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James Bond 007: NightFire Review
Richard Amos
01/12/2002
A franchise spin-off that doesn’t tempt you to pull your hair out. Really. I’m not kidding…
Nightfire is EAâs 3rd blast at a bond game, and this time it looks like theyâve got it right. Featuring an exclusively written storyline, we see bond taking part in a few car chases, practising espionage, âexploringâ the female anatomy and of course, saving the world. Ok, so the bond franchise is stubbornly stuck in the 1960s when a man in a tuxedo shooting a pistol was âcoolâ (or âwizardâ as they used to say) and when women reached an orgasmic peak from the thought of a creepy 40 something womaniser (the nameâs Bond, James Bond) being in the same room as them.
It sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Wrong; somewhere (weâve tried to work out how they pulled this off), theyâve found how to make a damn fine game out of an idea (the whole idea of using movie franchises) thatâs been tried, tested, stamped as âstupidâ, locked up sent on a spaceship to Pluto. Someone rewrote the rules.
Lets start on the plotline; admittedly, it was never going to be stunning; you donât watch a James Bond film for the plot; you watch it for the thrill. Nightfire has got the thrill, cunningly created from a mediocre plot that develops into some mad man that wants to blow up half of planet earth (ugh, great idea âdudeâ, wish Iâd thought of it before you). Wonderful. And guess whoâs got to save the world? The story is told through a combination of pre-rendered videos, in-game cut scenes and even some prescripted parts, akin to the likes of Half-Life. This combination, in general, works very well, however at times the cut scenes can ruin the pace of the game and break down the adrenaline youâve built up during the intense fights.
The in-game graphics, as a whole, are lovely. Theyâre not quite Halo, but theyâll certainly do. Textures are sharp, objects crisp and character models, as expected with such a high budget game, are absolutely brilliant; Bond looks like Brosnanâs clone, pixel for pixel. Animation for the enemies is as a whole, really smooth, however at times animation glitches occur that send you back remember the âstuck guardsâ in the oh-so wonderful Goldeneye.
Ah yes, Goldeneye, I had to mention it somewhere; this game borrows many Goldeneye-isms, from the control system to many of the tactics you must use. However, Nightfire takes Bond much further than Goldeneye did, âborrowingâ many ideas from Perfect Dark; you now have night vision goggles as well as special specs that detect body heat, much akin to the (poorly-implemented) Farsight from Perfect Dark. These add an extra element to the game, and even play a crucial role in certain missions where you must spot laser traps. Not one gadget feels out of place in this game and they all blend in perfectly with the gameplay.
Weapon wise, Nightfire is perfectly balanced â“ youâll soon learnt that your PPK is as, if not more powerful than your SIG Commando assault rifle, but that the rate of fire of the PPK is poor and that the magazine can only hold 7 bullets. Bummer. The meatier guns also feel very real â“ the firing mechanism is erratic, and youâll have trouble releasing a full magazine out of the Deutsche every time. Genius.
The area damage on the enemies is pretty damn fine, and youâll find that you really have to catch them unaware to end their rein on earth; shoot them crouching, tucked up, and youâll get no-where. Explosive weapons are also wonderfully realistic and will cause a great deal of harm to you if you do not take cover; none of that âlose a bit of your health standing 3 foot from a grenadeâ â“ youâll often die standing in a 20 foot radius of the explosion.
Bored of walking? Try driving. Oh yes, you can DRIVE. And itâs not crap. Seriously. Iâve never seen such an excellent implementation of driving in a 1st person shooter â“ one level sees you racing through a town on a civilian road fighting off police cars with smoke screens and baddies with missiles - all in your lovely Austin Martin V12 Vanquish - ace handling, ace gameplay, ace shortcuts. Itâs great. In a later level (SPOLIER ALERT), youâll ind yourself in a jeep racing through the jungle firing all sorts of weapons off at other jeeps, bridges and âsentinelsâ â“ massive gun turrets. And the underwater mission in your Austin Martin⦠ultra gimmicky, but still, great fun.
Machines continue to pop up throughout the game, and at one point youâll find yourself manning the gun turret of an on-rails light aircraft down a cannon, followed by sitting in a lovely big turret on the ground shooting down oncoming planes and tanks. Yay.
I hesitate to praise this too much, as itâs not a revolution. Itâs been done before many, many times; but badly. This time theyâve got it ârightâ, but note - not perfect; thereâs A.I. glitches; levels which are, more often than not, very linear; and, it has to be said, an awful James Bond voice. Couldnât they at least find a Pierce Brosnan impersonator if they couldnât find the money to get the man himself to do it?!
