James Bond 007: NightFire

"Nightfire better then Goldeneye? I Think Not."

Nightfire is the latest Bond game from EA, it is also the latest failure of a James Bond game from EA. Goldeneye, made in 1996 remains the best and it seems it always will be if people think that the license will sell itself, because it won't. EA has made many other games with the James bond license for example: The World Is Not Enough (TWINE), Agent Under Fire (AUF), and their most recent work Nightfire (NF). I will say it again NF is not the quality game EA promised it would be.

Gameplay: 6/10

The gameplay in NF is okay. It doesn't deliver anything new to the FPS genre, but doesn't screw anything over miserably. It is typical FPS fare with a large plot, guns, and in the James Bond license women. Where to start?
First of all I must comment on the level design of NF that are of quality at the beginning, but seem to slowly fade throughout the game. During the first level, I truly thought this would be a great Bond game because it has multiple paths to victory that were all very interesting and varied greatly. Then I got to the second level. It was a bad reminder of the thing that I hated most of the new wave of EA Bond Games. It was a rail shooter. This variety if greatly appreciated especially in today's shooters that beg for some innovation, but the thing is we need innovation that adds to the game. I played these levels once just to get to more FPS levels. I find them distracting and not needed. I don't know about you, but when I buy a FPS I want, and expect a FPS.
If there is anything bad about this game it is the weapons. The weapons just seem too generic and have a bad overall feel to them. They added too few of them in my opinion as well. Timesplitters 2 has more weapons then this. You can forget about cool gadgets, they are either very generic or useless.
One last thing is not the objectives themselves, but how they put the objectives into place. Instead of giving them all at the beginning, you get a series of them during the gameplay. This makes the game very linear with nothing better you can do. In fact I think it's impossible to actually fail a mission unless you die, or kill a hostage. The sheer amount of objectives is respectable though.
A great thing about this game that ups the score is the multiplayer. The multiplayer is just plain old-fashioned fun that you will be playing for at least a month or so. There are many modes of play, options, and unlockables to keep you playing. A problem remains when you play with six bots and four people. It slows down very noticeably in that situation and the only way to fix it is to exit the game or restart.

Story: 7/10

The story in NF is very interesting that makes a few twists and turns as well. I'm not going to reveal anything, but it revolves around Bond tracking down an evil nuclear waste remover whom might possibly be building a super weapon. James goes underwater, through the air, and even in space to stop him. This is all great and dandy especially with the twists. Phoenix enterprises is, however fairly generic for a bad guy and I think that there are way to many cut-scenes within the game this sometimes clashes with the story at the most inopportune of times. If your going to add a good story, please don't take away from the gameplay by adding pointless cut scenes. Half-life had an amazing story and only had a couple cut scenes.

Graphics/Sound: 7/10

The graphics are an amazing plus. They have smooth textures and everything flows freely. There is realistic damage modeling and glitches in the graphics are non-existent. A problem is how when you shoot someone, it doesn't actually feel like your shooting them. They don't die with many comments or cool animations like they did in Perfect Dark. Instead they just slump over like they were never alive. This really decreases to the way it feels, and how come I can shoot that guy in the head and he can still remain alive?
The soundtrack is very nice. In fact they had an entire song made just for the game! That is cool. The gun sounds are overall very realistic and the James Bond Theme sounds as good as it ever did. During the gameplay however, there is not very much music activity…at all.

Playtime/Replayablity: 5/10

If you're a FPS veteran, I'm sure you could beat this game entirely in less than 20 maybe even 10 hours. That is very, very short. The replayability is great due to the multiplayer. It is fun and shows the effort that was put into making it enjoyable. It's too bad the single player missions didn't deliver the same kind of feeling. You could unlock everything in the game, but I would say there would be little point in doing so.

Recommendation:

This game is not bad, even though it did not get a very high score. It is lacking in most categories and could be better. I'm saying it has potential. I would rent this game and give it a shot. Buy it if you like it, but I wouldn't bother buying it if you got far in the rental, it would be a waste of money. Go and buy it now if you're a James Bond fan.

Final Scores:
Gameplay: 6/10
Story: 7/10
Graphics/ Sound: 7/10
Replayability: 5/10

Average Score: 6/10 6.25 rounded down to 6

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/03, Updated 03/29/03