007: The World is Not Enough

"Not Perfect Dark...Not Goldeneye either..."

When I first picked up this EA/Eurocom shooter, I thought it really wasn't all that good. The graphics were grainy, and there was this nagging gameplay aspect that I found annoying, and ultimately, forced me to put this game down. For good. But I picked it up recently, wanting to feed my FPS craving...

Graphics: 6/10
Beautiful gun design, mostly perfect character models, and Pierce Brosnan's mug. What else can you want in a game? Probably proper textures that are not grainy and that don't look tacked on at the last minute, which is what we don't have, unfortunately. Grainy environments not worthy of the N64. The game does not use the full potential of the N64 and even with the expansion pak, it still looks more-or-less like sand on walls. The guns and people are very well done, however.

Sound: 9/10
Exceptionally good voice acting, and great muzzle sounds. The guns sound real. The silencer on the P2K actually silences the blast. The sounds get a bit redundent, but it's an FPS...how much sound do you want?

Control: 7/10
It may take a bit of getting used to, but all in all, it works well. There is no true ''look'' feature using the C-buttons, unlike Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Instead, C-up has been given up to, off all things, jumping. C-down is now soley devoted to crouching. Nothing more. In aim-mode, using R, C^ and Cv are used to use the scope on certain guns.

The one gripe I have is that there are many two-button combos that have to be executed, rather than a one-button command, ala PD. To change to a secondary, tertiary, etc. function, one has to press Z while holding B. While this may be a bit faster than PD's ''hold B,'' it feels odd. And, while the button layout can be customized, there is no actual Goldeneye scheme.

Gameplay: 8/10
Fast, furious, FPS action! Guns are sluggish to reload and swap, very realistically. You even ditch a gun when it runs out of ammo, to save swapping time. The one thing that brings it down is that the characters don't really react when they're being shot. And it's rather hard to know when YOUR being shot, because it only lets off a muffled ''oof'' sound when you're hit. Sorta like the sound that results from shooting an enemy in Goldeneye. And the health bar is actually a bar, so it doesn't flash or anything when your hit, which is even more dangerous...to you anyway. This is made up for, for the most part, by truly innovative gameplay (i.e. shooting on skies; not being about to fire a weapon, for fear of detection; etc.). Good enemy AI, but not the best.

Multiplayer: 2/10
Ack. That's all I can say. No fully customizable weapon setting, one difficulty for the bots, and the whole ''not reacting when you shot'' returns like never before. The bots are shot, but don't really notice, aim, and kill you with a head shot while your pumping them full of lead. You would think they would have caught this in the development house...All in all, the multi sucks.

Replay Value: ?/10
I can't really say...you'll have to find this one out on your own. If I had to...I'd say a 4/10. Not really anything to unlock except skins for multi, so it's not much of an incentive.

Overall: 6/10
If your an avid bond fan, pick this up. If you adore FPS's, no matter how much they might suck, get this. If you want a solid FPS to fill the gap in your collection, or to fill the void before you get NightFire for a next-gen system, rent it. If don't have a real urge to play an FPS, I'd say skip it. There's similar styled, better done shooters out there.

In short:
Pros: Innovative gameplay, stunning character and gun design, FPS goodness
Cons: Almost horrid AI, terrible multiplayer, bad reactions to being shot

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/02, Updated 11/27/02