007: The World is not Enough

"The name's Bond. James Bond. Shouldn't this guy go incognito sometimes?"

So, is it true, you ask? Is it true what the previews have said? Is it the biggest and best FPS on the Playstation? Is it really better than Goldeneye?

NO!!!!!!

But saying it's bad, that's not my opinion. Problems galore, yes, but aside this World is Enough, but a Goldeneye? Hell no. Sure, it's not as bad as Tomorrow Never Dies, but it doesn't hold a candle to the classic either. The 64 version? Perhaps; that's something that's been troubling me. The Nintendo 64 version is different from the Playstation version. Black Ops of Tomorrow Never Dies, uhm...''fame'' made this version, but if you bought this thinking Black Ops was a thing of the past, don't start breaking discs yet. But yet, Black Ops may have just done something right.

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Design Elements
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Visuals
Environments in this game sure look nice. I've seen better, yes, but not in a FPS. The environments are quite smooth and detailed down to last pixel. You can see wall bricks, paint tears, rust, the whole nine yards. It's almost impossible to believe there's no slowdown, once you see it. Enemy designs also have some detail to them, if still quite average. Most enemies have the same faces, but wear various clothing. But the characters from the movies are the real topping here-they're detailed to the last ring on their finger. Lots of good-looking letterbox FMVs, too. LOTS OF THEM. They pretty much take up half of the disc, I'm afraid. See 'Gameplay'.

Music/Sound
Most gun effects sound the same. The silenced and the loud-you know the drill. M's voice is tolerable and John Cleese returns as R, replacement for Q (Rest in Peace, man, rest in peace), but Bond takes a while to get used to. Ugh at the beginning of the game, but eventually he gets the 'Bond, James Bond' down and he's perfect at saying 'The world is not enough' near the end of the game. There isn't a variety of music. The same three or so Bond tunes are pretty much the whole game, but then again, Bond music is always good, and always replayable. No World is Not Enough theme, surprisingly. That disappointed me a bit, even if the song wasn't as good as, say 'Live and Let Die' or 'A View to a Kill' by Duran Duran (okay, I'm kidding about the latter. But definitely not the former), it's a classic element.

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Gameplay Elements
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Gameplay
Auto-aiming is crap. You usually have to be five feet from the enemy before it locks on and 75% of the time you miss. Manual aim isn't much better. You keep jiggling around, easily screwing up your accuracy, and if you're shot, controls stop responding for a minute. For some reason, this is improved late in the game, but who's idea was it to keep the crap aiming in the first few missions?

Where's the weapons? Supposedly the game has 40-I had maybe eight. Maybe that includes the includes the gadgets, but even with those nothing adds up. Three of the gadgets are useful (grappling watch, pen detonator, detector jammer) but most of them only have something to do with the FMVs and aren't used once in the level. Some of the weapons lack any power or use (Meter TMP, anyone?). I sometimes wonder what they were thinking.

AI isn't exactly brilliant. Well, actually, they're not smart at all. Usually they get a lot of cheap shots in, thanks to the crappy auto aim, but they don't do much else. Hey, it's a first-person shooter on the Playstation, what can you say?

Default controls are tough at times. It's easy to get mixed up at times, but you can change all of the controls at the menu. You'll especially have some trouble with the default reload/action button (O), which can be mixed up with more common reload buttons.

NO MULTIPLAYER?!?!?! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?! TWINE 64, as far as I've heard, has an excellent multiplayer mode with AI bots, but this has nada. Bleh.

Thankfully, I can completely understand the hard to follow plotline of The World is Not Enough. Black Ops screwed up with Tomorrow Never Dies, which had an easy to understand story, and messed with it to the point of insanity. Fortunately, they didn't butcher this one.

There are only 11 missions in the game, each taking four to eight minutes to complete. Ouch. Missions don't have the variety TWINE64 is supposed to have. Mostly they're all just chase missions, but there's one mission where Bond plays Blackjack for $100,000 (I got hooked, I admit, but I did make 2,500,000...), a stealthy mission where Bond bugs telephones and knocks out enemies with tranquilizers and stunners, and an incognito mission where you are believed to be a scientist in an underground facility. Several of the missions are just shoot everything covered up with mission objectives such as 'kill x' or 'destroy x', but there are still the more objective based levels, where you rescue hostages or collect equipment. Almost every mission played well (Cold Reception, mission 3, was cold) in the fun factor area, not usual for an FPS (I like very few).

The World is Not Enough has a range from frustrating to fun. Terrible auto-aiming and a lack of multiplayer are almost (hint: almost) made up for by an enjoyable mission experience (and an awesome final mission, I forgot to mention).
Rating: 6 Decent

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Final Rating
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Good Points
Detailed visuals, fun missions, great music.

Bad Points
Crappy aiming, no multiplayer, little mission variety.

Great and heavily detailed graphics minus the slowdown, repetitive music, overused FMVs, awful aiming, no multiplayer, fun missions with a lack of variety? Rent this one even if you're as confused as hell from my review.

Final Rating: 7 Good

NOTE: 007 rules!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/24/00, Updated 05/02/02