIO laptops). You have to take out some snipers before sneaking around the building. Once you get in, you have to make your way down from the roof before a large fight in the main hall, destroying the exhibits inside, including a replica of Da Vinci’s flying machine. Bond discovers a bomb threat intended for Miami Airport, and when he gets there finds out that it has been taken over by hostiles. This is another fun mission where you can be stealthy, or just go in all guns blazing if you prefer. There are plenty of objects that you can shoot to kill, blind or stun enemies, all highlighted with a slight glimmer. A train level – it’s always oddly satisfying to fight on a train. In this mission, a drug deal is happening as you need to take the dealer out, creating a great set piece with you jumping between trains – it’s not quite Uncharted 2’s train level, but that game wasn’t out yet. This is another really fun level. Unfortunately, you don’t get to play poker at Casino Royale (even a few rounds and an optional mini game would have been nice), so it skips forward to mid-game where Le Chiffre gets taken by Obanno. Bond chases them through the hotels – including through the stunning looking spa. Another nice thing about this game is the damage to the environment – chunks fall off pillars and other objects break apart, some cover can also get destroyed. Some objects can be shot to take out enemies – a bit like “Bond moments” in previous games, but they feel more natural. Next up is the shortest level in the game, but one that was a very nice inclusion and I would have liked to have seen some more non-combat moments. Bond gets poisoned and has to make his way to the car while dealing with the effects of it. After being rescued, we get told that Bond wins the game, but Vesper is kidnapped, and Bond also gets kidnapped on route to rescue her. As Bond frees himself, he heads to a barge and has to to a bit of sniping to protest Vesper, which is kind of annoying. After this, you assault the barge, setting off huge explosions along the way. I died a lot, but checkpoints are frequent and it’s quick to back in the action, so I didn’t mind much at all. The resolution with Le Chiffre pretty much happens off screen. In Venice – which still looks really nice – Bond has to tail Vesper as she heads to a meeting. There’s a few nice quiet parts of this level, which are mixed with plenty of action in between. You have to make your way up a house as it sinks before finding a trapped Vesper and using a nail gun to fight off the final enemy of this section. After Vesper dies, it’s time to head back to Quantum of Solace. We get a very brief rundown of the rest of the film before we start the final level – yes, there’s only one more level after the Casino Royale “flashback”. Fighting your way through the eco hotel, you end up saving Camille before a final confrontation with Greene and rushing out of the building before it collapses. The game ends with Bond outside of the room containing Mr White and Haines, saying that he’s going in, to kill Mr. White and capture Haines for information. This was the original ending for the film, before they removed it (the deleted scene wasn’t even included on the DVDs). I was really surprised by the Quantum of Solace game. It’s a lot of fun and the core gameplay is essentially the best era of Call of Duty, with third person cover that works really well. It would have been really nice to have some non-shooting parts, such as driving and poker segments. I also would have preferred a more linear story structure – having Casino Royale as a flashback when it’s so much of the game is just strange. Especially when, with the films, the end of Casino Royale flows straight into the start of Quantum of Solace (personally, I think the film works best as an “extended” version of Casino Royale). Other Versions Xbox 360 and PS3 The 360 and PS3 versions are the same as the PC version, just with slightly different graphics. Wii While most games from this game lumped the Wii and PS2 with the same alternate game, the Wii version of Quantum of Solace is actually the exact same game as the main version. The graphics have been toned down a lot, but the levels and graphics are exact the same – the only difference to the levels is one section on the opera house stage where the stage doesn’t move. The Wii version also has pointer controls, but doesn’t offer a Classic Controller as an alternative. Another thing that surprised me is that this came out before the Wii version of Call of Duty 4. --- 007: Quantum of Solace (PS2) Original Release: 2008 Developer: Eurocom Publisher: Activision Platform: PS2 For the PS2 version of Quantum of Solace, Eurocom return to the Bond franchise. This one is entirely a third person shooter, but is not an extension on Everything or Nothing, with no lock-on at all. While the ability to shoot anywhere is nice, aiming feels extremely inaccurate in this game. The game, apart from a few areas, has different level design than the “next gen” versions. Starting in the same garden as the HD game, this mission has been transformed from instant action into a long, drawn out tutorial. It goes through the basic movement, the hacking minigame (which is the same as the main version, but a lot more difficult), stealth and shooting. The game doesn’t feature anything that needs such a long tutorial, and even here you can feel how wonky and broken the cover mechanics are – the game boasts that shots are more accurate form cover, but it’s much better to walk away from cover to shoot. The Mitchell chase is very much a chase – spend more than 5 seconds to figure out the way to go (due to the blurry dark textures) and you’ll fail the mission. It is a bit obvious when you take your time in the main game, but this is far too much in the other directions and makes this level feel like a trial and error game. You do get a boss fight at the end, which is nice, but you still have the quick time event after – and this is one of the worst examples of QTEs – a random button will pop up and you have to press it almost instantly or else you’ll fail. After this, we do get a new level as Bond investigates a general. This is the first section where stealth is required, but the stealth mechanics are awful, so it’s a case of keep trying until you get lucky. It would have been nice to have this level in the main game, as it’s the start of Camille’s journey, which was missing form that game. The opera house has more forced stealth, somehow even worse than the previous level as here you fail the instant someone sees you (in the previous level you had a chance before they set of an alarm). The atmosphere is completely gone, and the level itself feels tiny and static. The sinkhole level is actually ok – probably better than the main version. This also touches on the whole water plotline that was missing from the main game. It’s still not a good level, this version is just passable. With that, it’s time to jump back to Casino Royale again. The bomb chase sequence is less riveting, and I found that it was better to just ignore enemies and run past in order to not fail the mission. The chasing really doesn’t come across as well without the “spectacle” the other systems were capable of. Miami science centre skips the sniping section (which is good, the aiming is extremely stiff in this version), with Bond trying the front entrance before moving around the side. The final fight requires you to shoot the boss a lot and then complete a QTE, fail and he recovers his health. It’s a very frustrating end. There’s no Miami airport or train missions in this version, so it’s straight on to Casino Royale, trying to save Le Chiffre. This level is surprisingly similar to the main version, with a similar layout (but with the end cut off). It makes it more obvious how toned down the graphics are, even compared to the Wii version of the game – it shows how impressive the Wii port really is. When the level layout is so similar, it just highlights how this is lacking in the fun. Skipping straight to the barge, this level is a slog. You have to shoot through some corridors, then take a detour to turn some pipes. Then you have to solve a puzzle involving dials before shooing your way through more rooms. The level has a boss that is invincible, no matter how much you shoot him in the head. You have to shoot random pipes instead. Now onto the final mission. What about the Venice, the level that contains the main pivotal moment in these two films? Replaced with a line of dialogue “so that’s where the girl died”. We’re off to the eco hotel instead. Lots of shooting combined with the hardest part with the game: a hacking sequence. It took me a few dozen attempts to finally get past it. After that is a boss where you have to shoot Greene’s goons and them him – with his main henchmen, I wasn’t sure if you had to shoot him a lot or if he was invincible except for environmental stuff – turns out you just shoot him a lot. We haven’t dealt with the general yet. Instead of escaping like last time, we have to race to the roof to stop the General. Once you reach him (going slowly, because you’ll die from random explosions if you try going fast), you have a slow motion scene where you have to shoot him, except the animation on the general is so bad that he looks like a stop motion puppet – you can see each frame of his animation as his feet glide across the floor. (Have a look for yourself) Other than containing one important mission (and then skipping even more important ones), this a much worse version of Quantum of Solace, not nice to play and nowhere near as good as the other Bond games from this generation – even Rogue Agent is more fun to play. --- 007: Quantum of Solace (DS) Original Release: 2008 Developer: Vicarious Visions Publisher: Activision Platform: Nintendo DS Unlike the previous DS Bond game, Rogue Agent, this doesn’t attempt to replicate the console version of the game, instead it does its own thing. A bit like the Game Boy Bond game, this is also clearly inspired by the handheld’s Zelda game, utilising a similar control method to Phantom Hourglass with the game being controlled by the stylus. While the opening starts in the same place as the other games, you don’t get to play it, instead you’re whisked off to a tutorial at MI6. This is necessary because the controls, unlike Phantom Hourglass, are not intuitive. The DS is held sideways (either way to cater to left handed people) and moving works by holding down on the screen, crouching by tapping under Bond. Shooting is done by holding down a button (any button works) and tapping – but as you tap, the camera moves around. The zoomed in view also means that you can’t shoot far, while enemies hit you from off-screen. Get close to an enemy and hold down a button will enter melee mode (if they haven’t seen you, you’ll take them out automatically). This is a fiddly punch-out style system where you swipe left/right up for jabs, hold on a side of the screen to block and do a circle to perform a throw. It’s extremely awkward and the detection of moves isn’t very good. Due to not much ammo, you’ll be doing this a lot. The chase mission is walking around rooftops and shooting/punching guards. Moving onto the opera house and it’s not closed off like the other games, there’s an actual opera happening and you have to locate a wine bar to take a ticket off an enemy. You’ll collect objects like weapons, ammo, keys and health pickups, but you need to managing your inventory. You have limited space and each ammo clip uses up a space. Reloading is also a faff – you have to go to your menu and drag it to your gun as Bond will never reload on his own. Once you upgrade your quick slots, you can tap on there. Once you find Greene, the flashback to Casino Royale will start. Skipping the start of Casino Royale and going to the science centre, the main thing you need to do are clear: be stealthy (when needed), kill enemies, collect keys and proceed to the next door. In the forced stealth sections, getting spotted will instantly fail you, and this will often happen from enemies off-screen. Heading to the airport and you have to walk around activating servers to unlock doors. As you search levels, you’ll also find poker chips and playing cards for the game’s upgrade systems. Chips can be spend on upgrades to your strength and weapon use, while cards are moved in your inventory to create a “hand” of cards. Each cards boosts a stat, but forming poker hands will give you even more bonuses. It’s a really interesting system, but unfortunately doesn’t mean much in this game. The train level also returned and I somehow managed to get lost. Part way through the level, the map changes from an up/down to a left/right layout. You reach a door that needs a key so I went back and forth, one of the guards commented that I had found the key. Turned out the door that triggered the dialogue about needing the key is a dead end, you have to go back to the start of the level. The Casino Royale has you looking for keys to proceed until you need to reach the high roller’s room – which is something you needed to do in the Game Boy Bond game. You don’t partake in any gambling, though, instead you assault the innocent staff member with the pass to the room, before punching Obanno a lot (the bosses in the game have Body armour, so you can’t shoot them). On the barge, you have to hunt around for a way to unlock Vesper’s cell. You start with no items, so there’s lots more annoying punching to do until you track down your guns (even more punching if you’ve ran out ammo). I thought that there was going to be a puzzle at the start of this level as you’re stuck in a cell, but you just walk to the door twice and a guard will let you out. You do get the Venice level in this, but it’s more of what game before, you’ll reach a locked door and walk around killing enemies until one drops the key you need. The end of the level is comical, with Vesper being held in a cartoon-style cage suspended above the water. Turns out that the flashback in this version was Bond daydreaming while spying at the opera house, as now he needs to escape. This level is slightly different, as you can’t attack enemies. If you stand next to a civilian, the guards won’t pay any attention to you, so you have to walk between civilians to get out. As the main important person M wants to investigate is Haines, but recommends that you should speak to Felix, who is chilling in Bolivia. Felix doesn’t offer anything other than to Haines’ house in London. A group called the “Delta Force Squad” is out to get Bond for….reasons (Bond is still working for MI6). After Bond tells Felix “I owe you” for nothing, you fight your way out. The final mission is an infiltration and assault on Haines’ estate, the event teased at the end of the other versions of the game. You have to set bombs off before sneaking to an lift and then have a final boss against Mr. White, who keeps setting off a bomb on Haines so you have to constantly go back and disarm it. Mr. White escapes and you take Haines into custody. The DS version of Quantum of Solace would have been novel when it came out, but is just a pain to play. Both the shooting and punching mechanics are annoying, and the interesting RPG and upgrade systems buried in the game can’t save it. The most interesting thing is the very different ending, with the climax of Quantum of Solace simply missing. --- Quantum of Solace (Java) Original Release: 2008 Developer: Javaground Publisher: Sony Pictures Television International Platform: Java Mobile Following on from their Casino Royale game, Javaground developed another Java game, this time based on Quantum of Solace. While you would expect similar gameplay or some kind of improvement, this game goes backwards in almost every way. The one improvement is that the game has some very basic cutscenes and follows the story of the film a little bit more. The gameplay is now much more basic, melee combat is fairly useless with no finishers, larger enemies can’t even be punched. Half the time, shooting is hitting the shoot button as the enemy slowly rises above cover – one saving grace is you have infinite ammo, but reloading is slow, so you’ll end up emptying your clip after every enemy. Stealth is also much more basic, if you jump off the platform, the enemy forgets about you and you can’t takedown from behind, only from doors. This Java game is slow, tedious and, despite being short, manages to drag. The platforming controls also feel frustrating, especially running and jumping, which doesn’t work half of the time. --- Quantum of Solace (Java Basic) Original Release: 2008 Developer: Javaground Publisher: Sony Pictures Television International Platform: Java Mobile This is a much more basic version of the Quantum of Solace Java game. I can’t find any documentation as to why this exists, and Casino Royale didn’t have a version like this (from what I can find). While it follows the same rough structure and mechanics as the other version, it’s a completely different game. The game is much more basic, there’s no cover mechanics, stealth or hiding in doors, just simple run and gun gameplay. The levels are all the same dull grey, with the rooftop design of the first level the only one looking slightly different. The crazy thing is…this version is more enjoyable than the main one. While it’s still not a good game, the frustrating parts of the other version are no more, and this version is a good brainless distraction. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
