James Bond 007: NightFire

"Portable Bond"

The Gameboy Advance version of James Bond 007: NightFire tries to stay true to the PC and console versions. For the most part, JV Games succeeds with their port.

In typical Bond fashion, a mad evil villain has hatched a diabolical scheme to take over/destroy and/or ruin the free world. Only James Bond (which, for now, is you) master British spy, can stop him/her. I will not get into details as the story is explained in eloquent detal in the manual. The story progresses throughout the whole game through the use of cutscenes, which compose of screenshots from console versions of NightFire and text speech underneath.

Missions usually involve killing anything that will shoot back at you, also combining some stealth and a lot of brain work. You have only one stealth mission, which is a sort of FPS-style Metal Gear Solid but not as complicated. You use your stunner on the guards or, if you can't get up to them, you shoot them with tranquilizer darts. Whereas Metal Gear Solid had a radar that aided you in stealth and also allowed you lose the guards by hiding, NightFire doesn't have this. It's a lot simpler. You either don't get spotted and can catch a quick breath before you reach the next guard or you get spotted and fail, thus having to redo the mission. The simplicity is what makes it so hard. The killing is nothing new: shoot the evil-doers and don't shoot the civilians or the allies. The brain work makes up a massive portion of the gameplay. You'll have to solve puzzles such as looking for specific game items. Either that, or you have some grappeling puzzles where you have to use your grapple to get farther into missions. Grappeling will the explained further on. There's also the odd missions where you float around in water or space. There's really not much difference except it's harder to move. The level designs are unique, though, which is a really big plus.

Gameplay could be improved. The environment isn't very interactive. You either walk up to doors and open them, grapple onto hooks, or in the odd case where you get to use a computer in the game or blow up a door. Also, on top of the combined mission styles (killing + stealth + thinking), you also have to meet certain qualifications. You'll have to achieve above average accuracy, kill most of the enemies as well as beat the level under par time. If you manage to do so, the game with give you scores for all three and award you with a rating of either Bronze, Silver or Gold. Once you complete the mission you are treated with a cutscene and one of the three ratings and a score. If not, you are told that you did not pass and you'll have to replay the mission. You'll need at least a Bronze to pass. If you manage to score a Gold however, you are rewarded with a modified Golden Gun.

The graphics are pretty good for the GameBoy. Many of the enemies look the same and the environments look plain, except for a small handful. The weapons are modeled good and so are the gadgets. The game has a decent frame-rate and runs well but enemies in a distance are slightly difficult to spot unless you look for a pixelated disturbance.

The weapons are gadgets are a real plus. The weapons include a large variety of hand guns and automatic weapons, as well as a few special weapons such as a heavy machine gun; a scoped assault rifle; an automatic shotgun; a sniper rifle; a rocket launcher and grenade launcher; plus a handheld explosive charge. From the names and the way they look these guns are modeled after real-life weapons. For example, the game's FA1 Clarion rifle looks and fires like an M4. Now where would Bond be without gadgets? You have several items at you disposal, such as tranquilizers, a small watch laser, a stunner, a little laptop that cracks computer-controlled door locks and a grapple. One of the most important items, as well as the most interesting, is the grapple. The grapple allows you to go to places you could not normally reach. Just aim the grapple at a grappling hook (usually a green or blue triangle) and press the shoot button. If you aimed right, you'll automatically be pulled to where the hook is. But out of all this the big Kahuna is the Golden Gun. Your normal pistol is replaced by a Golden Gun, as a reward for getting a Gold rating after passing or redoing a mission, and it has the stopping power of the normal shotgun.

Sound in NightFire is crisp and clear. All the sounds - gunshots, your footsteps, the screams of NPCs and dying enemies - are all nicely done. There's also a little bit of in NightFire. In the Japanese mansion mission, you are given the task of rescuing women held hostage. You'll know one is near whenever you hear the comical saying, ''Don't make me hurt you woman!''. The music gets a BIG score. I love the opening James Bond theme, and the action-packed and suspenseful music that's in the game itself, although it gets a little repetitive.

The controls are little fuddled. You have the normal controls, which are like standard GBA FPS and revolve around strafing; and then there's the second set of controls, which are like N64 Golden-Eye and revolve more around aiming up and down. With the first configuration, aiming is a bit of a hassle and with the second one, strafing is a bit of a hassle. The controls are laid out pretty well. You only have to fumble around to switch around you inventory and jump up or crouch. I've used both settings and I find that the second one is better -- it just takes more time to get used to the strafing.

Now for the stuff that I found wrong with NightFire. There's barely any replayability unless you want to unlock the Golden Gun. And, also, there's the problem with walking up the stairs. You move really slowly going up, which will affect the gameplay. There are some bugs in the game. In my copy, there was a staircase bug in mission 2. At one point in the game you could not walk up the last step but you had to jump up to get over it. You have to aim a lot in NightFire, and the big hassle is that it doesn't let you hit enemies without aiming directly at them (think DOOM, Quake and Duke Nukem). You can't really strafe and aim up and down at the same time, so when you have to aim it makes you very vulnerable to enemies.

Overall NightFire is pretty good for the first GBA James Bond game, but there are some faults and it does get repetitive once you complete all the missions. I'm hoping the next one will be better.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/23/03, Updated 01/30/04