Posted November 18, 2023 The DS version of QoS actually sounds really cool. Trust Vicarious Vision to go above and beyond Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 20, 2023 James Bond: Top Agent Original Release: 2006 Developer: Javaground Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment Platform: Java Mobile/iOS Trying something different, this Java mobile game is a turn-based strategy loosely retelling the stories of a few classic Bond films. Not doing a generic action game is an interesting idea, and there seems to be some good aspects of Top Agent. The graphics are very nice, with lovely pixel backgrounds and good animation. As you progress, you unlock more items and weapons to customise your character, as well as being able to upgrade your stats as you level up. Each match is a 1 on 1 battle, you choose your items and then select your five actions for your match, then you get to watch them unfold in the order you took place. This means you can’t react to what the enemy is doing, and even though the game tells you to look for patterns in enemy actions, there is none. Which is where the game falls apart: there’s no strategy. Winning or losing is just luck. Enemies can be focused on guns one time, then in the rematch, be all about punching and parrying. It’s a shame as there are some nice ideas, but the game is just fundamentally broken from a gameplay perspectice. The Java version got a couple more films via DLC (including Die Another Day), and the game was later ported to iOS with redrawn graphics, but with the exact same issues. --- The Shadow War Original Release: 2008 Developer: Six to Start Publisher: Puffin Books Platform: Browser Not played: Website offline, requires a login. This was an augmented reality game aimed at kids to promote the Young Bond series of books. Players had to solve 7 missions in order to get through the game. Most of this was done by finding clues in fake websites that were part of the game, you had to navigate the game’s internet to find hidden routes and ways that can be used to access or interact with other websites. Other parts needed you to do your own research or use things from the books themselves. It’s an interesting idea, but as everything was saved to an account, there’s no way to play it, even using archive tools like Wayback machine. --- GoldenEye 007 (XBLA) Original Release: Cancelled in 2008 Developer: Rare Publisher: Microsoft Platform: Xbox 360 In 2007, Rare were working on a remastered version of GoldenEye: it was going to be the same game, with new graphics, and updated control scheme and online multiplayer. There are lots of rumours about why this got cancelled, but nothing concrete. The game was almost finished when it was shut down and a version of release was leaked in 2021 – although based on screenshots form developers, this isn’t the latest build of the game. Some elements were unfinished – such as some missing skyboxes – but some of these issues have been patched by fans. One feature of this remaster is the option to swap between old and new graphics – like the Secret of Monkey Island and Halo remasters. The “old” graphics aren’t quite finished so don’t look quite as good as they did on the N64 – things like reflections are missing. Still. it’s a nice feature to look back and forth. The opening dam level is specifically striking – it’s much more snowy, with extra mountains and trees in the background. The level geometry has no to been altered, so the levels are still familair. The controls have also been properly updated for the Xbox 360, featuring dual analogue controls that feel great. Reload and changing weapons are now their own buttons, and crouching is much easier. Another addition is being able to swap between gadgets without going to the pause screen (which now features an Omega-style watch). While some levels are essentially updated versions that look more detailed, other levels have more significant changes. Surface moves the wall of carboard trees backwards and replaces it with a fence, making it feel much more natural. There’s even a gap in the trees at the start so you can see the radar dish. With the draw distance, you can see across the whole map – although Surface 2 you can’t see as much as it’s much darker. The Frigate levels also has some significant changes. Some textures that look like doors in the level have now been removed – so new players won’t be trying to open doors that don’t exist. You do occasionally come across some textures that haven’t been replaced, which stand out – it would be great to see a fully finished version of this game. Statue changes the looks of quite a few objects, and is also much, much darker (too dark, in my opinion). This level does have added paths and string lights to help guide your path through the levels. The Streets level is also another let down, as it looks somehow flatter and greyer than the original level. Jungle looks more open with the same tactic of moving the “wall of cardboard trees” backwards, however you just have an invisible wall instead. The roof of the trees is much busier and it gives the style of a jungle much better – expert for the bright purple untextured objects dotted about. One of the biggest changes in style, however, is cradle. The original was a sea of fog with no backgrounds, whereas here you have the actual giant radar dish and surrounding mountains. Its’s still made in a way that keeps the N64 aesthetic to it, and really makes the level stand out. Multiplayer has also had similar improvements, and even includes a couple of additional maps, such as Dam and Frigate. Some of the classic maps have had visual changes, with a few now featuring open roofs with foliage and sky visible. This unfinished port is a great version of the classic GoldenEye, and it’s a massive shame that we never got a finished version. --- Monopoly: Ultimate James Bond Collector’s Edition (2008) Original Release: 2008 Developer: Hasbro Publisher: Hasbro Platform: Board Game Like the 2006 Collector’s Edition, this is another James Bond edition of Monopoly. --- Top Trumps: 007 The Best of Bond Original Release: 2008 Developer: Winning Moves Publisher: Winning Moves Platform: Board Game Top Trumps is a series of many different games. It contains cards that have stats. Players take turns picking stats and compares against their opponent’s card. The highest value wins. This one focuses on the James Bond franchise in general. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 22, 2023 James Bond 007: Blood Stone Original Release: 2010 Developer: Bizarre Creations Publisher: Activision Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PC Version played: PC Developed by Bizarre Creations, known for games like Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars (they also made one of my childhood favourite games, Wiz ‘n’ Liz), this is a brand new third person adventure starring Daniel Craig. Strangely, this was released on the same day as the Daniel Craig reimagining of GoldenEye on the Wii, which overshadowed Blood Stone due to its association with the Nintendo 64 classic. Starting off on a boat trying to prevent a terrorist attack in Athens, you get a short mission that serves as an effective way of showing you how the game controls. Using cover is a necessity as you’ll die a lot, however, melee is also important as Bond can dispatch foes with one attack – with lots of great animations that use the environment to make it very assisting. Mixing melee and shooting is very easy and flows great. The combat really nails Bond’s style. As the terrorist leader flees, you get the first of many vehicle sequences, all of which are set-piece heavy but very enjoyable, even if you fail a lot (restarting is very quick). They control extremely well and, while linear, are a great spectacle. After this, you chase him on land and get to use more of the combat features, including a “focus aim”. Each time you melee and enemy, you gain a “focus aim” (up to a maximum of 3), which lets you automatically line a precise shot for an instant kill when you pull the trigger. It’s very satisfying to use, and really helps with the flow of the combat. I never got tired of punching a few nearby enemies then dispatching a few far away enemies in a matter of seconds. A car chase ensues as you have to stop a car carrying a bomb. As this is based on the Daniel Craig films, Bond’s car has no weapons, but the sections are enjoyable enough (thanks to the developer’s driving game pedigree) that they aren’t needed. This intro sequence is its own little story, but serves as a great introduction to the game. We get a very nice opening titles, performed by Joss Stone (the Bond girl of this game) before moving onto the main story. A scientist has gone missing, and MI6 received an anonymous tip to his whereabouts at a dig site in Istanbul. Bond poses as a history museum professor but the goons there try to dispose of him, so you get another fun level through some catacombs as you try to find this scientist, with some great set pieces along the way (if you like Uncharted-style set pieces, you’ll enjoy this game). Bond’s phone is his only gadget in this, working in a similar way to Batman’s Detective Mode in the Arkham games, showing enemy positions. It can also be uses to hack cameras and doors, as well as scan optional pieces of intel for extra background information. The bad guys get a hold of the researcher’s password and flees with a briefcase containing his data on some nasty viruses, so Bond needs to pursue. His fancy new Aston Martin is too far away, but luckily there just happens to be a classic one just sitting there to take. You’ll have to dodge a lot of traffic in this intense chase, before the car ends up getting totalled. Continuing the chase on foot, the briefcase gets passed on, but Bond manages to stop the messenger, finding out the man behind it, a Russian named Stefan Pomerov. With Bond being assigned an assistant called Nicole Hunter, he sneaks into Pomerov’s casino in Monaco. Stealth is completely optional, and you have a bit of time when you get spotted to take them out before they call for backup. Your objective is Pomerov’s safe, and you discover that Pomerov wants to use the virus information to create new variants and then sell the vaccines. Following him to his facility in Siberia, Bond poses as Nicole’s bodyguard to investigate this facility, which has a few nice moments of being able to walk around without worrying about combat. Bond discovers a factory already making these viruses and sabotages it before fleeing. It’s a very enjoyable level with more cool moments. Pomerov flees in a train, so it’s time for another car chase as you dodge flaming debris before continuing the chase on a partly frozen river, it’s a lengthy chase, but still a ton of fun all the way though. You catch up with him, but he’s already boarded a cargo place. Luckily, there’s also a giant cargo hovercraft, which Nicole takes control of while Bond deals with the guards still on board. To help catch up to the plane, Bond needs to head into the cargo hold and eject the cargo, use a turret to defend against missiles and to damage the plane’s engines, jump onto the plane’s wing as you catch up, get inside then fight your way to the front, taking out Pomarov. This all happens with no loading screens, it’s all fluid form start to finish and is visually impressive as a result. Even 13 years later, my jaw dropped a few times in this segment. Everything seems to have tied up nicely, but Bond thinks something is up: nobody Bond has met makes sense as the anonymous caller, and he thinks the people behind it wanted MI6 to stop Pomarov. He gets in touch with a Chinese agent who wants to meet Bond in an aquarium in Bangkok, but ends up getting assassinated as he claims a man called Ruk is behind everything. A chase follows as Bong tries to get the assassin to pass on information on the whereabouts of Ruk, but would rather die. He does end up getting away in a vehicle for Bond to pursue. That vehicle being a colossal haul truck (moving much faster than one would realistically move to make it entertaining), causing a ton of collateral damage. It’s another very impressive chase sequence, with more wow moments. After crashing it off a bridge, Bond passes out and wakes up hours later, finding out that he’s wanted by the police, not just for the damage his chase caused, but he’s also been framed for murdering a Chinese agent. MI6 says that a sleazy contact of his is nearby, so Bond finds out the location of Ruk and heads over, but as Ruk was waned about him coming, gets the drop on Bond and captures him for information. Bond is taken to Rak’s camp in Burma, where he gets called away before he can torture Bond. Bond escapes and fights trough the camp, having to deal with a few APCs and chasing Ruk in a plane before crash landing – unfortunately, there’s no flying mission, which leads us to the last main level of the game. Crash landing near a dam that Rak’s group is taking over, Bond has to fight his way through to survive, taking out helicopters with cranes along the way. There’s a lot of combat, but the level is very well suited for good use of melee and the focus aim ability, so I enjoyed the whole things. Rak taunts Bon the entire time and it ends with a boss fight against him in a helicopter. Rak begs Bond to save him and he’ll reveal who is behind it – but Bond has already figured it out. The final mission is a car chase as you stop the villain from escaping – however it turns out that they’re still just another part of a puzzle, as a drone takes them out. The true villain will have to be discovered in the game’s sequel…which was never made. This is a hugely enjoyable game with fun combat and great driving sections, filled with movie-like set pieces. The ending is a bit of a downer, although people have retroactively linked it to SPECTRE as it (unintentionally) fits with that film really well. The poor sales of Blood Stone led to the end of Bizarre Creations, which is a shame as I think that this was a great game. --- James Bond 007: Blood Stone (DS) Original Release: 2010 Developer: n-Space Publisher: Activision Platform: DS While the home console releases of Blood Stone and GoldenEye were split between platform, the DS got ports of both games on the same day, and both developed by n-Space (who previously made the DS port of Rogue Agent). Like the home console version, Blood Stone on DS is a third person shooter with cover based mechanics and vehicle sections. The cutscenes in the DS version are adorable. Instead of using recordings or screenshots from the main game, the cutscenes are recreated using the in-game graphics, and I absolutely love them. They’re also fully voice acted, even with lines not in the original. That said, there are a couple of moments where Daniel Craig talks so fast that you can’t understand him. The boat level introduces you to the controls, starting with the aiming as Bond parachutes onto the boat. Unfortunately, there are no options to use the buttons to aim, the touch screen is the only option, which is a nightmare for left handed people like me that don’t get on with southpaw setups. Getting into cover uses the action button on the touch screen, so I found myself using cover without actually using the “cover” option. The boat chase has unfortunately been turned into a turret section, as the boat moves on its own and you just aim and shoot. The level on land has also been reduced, with a single shootout and then the first driving section replaced with Bond using a rocket launcher to destroy a truck full of explosives, although the acropolis looks like a model (Shh!). After the simplified intro (using the Bond theme rather than the song made for the game, which gets relegated to the credits), it skips past the catacombs to Bond finding the missing scientist. You never hear the password the tortured scientist whispers in the main version, but here he shouts out “it’s my phone number”, and you feel really sorry for the guy as it highlights that he’s just doing a regular job. The chase scene introduces objects you can hit to take out groups of nearby guards, and the game informs you one is nearby with a golden 007 – a lot like Bond Moments in previous games. Here we get the first car section. Bond is using his new car rather than randomly finding a classic Aston. The controls are a bit odd (but at least uses buttons) and the car never feels like its turning, but rather just sliding around. Without the action set pieces, you really miss the cars having weapons in this version. After dodging trains in a subway, You follow the guy escaping with the information a bit more on foot until a boss battle where he becomes a bullet sponge and you need to shoot him a lot. Sneaking into the casino, we now have the first stealth section. You can take guards out instantly by using the fire button up close. Bond automatically melees when close to enemies, although if an enemy is aware of Bond, you get a really annoying quick time event needed to finish them off. If you get spotted, enemies will call for backup, but luckily it means just a few more guards turning up. Interestingly, the silencer is more realistic than other games, as nearby enemies will still hear it if you use it. In this version, Bond actually speaks to Pomarov face to face (although I have no idea why Bond needed to sneak in when he was invites) and you get to play a simplified form of poker with him. Luckily, Pomarov is a terrible poker player with extremely obvious tells. Still, it’s a very nice addition, one missing from any of the Casino Royale segments of Quantum of Solace. After this, you have to make your way to Pomarov’s safe to find the information you need, with more optional stealth and a “Bond moment” using a crane. Then you need to get into the safe which is another touch screen addition. Unfortunately, this is not friendly to colourblind people, so I had a nightmare with it. Heading to Pomarov’s site in Serbia, you fight through his facility to find out what he’s up to. The level design of all the levels in this game are completely different to the main version, made much simpler and straightforward to suit the DS. You make your way through the roof and fight a helicopter, which then takes out his factory instead of Bond sabotaging it. The train chase is probably the most impressive vehicle section in the DS version, with debris and broken cars to avoid, and a helicopter shooting at you along the way. You fight trough the docks and make it onto Pomarov’s plane before he leaves. The stakes of this level are raised as the plane is on a collision cause to the coast to release the virus there, so you have a bullet sponge fight with Pomarov before Bond swerves out of the way and crashes the plane elsewhere. Now we get a section exclusive to the DS version. Bond investigates the initial call that led MI6 to the scientist, but instead of it going straight to a Chinese agent, he needs to do some actual investigation. You need to sneak past the guards (you can’t even knock them out) and use CCTV to analyse people in a meeting. A chase breaks out and in some parts of the game like this, I found it much easier to run past all the enemies. After killing loads of his bodyguards, Bond discovers tat they’re on the same side and their boss arranges a meeting in an aquarium in Bangkok. Story-wise, I like this little added bit as the jump straight to Bangkok was a bit jarring. The aquarium is a much more traditional design than in the main game, but you get to explore it a bit more and it’s really nice on the DS. You have to figure out where Ping is based on some clues by taking photos of secret markings on the glass. I looked at the map showing where the clues are and saw there were none in the shark tunnel, but Ping wasn’t there. After taking photos you have a surprisingly difficult tile jigsaw puzzle to reveal: a shark. He gets killed by a sniper two feet away and you get to chase Ruk himself, with Ruk escaping in a dump truck (much smaller than the colossal one in the main game) and Bond giving chase via car. Ruk flees to a small dock and you fight through his goons to continue the chase via boat, another turret section. You pump Ruk with enough bullets but he still escapes back onto land before he knocks Bond out and takes him to be tortured in Bolivia. Bond escapes with another annoying “safe cracking” minigame, with this level also encouraging stealth, but making it optional. You’ll sneak through flooded ditches and hide behind trees to avoid guards and trucks. The outdoor environment looks really good on the DS. Bond escapes in an aircraft before being shot down, fighting his way to Ruk’s aircraft for the final confrontation with him. This fight is really annoying as the pilot keeps knocking Bond backwards and it ends with a quick time event. The last mission has an on-foot section as you fight through the final villain’s massive house before they escape in a car, resulting in the final car chase and the final speech at the end being different to the main version – although it still has the same cliffhanger. Blood Stone on DS is a fascinating conversion. The gameplay itself isn’t very good (especially if you don’t get on with the control setup), but there’s something oddly charming about the whole bundle and how it was adapted to the graphics of the DS. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 23, 2023 It's a shame about what happened to n-space, as they really seemed to hit their stride and carve out a nice little niche for themselves throughout the DS era. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 24, 2023 GoldenEye 007 (2010) Original Release: 2010 Developer: Eurocom Publisher: Activision Platform: Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 Version played: Wii With a big gap between Bond films, it was Activision’s time to cash in on the “GoldenEye” name. While this is based on the story of GoldenEye, it’s not a remake of the Nintendo 64 classic, but rather a game based on an imaginary Bond film where the story of GoldenEye was adapted as Daniel Craig’s third Bond film. It originally came out on the Wii before a remastered version on 360 and PS3. While those versions look better, it’s the same game and I picked the Wii version because of the ease of getting screenshots and not needing to drag consoles out of storage due to a lack of backwards compatibility. After a brief tutorial at MI6, Bond and 006 (who looks so young, it must be his first day on the job) are sent to investigate weapons trading at a dam. The first area of this heavily based on the N64 game, but that single area is the only similarity in terms of level design. 006 steals a truck and you have to shoot from the passenger seat before shooting your way through the rest of the level. The gameplay is heavily based on Call of Duty, but in GoldenEye, aiming and turning just feels stiff and awkward, it’s a massive step down form Quantum of Solace. We get a opening credits that actually uses the original GoldenEye song, but instead of Tina Tuner, we get a bad cover of it. I would have much preferred something different to suit Craig’s era more. The placement of the song is also odd, in the middle of the opening instead of its normal place. The facility serves as a tutorial for the stealth mechanics. You can hack objects to cause distractions and take enemies down with stealth attacks. However, stealth isn’t really important for any mission after this and it doesn’t work well anyway. I’ve had enemies say “I think I heard something” after shooting them with a silenced pistol, somehow unaware of the bullet wounds, while on the other side of things, if you hack turrets remotely, enemies will instantly shoot towards Bond’s location – when enemies are “alert” they simple know where Bond is, line of sight is irrelevant. After 006 gets shot, Bond blows up the facility immediately. If they hadn’t been caught, the deal they would have stopped would have still happened due to how long it takes for the place to slowly blow up in a chain reaction. There’s a colossal base outside the facility you have to fight through as things explore before reaching to a plane and escaping. The game teases you with a motorbike before control is taken away from you and you just aim. Bond’s investigation leads him to Zukovsky’s nightclub, where the gangster talks about Bond giving him a scar in the past. He reveals what information he gave to Ourumov before being assassinated by Xenia, who runs away claiming that Bond shot him. You have to fight your way out, but the setting and atmosphere make this the most best level in the game. Heading to an arms fair in Dubai, Bond tries to stop Ourumov and Xenia from stealing an EMP hardened helicopter. You chase them through a frigate before placing a tracker on the helicopter. This game has a big theme of really dark corridors. Heading to Siberia, the most notable part of surface is a really cool shot as the GoldenEye satellite hits. The snow in this level happens to form “corridors” for you to fight through as the Russian army takes out the guards of the facility. Bond kills as many people as he can on both sides as he makes his way into the bunker. Even right after playing this…I really can’t remember much about this level other than Natalya running away and it just being really dark. I thought I heard 006 setting explosives and was wondering if we would get an early reveal of Janus, as it’s not really going to be a surprise to anyone in this version, but it instead ends with Bond and Natalya getting arrested. This one follows the film a bit closer here, with Ourumov killing the defence minister and pins it on Bond, although the way he does it – shooting then running away crying “he shot the defence minister” – made me laugh, especially as the same thing happened in the nightclub level. This level was when I realised why I found the level design to be really off: it just feels like random rooms and corridors attached to each other, it doesn’t feel like any real building. Anyway, it’s time for the tank level. It’s…fine. This might work better if there were other vehicle segments, but with aspects like the lock-on, this feels oddly like an arcade style game, like we’ve just stepped into a tank level from Star Fox. While you do have full control of the tank, it just feels very on-rails. After chasing Ourumov, he makes it to his train, parked in the middle of a construction yard. The construction yard section is decent, with a few ways you can get through it, but he train itself is just a couple of carriages and not its own level. You end up meeting with Xenia and Ourumov (Janus hasn’t been revealed yet, so he’s not part of this bit), with Xenia killing Ourumov and setting the train on fire. Bond has to shoot a panel on the floor with a gun. I can understand trying to change the plot, but all the character of this moment has simply been removed. Natalya doesn’t even use her skills to discover where to head next – she just overheard Ourumov talking about a meeting with Janus at statue park. The first area of this level looks great, with plenty of statues of different sizes, but it slowly turns into a generic looking compound with some underground corridors joining different parts of it together. Here 006 reveals himself as Janus. His motivation in this game has been altered a lot: it’s no longer about revenge, it’s about “bankers and their bonuses”. Because the government is now corrupt and treat people poorly, he’s become a terrorist that plans on launching an EMP attack on London, killing thousands of innocent people in the process. He traps bond in a helicopter set to explode, but a quick time event lets him escape. Oh, and Natalya was told to sit in the car, but instead gets captured. Luckily Bond spotted a computer with a map to where 007 will control the GoldenEye satellite from: a solar energy station in Africa. After crashing in the Jungle, this is a level where you think you can be stealthy, but taking over the turrets simply turns stealth off (you can’t get past them if you don’t hack them). If stealth did work properly, then this would be a really good level, as there are sections where it semes like you can set off turrets as a distraction while taking a different route. It ends with a quicktime event fight against Xenia. Heading towards the solar facility, it looks fancy, but doesn’t make a lot of sense as the system isn’t designed to send signals to precise locations in space. You fight through an entire army before getting captured – luckily the final few guards were the only ones that were told to not kill Bond. In the tower, it’s revealed that they need Natalya to arm the satellite or something (Boris is nowhere to be seen), but Bond sets off an explosion elsewhere in the facility and the satellite will fire just fine, and Natalya is the only one that knows how to stop it. I’m not really sure why 006 brought her here. After you protect her for a bit, it’s time for the final encounter. There are three stages to the final fight, the first is a quick time event. The main part of the fight turns 006 into a bullet sponge enemy with ridiculously bad AI as 006 spends half his time hiding behind a cover while you stand behind him, repeatedly shooting him in the back. After a few hundred bullets, he flees for the final quick time event fight ending with a slow mo “quick” draw. This version of GoldenEye isn’t a bad game, it just isn’t a good one. It’s a pitifully average shooter, but its flaws are just highlighted more by Activision cashing in on the love for the N64 game. --- GoldenEye 007 (DS) Original Release: 2010 Developer: n-Space Publisher: Activision Platform: DS While the console games of Blood Stone and GoldenEye had different developers, n-Space were given the task of porting both games to the DS, both releasing on the same day. While Blood Stone on DS was a surprisingly good attempt at recreating a full experience on the DS, GoldenEye settles for fully accepting that it’s a simpler game. I didn’t get on with this version of the game at all, and I felt nauseous all the way though. I’m not sure what exactly caused it, but the movement of the game is extremely stiff (even just walking) and the field of view feels extremely claustrophobic. Couples with the DS’s control issues for shooting games like this (especially for left handed gamers), it wasn’t a nice experience at all. You can use the buttons to aim in this, but it’s very slow. The dam starts off with explosions going off straight away and you soon encounter one of the major annoyances of the game: the hand holding. It takes away control to give you long-drawn out tutorials on even the most basic stuff. The facility level slowly explains the stealth mechanics bit by bit, including major parts such as using a landline phone to ring another phone in the same room to cause a distraction. Towards the end, 006 and Ourumov have a Naked Gun style gunfight behind some bulletproof glass before Ourumov gets the upper hand. Bond sets off explosives and runs the facility, constantly falling off the conveyer belt due to the poor controls. The runway and nightclub levels are skipped in this version, so it’s straight to an incredibly short level of chasing Ourumov and Xenie through the frigate. It does try to pad this out by locking you in a room until you kill a wave of enemies, but it’s still only a couple of minutes. The cutscenes have multiple styles, either in game graphics with voices, voices over static art or cutscenes showing you what you need to do with just text. At the start of surface, you do get a nice cutscene of the GoldenEye satellite firing (you never get to see what it looks like in the Wii version), but this level feels extremely drawn out with nothing notable. The end does make a big deal about sneaking past some people, but you just walk forward slightly. The bunker is about walking back and forth collecting keycards, which brings us to the touch screen mingames. When using a keycard, you have to swipe the card and then very quickly input a code that appears. There’s also a hacking minigame where you wait for changing numbers to stop and just tap them. The just seem to exist for the sake of existing. At the end, Bond rally wants to get into a room that’s blocked by three doors. The first is opened by placing three mines and detonating them one at a time. For the second, you have to shoot a bunch of panels that look like they were placed randomly. For the third, you go up to it and tap action. The game gives you a hint making a deal of Bond’s arms being on the top screen but the game knows how lame the solution it so just tells you the answer within a few seconds: close the DS and open it again. They must have known how much people hated it in Phantom Hourglass, but still added it. I don’t have much to say about the archive level, so it’s on to the tank level and…it’s pretty good. It fits the game much better than the console version and the game’s stiff controls naturally feel like a tank anyway, so this is very much the highlight of this game. You take out the front of the train and get the cutscene, escaping by hacking a computer (it’s not like Natalya is a computer programmer or anything like that). The memorial park level ditches the “statue” style completely and just looks like a generic military compound. The end of this level was the hardest part for me: a serious of quick time events of swiping the screen, one part requiring a perfect circle (which is the reason why I’ve never beaten The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks). Heading to a jungle, you have to fight Xenia in a helicopter by activating missiles and defeating waves of enemies – the game is still explaining everything you need to do. The second part is a section where you can actually be stealthy. At the solar plant, it’s time for the forced stealth mission – get spotted and you fail the mission. You also have to slowly crawl past mines as you place charges. After you get captured, you have to fight waves of enemies until the game tells you to press a button. You then chase 006 through corridors, stopping at points to shoot him until he carries on. He’ll end up at a balcony for your final shot. Because of how awkward this game feels, gimmicks that just feel silly and a lack of ambition or trying to do anything actually unique, this is by far the worst Bond game on DS. --- GoldenEye Source Original Release: 2010 Developer: GE Source Team Publisher: Self-Published Platform: PC Officially released in 2010, GoldenEye source is a remake of the GoldenEye multiplayer using the source engine (best known for Half-Life 2). It brings us updates of some classic GoldenEye maps, mixed with some new ones. I’m not a fan of online multiplayer, but this does offer some bot options for me to give it a quick blast. The new maps can vary quite a lot. Archive is a faithful recreation of the full N64 level, with just a few additional routes. As the game supports a lot more players, it certainly helps al lot. Dam, on the other hand, is essentially a completely new layout designed for multiplayer, stitching different elements of the original for a less linear map. The game play homage to the original game in some areas, like weapon reloads, while doing its own thing in others. One big different movement, due to jumping and much quicker crouching, creating complexly new movement strategies. While the movement is nice, it does feel like you’re playing Half-Life 2 with a GoldenEye skin rather than an update of the original. There are a good selection of maps in the game – including one based on Casino Royale – and some of the original maps are available in their “classic” forms with graphics straight out of the N64. Some maps also add some really nice detail, Facility being a highlight, without altering the map that much. If you want to have a bit of fun with friends in levels based on GoldenEye, then this is a lot of fun and is east to set up and play, but if you’re looking for a faithful recreation, then this one isn’t it. That’s entirely down to design choices and the developers have done a great job with the levels themselves. --- 007: Licence to Drive Original Release: 2011 Developer: Gamelion Publisher: Glu Mobile Platform: Java Mobile By 2011, the smartphone ere of mobile phones was in full swing, so it’s surprising that a Java-only licensed James Bond games was made at the time, developed by Gamelion with the name “License to Drive”. While the name is obviously supposed to be based on the phrase “Licence to Kill”, it really doesn’t work well, it just sounds like a driving lesson app. That said, a driving lesson app would probably be a more entertaining game than this. This is a vertical scrolling driving game where you’ll be shooting enemies as you head to the end of a level. You’ll drive a few different vehicles, but other than the size, they’re all the same. You can fire weapons forwards and drop gadgets behind you. There are powerups on the track to give you different weapons, although these are usually more difficult to use than the standard weapons. In some levels, your weapons will be constantly changing as you accidentally collect power ups while battling enemies. One power up is a lock-on anti-air missile. This is the only way to attack helicopters. However, the lock-on doesn’t even work, and your missiles waggle from side to side as they move up the screen, so will often miss and it’s down to pure luck. Combined with the annoyances of losing this item if you drive over another, fighting helicopters are extremely frustrating. The healthbar makes no sense to me, parts change colours at different times. I did have to go out of my way to kill Bond to see if it was actually working, and other than resetting your score, there’s no actual punishment for dying, especially as you definitely wouldn’t want to play again to get a high score, the game is just mind-numbingly dull. Most of the levels consist of two types: get to the end of a level or kill a certain amount of enemies and then get to the end of a level. When you have to take out enemies, sections of the level will repeat until you kill enough – although the levels feel randomly generated so you might not notice. The penultimate mission is the only one that’s different, you have to defend a truck containing a bomb. This is magnitudes more difficult than any other mission in the game. There is a story to this game: Bond is investigating crime, someone that fishes for crabs is a secret weapons dealer that “never left Vietnam”, so to stop him you drive though multiple locations causing chaos (and killing lots of local police) and having to beat the CIA to him (because for some reason they won’t work with MI6 for international issues) so that he can’t start a war between India and Pakistan and sell weapons to both. The dialogue is extremely poor and uninteresting. Licence to Drive is a terrible game, the controls are wonky, the gameplay is both dull and tedious and I don’t think I can come up with anything positive about this one. --- Top Trumps 007: The Best of Bond (Java) Original Release: 2011 Developer: Connect2Media Publisher: Connect2Media Platform: Java Mobile This is a mobile version of the Top Trumps 007 game. However, the game is a demo that requires an unlock, which is no longer available, so I was only able to briefly test it out – that said, it’s just Top Trumps. You can’t just browse through the cards or order them, which means you have no idea what numbers are good for each category, making the game feel even more random than before. There’s also a party mode where you have to win rounds to spell out “Top Trumps”, in this you get given random cards, so it’s even more luck-based. The cards themselves look quite nice, so at least I can say one positive thing about it. 1 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 24, 2023 4 hours ago, Cube said: In the tower, it’s revealed that they need Natalya to arm the satellite or something (Boris is nowhere to be seen), but Bond sets off an explosion elsewhere in the facility and the satellite will fire just fine, and Natalya is the only one that knows how to stop it. I’m not really sure why 006 brought her here. After you protect her for a bit, it’s time for the final encounter. It would be a bit silly putting him in, because you'd never beat him. He's invincible. 3 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 27, 2023 007 Legends Original Release: 2012 Developer: Eurocom Publisher: Activision Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii U Version played: Wii U For the 50th Anniversary of James Bond films, Activision decided to make a game to celebrate Bond’s history. 007 Legends takes us through six stories, one from each Bond actor. This sounds like an amazing premise, yet the came was panned by critics when it came out. Is it really that bad? I decided to play this one on a Wii U, for reasons that I’ll get in later. The game starts during Daniel Craig’s Skyfall, as Bond fights the assassin at the start of the film and Eve is ordered to take a shot, hitting Bond. As he falls down, he starts having flashbacks. This Bond is a reboot, so hadn’t experienced the previous films, but I’m fine with creative licensing to frame it in this way. Bond wake’s up in an apartment to find a body coated in gold – we’re in Sean Connery’s Goldfinger, a good choice for a game like this. However, there’s also a modern mobile phone, which is the first troubling sign. Unfortunately, these are Daniel Craig retellings of these films, similar to the previous GoldenEye, with modern settings. This does change what films are suitable for Daniel Craig’s Bond due to different styles, although Goldfinger causing a financial crisis does seem like something that can be adapted. To make matter’s worse, they couldn’t even get Daniel Craig to provide the voice, and the soundalike sounds quite bored. The gameplay, for the most part, is the exact same stiff combat from GoldenEye. Most of the weapons are the same, too. For the Wii U, the game forces you to use the Game Pad, but all it offers is a useless inventory screen (the guns don’t even have unique icons) and an optional way to control the hacking minigames. As Bond heads to Goldfinger’s headquarters, Tanner is orders him to find evidence of Goldfinger smuggling gold and to “remain undercover”. In a first person cut-scene Bond sets off a massive EMP from his phone, causing massive explosions, before he jumps onto a truck and rolls into an airfield, ready for you to shoot your way through legions of his men. After blasting your way through enough of the facility, Bond asks Pussy Galore for help, who is very quick to side with him. You get to investigate Goldfinger’s office for clues, solving a few simple puzzles, such as scanning for fingerprints to work out combinations (although the last one is the “strongest”, and I think it should be the other way round). These are easily the best parts of the game, but it would have been even nicer if they were based on the aesthetic of the original film. After making it out of Goldfinger’s building, but gets captured but convinces him to keep him alive during the crotch laser scene. As Goldfinger attacks Fort Knox, Felix Leiter ambushes and frees Bond. While the Daniel Craig era was the first to have a consistent actor for Felix, this game goes back to the old tradition of recasting the character, although this is a very different version to the one Craig’s Bond has previously met. After fighting your way inside Fort Knox, you have to don night vision goggles. You can’t take them on or off when you want, and you can clearly see that the lights are on, so it makes no sense. You can’t even see enemies easier, it’s just a grainy sepia filter. All I can think of is that this is an attempt to make it look like an “old film”, but why do that with the modern setting? The section wearing the mask goes on for ages, and it doesn’t even change how enemies act. You fight though the vault, have a quick time event fight with Oddjob and stop the bomb. Apart from the initial looks, the levels are just really dull in layout, and quite often the game will have enemies infinitely respawn. There are also many times where the game tells you to hurry, and it’s up to you to guess if it actually means it. Sometimes you’ll fail for not being quick enough, other times it leads to death and you’re actually supposed to take your time. At the end of this mission, you do get a first person cutscene of the end where Goldfinger attempts to kill Bond but gets sucked out of a window, but it then fades to black as the plane is crashing with Bond and Pussy Galore still on board. For George Lazenby, there’s no choice, so it’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It starts off as Bond gets attacked while skiing. At first is feels pretty good, but you’ll then get a message saying that you’ve lost “Theresa”, who the game never properly introduced to. This section is utterly horrible as any mistake means failing the mission. You have to take out a few helicopters and guards along the way, but the main difficulty is dodging everything. Bond eventually falls over and wakes up to find Theresa captured, Bond calls someone for help and says that it’s strange for a spy and criminal to work together – while Goldfinger had a full plot, the rest of these tend to presume you’ve seen the films recently. The updated version of Blofeld’s lair looks really nice but doesn’t help with the actual gameplay. It starts off with a turret section before you make your way into his base. Going into the secret part, you don’t get to see any details as Bond puts on his sepia filter again. After going though the “madman” architecture of a few circular bedrooms connected to each other, you rescue Theresa and the other guy takes her away. You chase Blofeld and have a quick time event fight in a cable car. One thing to note about the quick time event fights is that Bond continues fighting after you “win” – the final part of is something you never have control over. The final cutscene has Bond and Theresa driving after getting married, getting shot at and Bond having a very unemotional response as Theresa is dead. Considering they only had two lines between them in the game, it’s odd that they kept it in. Saving Roger Moore until later, it’s Timothy Dalton’s turn next. A revenge plot against a drug lord is a good fit for Craig’s Bond, so Licence to Kill is a good choice. It opens with Felix having been shot (and his wife dead) and Felix asks Bond to help one of his undercover agents investigating Sanchez, so Bond fights through a temple before finding his secret base. This seems like a good place to talk about the stealth mechanics. They’re based on the same “once alerted, enemies always know where you are” terrible stealth on GoldenEye, but with two changes. First, if guards get shot while cameras can see them, it will cause an alert, which is a good change as you can take cameras out. The other change just destroys the stealth mechanics completely: bodies stay and if another guard ever sees it, everyone is alerted to your exact location. There’s no investigation or time for you to take out the guard spotting the body, and there’s also no way to move bodies. So stealth is just something you can attempt, but it will never last long. Going through the base, you also have some forced stealth sections. These are thankfully short as they’re horrible, and I’m pretty sure that one of the scientists here could see through one particular wall. After investigating Sanchez’s office, meeting up wit Pam and setting up some explosions, it’s time to escape. There was a section in the helicopter hanger that I thought was broken, but it turned out that you needed to kill all the guards in a section you can’t walk to, and there was one hiding behind some crates with a leg visible. We actually get a car scene! In this section, you casually drive for a bit as enemies shoot rockets near your 4×4. Once you slowly catch up with Sanchez, the game takes over – although you do get to do some slow motion shots as a couple of shows now take out any vehicle. It’s time for another quick time event boss fight with Sanchez as the cool stuff is once again not something you have any input on. Bond sets off an explosion as he walks away from it so you can’t see it. Next up is Peirce Brosnan’s turn. They already did a full game of GoldenEye, so it was one of the other picks. Die Another Day was the only one to not get a video game adaptation so I think that’s why they chose it, but I really think that Tomorrow Never Dies would have worked really well with Daniel Craig (especially if you link Carver to the mysterious organisation from the previous films). You get a brief section meeting Jinx in the ice palace and taking some photos, I was imaging how great this level would look in a firefight with the ice being damaged, but for now we investigate the big dome nearby and break into the office of Gustav Graves. In this version, we only know he’s a businessman and his rant turning into helping North Korea is odd as we have no idea if this Bond even knows the character’s real history (incidentally, Miranda Frost has been written out). After a really annoying chase where there are loads of guards, snipers and lasers from space, we end up in the ice palace where it turns out ice in invincible. With the environmental destruction of Quantum of Solace, this level would be amazing, but the levels in 007 legends are just a static background. We do get the car chase on the ice, though. The handling starts off pretty as you’re sliding everywhere bad before Tanner orders Bond to turn on his traction tyres, then later telling Bond to turn on his threat detection and then missiles, which reminds me of Metroid: Other M in a bad way. To fight Zao, you have to wait for your missiles to lock on before firing, then Bond takes him out in a cutscene. You then have to race to get on a plane as cargo crate home in on you and, again, the game takes over before you reach the ramp. I really was expecting the handholds to get taken off the “fighting” sections at some points. You push up/down on the sticks to perform a high or low punch with that ends, and the enemies all block in awkward ways to make it very obvious where you need to hit, yet the game never removes the prompts telling you exactly what to press. After this, Bond takes out Graves (you don’t even get a QTE to do the final action) and you hurry off the plane. For Roger Moore, they can certainly pick a more down to Earth film that Daniel Craig would suit, so obviously they went with Moonraker. Here you fight through a few corridors, investigate a toxin, then have a detour through some more corridors to turn off some sentry guns to investigate Drax’s office. You then have an annoying stealth section and then have to kill off a few waves of enemies before Jaws turns up for a QTE event. You defeat him, but Drax captures you before you escape, making it onto a shuttle. On the space station, you have a string of forced stealth sections which, like the License to Kill ones, are just really annoying. Then you have to stop pods from being launched by looking for big numbers and putting the codes into a keypad. Bond gets captured, but turns off the artificial gravity. Now, while it would be better with Roger Moore, this is more like it: a zero gravity laser fight. Moving around is quite good, although the floating objects are completely static. The moonraker laser also just looks like a regular gun. You get a slight detour into space to shoot a few turrets before you deal with the arms loading the pods loaded with toxins, in a scene that’s far less impressive copy of Nightfire’s ending. After planting a bomb in some glass, a cutscene takes over as Bond throws Drax out of an airlock and it fades to black as the space station starts exploding. If you play this game on PC, 360 or PS3, then the credits will roll. The end of the game was free DLC that came out after the game initially released. While people who added the DLC to their account at the right time can download it, there’s no way to get it – I couldn’t even find a pirated way to get it. The Wii U version came out later, so the end of the game is actually on the disc. The game abruptly cuts back to before the start of Skyfall – you go straight form the Moonraker base exploding to this – as two unknown people are dead and Bond has to chase the assassin – a man called Patrice. You chase him over some rooftops, but you can’t actually hurt him. After a while, you’ll get onto a motorbike for a vehicle chase. Remember the awful skiing section I talked about? The motorcycle chase is a worse version of that, with random cars trying to swerve into you. It’s completely on rails, so you’re just swerving form side to side. Eventually, Eve blocks his path and you follow him onto a train with the last QTE fight of the game. We see Bond get shot and then waking up on a shore. What he’s been through never gets brought up as this game isn’t really about Bond himself, or what he’s been through, just “this is like X film”. The strange skyscraper with all the internal glass walls is the next mission. Bond stops Patrice from assassinating someone and it’s time for a really dull boss fight as Patrice is a bullet sponge. You hide behind cover, pop out, shoot him and duck back down. Half way though he’ll run upstairs and you’ll repeat it again. He’ll set off a smoke grenade and you’ll investigate. The game takes over as Bond ends up throwing Patrice off the building. He calls M, who apologises for ordering the shot, and Bond is fine with it. With the assassin killed, the job is done. Yup, that’s all we get of Skyfall. The film’s villain doesn’t make an appearance at all, and the film’s climax would actually suit a game of this style. 007 Legends is just a really poor cash in that likely stated with a good idea, but just has dull gameplay and tedious level design. It also loses out on nostalgia by having a modern day setting instead of the retro settings, with all the cool gadgets replaced with a product placement mobile phone. The films chosen aren’t even picked well for Daniel Craig, and there’s no actual narrative linking them together in any way meaningful. With a game of this quality, it’s no surprise that there was no proper James Bond video game for a while. --- Top Trumps: Bond in Motion Special Edition Original Release: 2012 Developer: Winning Moves Publisher: Winning Moves Platform: Board Game Top Trumps is a series of many different games. It contains cards that have stats. Players take turns picking stats and compares against their opponent’s card. The highest value wins. This pack was an exclusive to the Bond in Motion exhibition and focuses on vehicles. --- Monopoly 007 50th Anniversary Edition (2012) Original Release: 2012 Developer: Hasbro Publisher: Hasbro Platform: Board Game Like the 2006 Collector’s Edition, this is another James Bond edition of Monopoly. --- Top Trumps: 007 Bond Girls Original Release: 2013 Developer: Winning Moves Publisher: Winning Moves Platform: Board Game Top Trumps is a series of many different games. It contains cards that have stats. Players take turns picking stats and compares against their opponent’s card. The highest value wins. This pack is focused on Bond Girls. --- Young Bond (Browser) Original Release: 2014 Developer: Youniverse Publisher: Puffin Books Platform: Browser Not played: Website offline, requires a login. Young Bond is a collection of four minigames promoting the novel Shoot to Kill. It consists of four minigames, however as the website required an account, the games have not been archived. The first minigame requires you to remember instructions on how to hotwire a car and repeat them, the second has you navigating a maze in an ambulance, the third you pilot a zeppelin while avoiding obstacles and the final one is an endless car chase where you have to avoid the villains for as long as possible. As you complete these challenges, you unlocked downloadable posters for the Young Bond books. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 28, 2023 (edited) 007 Legends perfectly encapsulates everything I hate about the modern/Daniel Craig era of Bond. All the fun has been sucked out of the character and the 007 world, no cheese, no charm. No OTT villains, no classic one-liners, no easily-escapable-situations-involving-an-overly-elaborate-and-exotic-death. It’s all played 100% serious, with no fun allowed. Edited November 28, 2023 by Dcubed 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 29, 2023 James Bond: World of Espionage Original Release: 2015 Developer: Glu Publisher: Glu Platform: Android/iOS James Bond: World of Espionage is an example a lot of terrible aspects of moden mobile games combined with absolutely zero gameplay. This is an “energy-based” game. You gain a certain amount of energy each day (although there’s a maximum so you can’t build up too much) and spend it on completing challenges such as driving and fighting enemies. You don’t get to do or see these actions, you just click a button and get rewarded. You can use these rewards (or your own money) to buy items to let you click on more buttons as you take part in an endless grind. There’s no grind here. It’s just navigating a menu as it constantly begs you for money. The game was shut down after 18 months due to a lack of people that stuck with the game, and it’s impossible to play due to reliance on a server. --- Trivial Pursuit: 007 Edition Original Release: 2015 Developer: Hasbro Publisher: Hasbro Platform: Board Game This is a series of cards containing trivia questions. It can be played on its own, but for a proper game you need to use a regular copy of Trivial Pursuit. --- Monopoly: 007 (2017) Original Release: 2017 Developer: Hasbro Publisher: Hasbro Platform: Board Game Like the 2006 Collector’s Edition, this is another James Bond edition of Monopoly. This one was released to celebrate the film SPECTRE. --- Goldfinger 64 Original Release: 2017 Developer: SubDrag + Others Publisher: Self-Published Platform: Nintendo 64 This if a fan made mod for GoldenEye on N64 that completely transforms it into a Goldfinger game. It has the same number of missions, including the two “bonus” levels, retelling the story of Goldfiger as an N64 game. It needs to be patched into a copy of GoldenEye to run, but can be played on an emulator or the original console. In terms of recreating settings form the film, this game does a great job, with lots of great looking levels in glorious N64 graphics. But, while this is impressive, it’s also the biggest weakness. These levels are absolutely massive, and for GoldenEye gameplay, it really doesn’t suit these level sizes. The game feels extremely drawn out due to how spread out everything is, and you can spend ages trying to find the right way to go. It’s a shame, as the objectives themselves are well thought out, but the aimless roaming around really does spoil them. One of my favourite levels was the Fort Knox vault, and that was in one room. The Crab Key bonus level (based on Dr No) also feels a lot more like a more compact and refined level. One big highlight is the music – the GoldenEye style tracks sound great and capture the style of Goldfinger really well at the same time. Goldfinger 64 is a great accomplishment with a lot of impressive aspects, but the level design itself lets down the playing experience. --- Legendary: A James Bond Deck Building Game Original Release: 2019 Developer: Ben Cichoski, Devin Low, Daniel Mandel Publisher: Upper Deck Entertainment Platform: Board Game Legendary is a semi co-op deckbuilding board game, originally about Marvel superheroes but has now expanded into other franchises. The “Legendary” games all play in a similar way: you build up your deck by buying cards, draw a new villain card each turn and try to defeat them to gain points. The person with the most points wins, but the villain can defeat you all so nobody wins. That said, most people tend to play these games fully co-op, and the rules now state that you choose before the game starts. At the start of the game you pick a mastermind, a scheme and some villain cards that will determine your difficulty. As you draw from the villain deck, cards will trigger events on the mastermind and schemes. You need to build up your attack value enough to attack the mastermind multiple times, while also keeping the villains appearing at bay. The game is very difficult – especially if you’re competing with points – but also a lot of fun. My main confusion about the James Bond version is that the license seems more suited to the Legendary spin-off game, Legendary Encounters. That one has event in a more linear fashion (rather than random) and are more objective-based. The core game of Legendary James Bond includes stuff from Goldfinger, The Man with the Golden Gun, GoldenEye and Casino Royale, but more films are available in expansion packs. --- GoldenEye 007 (1964GEPD) Emulator Release: 2020 Developer: Graslu Publisher: Graslu Platform: PC Emulator 1964GEPD is a version of the 1964 emulator which has been configured specifically for two games: GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, aiming to make the best experience of playing the original N64 games on a PC, running in HD, but not modifying the game itself. The emulator has been configured to the best settings to run the game faithfully. One major addition is the “mouse injector”, which allows you to use a full keyboard and mouse setup with the game. This also lets you have specific crouch and reload buttons. Unfortunately, there is currently no additional controller support and I oddly couldn’t get Steam controller support to work with this, so I had to use the method of mapping one Xbox controller to two N64 controller to use the game’s own dual analogue mode. Hopefully improved controller injection can be added in the future. In terms of graphics, you can install texture packs if you wish. By default, however, this emulator has better fonts and icons, which means that the HUD itself isn’t a blurry mess. If you want to play the original N64 game on a PC, then this is by far the best way to go about, although the leaked XBLA game is another great choice if you want the updated graphics. That said, by emulating the original, you can try out a mod or two. --- Top Trumps: 007 Every Assignment Limited Edition Original Release: 2020 Developer: Winning Moves Publisher: Winning Moves Platform: Board Game Top Trumps is a series of many different games. It contains cards that have stats. Players take turns picking stats and compares against their opponent’s card. The highest value wins. This pack focuses on the James Bond franchise as a whole and was re-released in 2022. --- Top Trumps Quiz With A Twist: 007 Original Release: 2020 Developer: Winning Moves Publisher: Winning Moves Platform: Board Game This Top Trumps game is completely different from the rest: instead of the usual type of cards, each one features five James Bond questions. --- Monopoly: 007 (2020) Original Release: 2017 Developer: Hasbro Publisher: Hasbro Platform: Board Game Like the 2006 Collector’s Edition, this is another James Bond edition of Monopoly. This one was released to celebrate the film No Time to Die. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 29, 2023 (edited) Is that it then? Is this the end of the road? Or will you also be covering the Switch/Xbox re-release of Goldeneye as well? (Though there isn’t all that much to note, since both are just emulations of the original N64 game; the Switch version being untouched and the Xbox one having some control tweaks to better suit the Xbox controller). If this is the end, then what’s next? Will you be tackling another movie/TV license? Or will it be a video game series? If it’s the latter, might I recommend Castlevania? Plenty of tiger electronics versions for you to sink your teeth into there If it’s the former, how about Indiana Jones? Edited November 29, 2023 by Dcubed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 30, 2023 James Bond Bingo Original Release: 2021 Developer: Laurence King Publisher: Laurence King Platform: Board Game This is just a regular Bingo, except that the numbers are replaced with James Bond characters and locations. --- James Bond 007 Cluedo Original Release: 2021 Developer: Hasbro Publisher: Hasbro Platform: Board Game This is a variant of the popular game Cluedo (known as Clue in the USA). It has a few differences: there are player figures and villain figures, which means you won’t be moving your opponents away from their destination. The game also has SPECTRE cards, which can give you a bonus or slow you down. -- SPECTRE: The Board Game Original Release: 2022 Developer: Javier Angeriz-Caburrasi Publisher: Modiphius Platform: Board Game In this worker placement board game, you get to be one of Bond’s villains, trying to be the one to take over the world. It was made by Modiphius, who published a brilliant Thunderbirds game, so it has a lot of promise. By far the biggest issue with SPECTRE occurs before you start playing: the rule book. It’s really badly written, with the elements of the game explained in a non-linear manner, some rules only being told in examples and some that are not clear. There’s a fairly hefty errata to further clarify some stuff, fix mistakes and sort out mistranslations. Because of the complexity of the game, you can play the game many times and still not be sure you’re doing things right. Each round, a mission appears that you and the other villains can choose to contribute towards it. The villain that does the most gets a reward, but if the requirements aren’t met, all players get punished. To do this, you use your villain, henchman and goons to gather resources and bonuses from either the map or your own personal board, which has abilities and locations specific to your villain. The two dice are used to simulate what James Bond is doing – he can disrupt everyone’s work in one location or it’s possible for someone to get him to target one particular villain to cause them a huge hassle. The main thing SPECTRE has going for it is theme, with the game mechanics being based on the concept of being a Bond villain rather than designing a game and throwing the theme on it. Unfortunately, the game it a but too convoluted, especially with the poor rules. --- Top Trumps: 007 Vehicles & Gadgets Limited Edition Original Release: 2022 Developer: Winning Moves Publisher: Winning Moves Platform: Board Game Top Trumps is a series of many different games. It contains cards that have stats. Players take turns picking stats and compares against their opponent’s card. The highest value wins. This pack focuses on vehicles and gadgets, particularly those from Q Branch. --- GoldenEye 007 (Xbox Series) Port Release: 2023 Port Developer: Code Mystics Publisher: Xbox Game Studios Platform: Xbox Series In 2023, a deal was finally worked for for re-releasing GoldenEye on the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One/Series. While the occasion of releasing GoldenEye again should have been met with some effort and enthusiasm, what was got was….just acceptable. On the Swich, it was released via their Nintendo Switch Online Plus subscription service, with the original ROM with some very minor differences – the unused textures for Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton have been removed (incidentally, the orginal game ROM also contained unused Mickey Mouse graffiti textures that weren’t removed). Controls are a bit of a pain to set up, due to needing to use a mixture of both the in-game control settings and the Switch’s remapping. It does support online (with split-screen) via the service’s multiplayer emulation. On the Xbox Series, the game is still running in an emulator, but with various enhancements. It supports up to 4K resolution, but the biggest change is with the controls. The game has full support for the Xbox controllers, with dual analogue as default. Reload and crouching now have dedicated buttons and you can have buttons for moving up and down through your weapon selection. It is lacking a handy way to rotate through gadgets like the unreleased XBLA version, though. I found the controls to work really well. One minor change that did grab my attention was on Train, where you have to use the watch laser. Usually when I play, Bond keeps crouching and standing up in an annoying way, but that section was improved here. Unfortunately, that’s just it for improvements. The HUD and text hasn’t been given higher resolution textures, so the blurriness sticks out immensely when the game is running in a higher resolution. I also noticed a number of graphical glitches, such as cracks in the level on Surface and the “tree walls” having strange transparency. The menus (including the watch pause menu) don’t support widescreen, either. For buying GoldenEye on Xbox Series, it’s a bit strange. If you go to the Xbox website, it will brag on about how this is included in Xbox Game Pass, you can’t buy the game on it’s own. However, if you have a digital copy of Rare Replay (which is a wonderful package and often on sale for £5), you can also download GoldenEye. If you want a quick blast on GoldenEye and want an easy way to play it on Xbox, then this version is adequate. It’s just a shame as the game deserves so much more – and even more frustrating because a lot of the work for improving the game was already done by Rare for the cancelled XBLA version. Over 25 years of licensing issues finally solved and all we get is a low effort port. --- Cypher 007 Port Release: 2023 Port Developer: Tipping Point Publisher: Tipping Point Platform: Apple Arcade Not played: Locked behind a subscription exclusive to expensive devices. This is a game locked behind the Apple Arcade system. The game takes place entirely in 007’s mind, so it all “it’s a dream” in a Bond game. Like 007 Legends. As I am unable to play it, and it will probably be deleted before I can do so. 13 hours ago, Dcubed said: Is that it then? Is this the end of the road? Or will you also be covering the Switch/Xbox re-release of Goldeneye as well? (Though there isn’t all that much to note, since both are just emulations of the original N64 game; the Switch version being untouched and the Xbox one having some control tweaks to better suit the Xbox controller). If this is the end, then what’s next? Will you be tackling another movie/TV license? Or will it be a video game series? If it’s the latter, might I recommend Castlevania? Plenty of tiger electronics versions for you to sink your teeth into there If it’s the former, how about Indiana Jones? Just this one last update - a bit of a downer that it ends on a subscription-locked game on a device I'll never own. I'm already a good amount through my next one, which is every game on the Nintendo 64. Some games I'm not giving much time (just a few rounds of most sports games, for example) but ones with an actual story mode I'm trying to complete (although using save states/cheats because I want to have fun doing it). Might do a daily(ish) game post in the Nintendo forum for that one. I wanted to experience lots of games I remember reading about in N64 Magazine, and I even found all the issues online to include quotes from their reviews. This is mainly emulated versions (using various different emulators as some are better for certain games), and some remastered versions (with my own personal judgement of them having the right "feel" and not being too different). I do have plenty of ideas to keep me busy, including GameCube, Zelda, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Thunderbirds and Thomas the Tank Engine (although for some I may drop the board game aspect due to the difficulty of finding information - although for Zelda, other people have already made Tabletop Simulator versions of all of them, including translations for the Japanese ones). I haven't thought about trying franchises I haven't played before like Castlevania (although I will be playing a couple on the 64, I know they're quite different), but it's an interesting idea. 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 30, 2023 (edited) Oh cool, I forgot that you’re doing that N64 marathon. Looking forward to that! (Ironically, you’ll be playing two of the worst entries in the Castlevania series then; but don’t worry, there are worse ones that you could be playing as well ). Edited November 30, 2023 by Dcubed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
