007: The World is not Enough

"Not bad at all"

Eyebrows were raised when it was announced that Eurocom, Developers of the awful Tomorrow Never Dies were given the opportunity to redeem themselves with the contract of the newest Bond Instalment. To be honest, tomorrow never Dies was never an awful game. The fact was it was Third Person, and Frankly, Syphon Filter and Duke Nukem Time to Kill did it far better. This coupled with several graphical glitches and a small challenge ruined this game for many who anticipated Bond’s first escapade on the PSX. So they began by revamping the style of the game. Thankfully, they have opted for the far superior First Person perspective. This allows for more frantic Frag fests rather than lame puzzle/Exploration scenarios of the original.

In True Bond Style, You get to Snog the Gals (I Wish, Denise Richards!!!), Fire the Guns and use them Gadgets. Also you get a fine story line to work with: A Millionaire is murdered by a terrorist, Renard, and Fearing he may try and kill the daughter, Elektra, Bond is sent out to act as charge to the girl. The rest involves various turncoats (3 in fact), Nuclear Weapons and Submarines. There are more Twists than a Chicane.

Characters:
James Bond: He’s the man. Shoots the villains, Snogs the Girls, Drives the Cars ETC. Suave, Sophisticated Mi6 agent. Likes his Vodka Martinis Shaken, not Stirred.
Elektra King: Heir to the King Industries thrown following the Explosion on the M-16 building. Beautiful, French and Strong. Bond ends up between the sheets as usual.
Renard: The Main Villain. Squinty eyed Russian. Has a bullet in his brain that is slowly killing him. He’s After Elektra, and you’ll have to battle him at the end.
Christmas Jones: Denise Richards played Gorgeous Christmas. Need I say more? Ok, she’s a Nuclear Physicist who enjoys Cowering and getting shot. Frequently.
Valentin Zukovsky: More of a Villain in goldeneye, now, Bond’s Ally. A Bit on the Tubby side, Valentin now owns a casino and caviar factory, and you will deal with him more than once.

Sounds like a jolly little bunch.

Level design has had a good improvement, and are non linear, you can virtually do what you want. The levels are all composed from different scenes from the movie, Interconnected by Cinema Scenes. If you have seen the movie, you’ll probably know what to expect. But in Tomorrow Never dies you simply had the title sequence and about 1 minute of video. Not good enough. But here we have almost 10 minutes or so, which you will be able to unlock. Yes that is a nice feature, but did they just stick on tonnes of Video to Mask Horrendous game play?

No, not really. Game play is fine for the most part. Abandon the idea of stealth in the game, it isn’t required, you can go through most levels blasting people away. This is a bit of a shame, really, as this would have given some decent stealth elements to the game, which worked well in Metal Gear solid, Syphon Filter and to some extent in Goldeneye. Alas, they did mislead a little, but it isn’t much a flaw; the game is fine. The good points are that you are always pitted in fast paced action. It tests your reaction times and intelligence (Conserving Ammo). Sometimes, you will have no clue what to do and yet again, this is misleading. There is a red box on one mission where you’re supposed to aim a flare gun at a red box. Seeing the film will help of course, but they should have made it a bit more straightforward. Levels are totally fun to play, enemies are varied and have decent hit points and AI, and there is a large variety to keep you occupied.

Visually, the Game Excels more than anything. Characters look more life like than I have seen on the PSX, maybe only beaten by Final Fantasy. The Environments range from the Luxurious interior of Elektra’s Villa, to the Claustrophobic Corridors of the nuclear Sub. All of these are rendered/ Drawn perfectly, and definitely look the part. They are not grainy or Glitchy and you cannot see many of the Textures (Rife in Tomb Raider games), and this is a very good thing.

There is a big challenge at first. Like the N64 Brothers, there are 3 difficulty levels, obviously one more difficult than the other. It will take a while to beat the game on agent, and to figure out boss strategies. Once this is done there is still the other difficulties to unlock and beat. Finally, In the Nintendo 64 Version, you had no cheats, only multiplayer extras. I would have loved to use the underused guns of the game whilst strolling around the Bank. But I couldn’t. Here, you have plenty of decent cheats you need to obtain to get the full game. How to do this may be a little confusing, though.

GOOD POINTS
*Decent Story *Superb Graphics
*Negligible Slowdown
*Furious Action/Game play
*Long Challenge
*Nearly the Whole Film
*It’s now in First Person!
A Big Improvement on Tomorrow Never Dies.

BAD POINTS
*No Checkpoints
*Absence of Multiplayer
*Mission Objectives are sometimes confusing
*Misleading Briefings


TWINE is one of the best of its kind on the PSX. I’d say it’s better than Duke Nukem, Quake 2, Medal of Honour, but not better than MOH: Underground. It is a decent Bond Game, Fairly large Challenge, Decent Challenge and a pleasure to play. It outshines its predecessor with ease. Get this game now!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/01, Updated 03/05/02