007: The World is not Enough

"Are we giving this the golden eye, or is it going to die tomorrow?"

INTRODUCTION

In 1997, the world looked up in hope. A new dawn had, well, dawned, and a new era in gaming had surely begun. For GoldenEye 007 was here, and proved that James Bond games could – and should – be great. So long as EON kept making the films, and Rare kept making the games, we would all be happy. Hmm...

Then Rare let go of the license. What? No more Bond games with the GoldenEye engine? No more games with the GoldenEye engine, save for Perfect Dark? What? And so EA got the license, and they're a talented lot, surely? But they trusted Black Ops. They trusted them! And look what happened. Just look at Tomorrow Never Dies. I mean, ok, I think it's underrated, but still, it's no GoldenEye. Was there any hope?

Well for the latest film, The World Is Not Enough (TWINE), EA have sensibly gone back to 007's roots in the form a first-person-shooter (FPS). And they finally managed to make a game better than GoldenEye! ...Except no, they didn't. TWINE is good, but could – and should – have been better.

GAMEPLAY

It's your standard fare for a FPS. Shoot people, defuse bombs, rescue hostages. Which is not bad; not bad at all. Plus Bond's wacky gadgets, among them a credit card lockpick and a stun gun concealed in a mobile phone, and you have a neat little package. Well, almost. Look at the gameplay video for the N64 version on Gamespot, and compare it to the video for this. You'll see that it dwarfs this in terms of style and class, not to mention graphics and gameplay. 7/10

STORY

Well, there's not really much to say that you can't read in a review of the film. Bond must protect oil heiress Elektra King from the terrorist Renard. But my score is based on a spoiler which I can't reveal. 9/10

GRAPHICS/SOUND

I know it's not fair, but just look at the N64 version. Far better. This has nice character and weapon models, and the environments are fairly interesting, but the N64 is just better. And this isn't even pushing the PS. Look at Delta Force: Urban Warfare and you'll see what does. As for the sound, it's fine. 7/10

PLAY TIME/REPLAYABILITY

It's pretty hard, and there's plenty of missions, but there's not much incentive for replay. 8/10

FINAL RECOMMENDATION

If you want a good Bond game for the PS, then you might as well kill yourself. The best Bond game is GoldenEye, the best PS FPS is Delta Force. 75%

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/07/05