James Bond 007 in...Agent Under Fire Review

Bondâs first outing on the Playstation2 started as an impressive looking snippet at E3â00, based upon the latest movie âThe World Is Not Enoughâ, the demo showed a very accurate representation of Pierce Brosnan getting up to his usual spy thing. However this game was promptly canned amidst fears that it couldnât live up to the Bond game to end all Bond games, Goldeneye. Development shifted to a new project, the license was one to print money, but could this new one eclipse Rareâs efforts on the N64?



Rather then basing Agent Under Fire on an existing movie, EA have decided to script itâs own take on Ian Flemmings classic, a new story, new characters and a James Bond that seems to have been modelled upon all of the
people who have played Bond in the films history. You work with a female CIA operative to stop an evil organization from cloning world leaders, killing them, and replacing them with their genetic doubles. 

Whilst most of the gameplay is built upon the traditional FPS mode that we all know, certain missions will see you up to other activities including car chases and shooting out of car windows ala Time Crisis 2. It seems that the developers knew they couldnât compete with Goldeneye from the start, and so decided to take a different approach rather then try and compete head on, smart moveâ¦



There are twelve levels in the game that require certain criteria to be met to successfully complete them.
These usually revolve around using your Q gadgets, which are all based on your handy mobile phone; such as the Q-Claw â“ a grappling hook; the Q-Laser â“ a laser to melt locks; dispatching the bad guys and then rescuing the secret documents, occasionally youâll have to rescue someone, but generally the FPS missions are very closely
structured.



Within each mission are different amount of Bond moves that you can pull off, when you perform these a cut-scene pops up amidst the trademark
Bond music. These are usually such things as shooting wires that hold up canisters to drop on top of the enemy below, whilst one of the car missions sees you pitted against a heavy entourage of a helicopter and numerous armed vehicles, you could shoot them all out,
although targeting the helicopters rotor blade will activate the âBond Moveâ and see the helicopter crash down taking out all of the other vehicles. I enjoyed this function, some have said itâs a clever way to hide the games patchy AI, but I felt that it helped to add that Bond feel from the movies to the game admirably, giving you a sense of satisfaction when you pull them off. 

Completing them will also give you bonus points, used at the end of each mission to determine what medal you collect, score enough points and youâll earn a gold medal giving you access to the games hidden bonuses, such as
secret weapons for the games multiplayer mode, like the Golden Gun, whilst the Platinum medal will open up additional multiplayer maps, this scoring system works well in the same way as Goldeneyeâs, giving the player an incentive to go back and try to open up everything.



Unfortunately Agent Under Fire is way too simple, enemy AI is patchy, whilst gunfights never get to the climatic state that they should. Itâs usually just a case of get in there and just shoot, forget about hiding as most of their shots will miss you, whilst there defensive capabilities is questionable at best. The gameâs auto-aim also makes it way too easy, making the use of manual targeting worthless in all but a few circumstances. 
Where Goldeneye relied on a stealth based approach, Agent Under Fire requires no
such skill, the enemy are too easy to take down and the best approach is often
just to run in guns blazing.



One area that Agent Under Fire does excel is in the visuals; character models are superbly designed with high levels of detail and good animation. Whilst the levels themselves benefit from crisp and varied textures, something weâre not that used to seeing on the PS2. Occasionally the framerate does drop, but never enough to affect the gameplay, on the whole Agent Under Fire is one of the better looking PS2 titles currently around.



The multiplayer mode also adds to the games long-term appeal, although no Goldeneye beater, the fact that itâs four-player should appeal to those few with a PS2 multi-tap, due to the lack of FPS with four player modes. 
Unfortunately there's no scope for bots, which considering the level of enemy AI
is probably a good thing, whilst the games variation on the basic deathmatch
modes is welcome.