007 James Bond: Everything or Nothing
By Haigens
The Names Bond... James Bond
How unbelievably impressive it is seeing Bond perform the most impossible of tasks, believe me the rush is better when you are performing them for yourself. The other day I relived some of Bond's spectacular missions and moves in 007 James Bond: Everything or Nothing as I decided to open up its case and slap myself for leaving it alone over the past few months, and was influenced so much I decided to write my first ever review. Not the newest game, and may be old news, but when has that mattered.
In his fifth adventure under the EA Games brand, and still going strong, Bond now integrates third-person and environmental object use, along with his suspected arsenal of weapons, gadgets, vehicles and Bond girls as he thwarts the plans of evil once again.
The Story...
The story in the game doesn't disappoint because well, its 007. You basically move around locations blasting the **** out of most things in your way and on the side rescue a couple of things, its not about what you do in 007 Everything or Nothing but the way you do it and that has been the case since the beginning of the whole Bond Franchise. The story starts out simple in this game but after every mission you complete more facts are being discovered and more villains tied into one plot.
The game starts you offstraight away in action as all James Bond movies do. In a cut scene Bond watches a deal taking place and just as the deal is about to run smoothly, he snipes a rack of storedrockets. One of the factions in the deal immediately thinks it’s the other's plan and that it’s a trap. A firefight breaks out between the two parties and Bond is ordered to steal the technology that was being sold. That’s where you take control, but I will get to game play later on. The story is easy to follow with the great cast of stars.
The Stars and Characters
Quite a few big name stars in this game which bring rich excitement as you know who’s who.
James Bond is a replicated Pierce Brosnan, with his face mapped and his movement copied in detail, a perfect resemblance of the Greatest Secret Agent of MI6 and ladies man.
Then along comes The Goblin out of Spiderman except without the green suit and the crazy eyes, yes Willem Dafoe does play the villain Nikolai Diavolo a former KGB officer and Pupil of Max Zorin, now he is out for two things: revenge for his master Max Zorin, who Bond Killed sometime before, and of course world domination. John Cleese as always is Q the weapons, gadgets and vehicles creator for MI6 and u see him in Cut scenes and FMV. Judi Dench is the head of MI6 M who advises and instructs all of Bond's missions. The Bond Girls for this adventure are Shannon Elizabeth as SerenaSt.Germaine, an American Geoligist who can fly a helicopter on occasion and Mya as Mya Starling for whatever reasons her name stays the same I have no idea. Heidi Kilum plays Dr. Katya Nadanova a brilliant Scientist which I thought was a bond girl, but nope she is a villain.
Richard Kiel as Jaws an arch enemy of Bond is back and he just doesnt die, no matter if he plummetsa couple hundred meters down to a crashing halt in a burning train(which he does) he comes back after you. Stars bring outstanding voice acting and character to the game, and give it an edge over other games in storyline aspects.
Game play
Knowing Bond Back to Front
Now in third-person the game is more like a movie, a movie that develops at your own pace. The Controls I found were easy and a VR mission at the start helps you to find what each button does. The targeting is a lock on feature, but still doesn’t allow you to run around locking onto everyone and being able to kill everything easily because the enemies are quite accurate and not stupid. You still can aim your weapon to some degree because as you lock on your thumbstick moves a laser sight so u can aim for the head or arm to make that fool drop him crowbar. This is very useful when stealthing to kill enemies in one shot or when hugging the wall you can aim someone up and jump around the corner and hit them where you want.
Third-person is just great because you get to see what Bond has pulled off the coathanger to use for today’s espionage. You can see how he holds his guns with style and how his fist connects with faces quite nicely.
Who to shoot, What to use?
Always shoot the guy who’s shooting at you; and use what suits you most. I preferred a pistol whether it a P99 or desert eagle and also I enjoyed using sleeper darts. There are weapons for every style. For stealth there are silenced pistols and a sleeper dart gun. For abusive automatic behaviour we have an AK 47, MP5SK and an automatic Shotgun. AT40 is some sort of rocket launcher and the Dragonov sniper rifle are used the least in the game, as there are not many opportunities for them. Disappointing because sniping is a huge hit for a lot of people.
Fists of Fury
With an all new Hand-to-Hand combat system that is very fun and controls nicely 007 now has another way to dispose of enemies quickly. What I loved about this aspect of the game was how well it fits in with Bond's style of working things out. X and Y are punches and together are a throw move, which there are many of. X+A is a counter attack and depending what attack the enemy uses determines the move you perform. The AI isn't good at fighting you though and with 6 guys surrounding you, it is possible to keep hitting buttons and smash them all without getting hit, which is fun but no skill required. It's when they have guns and you do not is when it gets tricky, but don't worry there is always a keyboard or pot plant you can throw around and knock them out with.
When I had a go at this indoor mission yesterday it started off with me being put between two guys, where one had a gun andme and the other guy were unarmed. As soon as the game play begun the unarmed guygrabbed me from behind and held me while the other one aimed me up. After a couple of buttons I flipped the guy over me and dived forward at the gunman, smashed him up with a couple of hooks and he was on the ground. I hid to the d side of the door of the room and another enemy came sprinting in, I grabbed him from behind and quickly choked him unconscious. I ran down some stairs and above me two more jumped over the railing in front of me, three more can running after me down the stairs, two with crowbars and one with a bottle. After disposing of them all, two guys with shotguns came at me and I grabbed a bottle and threw it and KOed one then the other guy got me square in the gut with his shotty. I was finished.
Nothing without Gadgets
How could you survive without your TV remote or Toaster? It’s like that for Bond except his gadgets are a bit more deadly. A remote controlled spider is a good item to have, when you put it on the ground and it unfolds you go into the spider's view. It isn't a small spider, maybe foot size, but can crawl across beams and in small air ducts where it can detonate beside enemies or use its own sleeper darts on people. When you are spotted by enemies they will shoot at your spider and when up close stomp on you. But you can use a cloaking device which lasts a short time to escape, but when about to be stomped you would rather detonate anyway. Your Rappel gun lets you scale up or down walls at certain rappel points, always handy. Coin Grenades are what they sound like, they are coin shaped and sized grenades that are frag, strobe or EMP styled. A nano suit lets you go invisible for short periods to help you stealth around but any sudden moves disrupts its effects, like running or diving.
Bond Sense
Bond sense is a new added feature which slows down time but not like max payne where you can have an advantage over enemies, it lets you change your weapons in battle and sense tactical or objective points. You can’t control Bond but instead control the view to look for rappel points and items to pick up or special points to shoot like a chandelier to target and make fall on enemies. This feature isn't a big change for the game just allows to find things and change weapons without getting killed.
Vehicles
A brief description of the controllable vehicles found:
V12 Vanquish- Standard issue for James Bond lately and equipped with machine guns, missiles and an acid slick.
Porsche Cayene Turbo- A SUV with a cloaking device, rockets and laser guns
Triumph Daytona 600- Sports bike with a few changes including side flame throwers to burn other vehicles tires, missiles and a nifty shotgun on board for you to pull out when needed.
The driving is amazing, not very realistic but easy and fun which is what this game is mostly about. Driving across rooftops and burning down town streets is where you will be going most of the time. An awesome part I remember was driving the Motorbike down a populated highway swerving between cars and fighting off other bikes. It is very fast especially when you move over to oncoming traffic, until a crash happens up ahead and you must use a powerslide trick to put your bike on its side and barely skid underneath a fuel tanker while an enemy bike launches off a flipped car straight into the tanker. Its moments like that you fully realise how imaginative EA can be.
Multiplayer
The 4 player multiplayer section sucks something rotten and should be cut from this game completely. It is a small arena that fits on the screen while 4 people run around within metres of each other shooting and pushing stupid buttons, it’s pathetic. Just slayer.
The Co-op on the other hand is completely the opposite, it’s awesome. First you use teamwork to cover each others backs and kill loads of guys but soon after the first few missions its Co-op stealth. You both have to sneak around and choke guys at the precise same time or one has to fend off guys while the other diffuses bombs and stuff like that. The missions are totally different from the single player it’s not like Halo where singleplayer and Co-op are the same objectives and levels. The Co-op intertwines with the single player because while you are doing your missions as MI6 agents there is James Bond in the same building with you. Eventually at the end of Co-op you meet Bond for a brief second and he blows up the building that is where the single player basically starts with you continuing as Bond from where the Co-op finished, very smart.
There is also Race where you cooperatively are judged on how fast you complete tasks. Final thing is Scramble where you choose what you want to be scored on with a mate and compete head-to-head.
Graphics, Sound and Options
I don't know a *** of a lot about graphics, but I’m sure these are good ones. Look smooth, runs smooth and fells oh so smooth. Lighting is good and the best part would be the faces of the characters are exactly of the actors.
Explosions are cool, considering there is a lot of them.
The Sound is good and the game even has its own theme song which is basically the title. No custom soundtracks but the game soundtrack is alright. Guns sound good. Character voices are awesome because of the big name actors and some of the little cronnies have some weird accents.
For anyone who likes tinkering with game options there aren't many, just the casual Controller config, Audio, and basic video options. Yeah and Subtitles on or off, exciting!
Unlocks
By completing levels on the hardest difficulty and completing platinum challenges you unlock new costumes for characters and weapon upgrades. Then cheats are unlocked where the code is given to you to use in the game for things like the Golden Gun and infinite ammo. All of it brings more replayability and skill needed.
On the Whole
Great game! I loved it. Not that old a game but not new either. My Three words to the sum the game would be 'Easy and Fun', still a challenging game, just easy to pick up and play, easy going game I guess. Took me back to 007 Nightfire which is also a good game. If you got this far in this review your a bloody legend.
My first review. I thought started well but faded at the end. Same thing will probably be said about my English Exam papers. I'm going to go out and get Goldeneye: Rogue Agent now for $30 at Harvey Norman then later on the new James Bond: From Russia With Love that was just released.
