Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: James Bond 007: NightFire

Written by John Scalzo on August 01, 2002

First Impressions: You know EA was thinking of a different kind of "NightFire" when they dreamed up that title.

It's impossible to have any kind of intelligent discussion about video games and James Bond without bringing up GoldenEye. Try as they might, every Bond based shooter, in fact, all shooters period, are compared to Rare's N64 masterpiece. In the five years since it's release only the great Halo has been able to escape the shadow of 007 and stand on it's own. Of course with a game like 007: NightFire, the comparisons to GoldenEye are inevitable. I'm just going to get it out of the way then: EA has made four games with the Bond license (five if you count 007 Racing) and none of them have come close to challenging GoldenEye as the premier console shooter.

The last EA Bond game was last year's Agent Under Fire and the first Bond game ever with an original storyline not based on any movie. While it definitely showed promise, Agent Under Fire was in no way a successor to GoldenEye. It was good and the driving levels were as close to perfect as you can get, but something was just off. Now EA is going to the well again with another original Bond adventure and according to the company line, Agent Under Fire was just a dry run. 007: NightFire will be the real deal.

I could go into a long discussion on all the things that are included in a Bond movie that will make it into the game but I'm everyone knows the drill by now. 007 has been given the mission of stopping the world domination scheme of Rafael Drake. This mission will take Bond and his shaken, not stirred martinis all over the world and even into outer space. EA better supply some Moonraker Lasers for that trip.

At first glance NightFire definitely looks like a sequel to Agent Under Fire. But Eurocom has a few new tricks for Bond brewing under the hood. They've tweaked the Agent Under Fire engine to run faster, smoother, and with more action. The engine has also been tweaked to handle much larger environments than we saw in Agent Under Fire. Early screens and video do show this attention to detail off well. It's not known yet whether the A.I. will be tweaked as well, but almost anything would be an improvement over the drone-like guards of Agent Under Fire.

While being slightly tweaked in the graphical department, the game still looks like it'll play much like Agent Under Fire. The levels are still broken up into objective based missions but a new twist to NightFire is Bond's ability to tackle these problems in any number of different ways. EA showed this new way to play off with the game's opening level. Bond stealthily parachutes into an open field near a castle in the Alps. Your objective is to get inside and EA shows off the several ways this can be done. You could go right up to the front door guns blazing and hope you live. You can jump off of a nearby bridge onto a moving truck and enter through the castle garage. Or you can go through the forest around to the back and use your Q-Claw to climb up through a window. Going the forest route shows off Bond's newest move: the third person perspective. The camera pans back and you have to navigate 007past the guards rooms in the castle undetected until you find an empty room. EA hasn't let slip how often one of these third person scenes will appear but they definitely give a new outlook to Bond's world.

One of the things that will stay the same in NightFire though is the driving levels. EA has said there will be five new vehicle levels in NightFire and anyone that played Agent Under Fire will tell you they were the best part of that game. There's no specific details yet on these levels but if they're even half as good as the ones in Agent Under Fire then NightFire will be at least worth a look for those levels alone.

The world of Bond has enough toys to make all the big kids happy and NightFire looks to be no exception. In addition to an assortment of guns that right now numbers "a lot" according to EA, Bond will have lots of gadgets at his disposal. Like I said earlier, the Q-Claw grappling hook makes a return, as does the Q-Laser. New in NightFire will be a taser accessory to your watch, thermal glasses for tracking enemies by body heat, night vision goggles, and perhaps coolest of all, a suitcase sentry gun. Just like the Laptop Gun in Perfect Dark, just set it up and watch it blow away all of the guards while you hide at a safe distance. And to prove this really is Bond, there will be plenty of Bond girls, including one that looks a little like Denise Richards.