007 NightFire

007 NightFire Description

James Bond sits happily alongside other videogame characters. It's almost like he's always been around, perhaps making eyes at Lara, whilst planning to dispatch Waluigi with a bolt from his watch and a humorous quip. With the Bond license now residing at Electronic Arts, it's worth bearing in mind that 007 got his feet under the console table with the release of the astoundingly good and entirely revolutionary GoldenEye, developed by the former Rare team, now working away on the TimeSplitters franchise. EA picked up the baton, now moulded forever more as a first-person shooter, and ran with it. Featuring an original storyline. NightFire pits Bond in another adventure set in glamorous locations around the world, from the top of the Swiss Alps to deep space, a la Moonraker. You see, EA has free licence to borrow from the film series' rich heritage of gadgetry, location and action, brewing a Bond soup that will, without question, bring delight to fans of the movies. The game runs along the rails of a mission-based FPS as you would expect, with levels varying in context. Some will involve simply blasting reams of baddies to reach your goal, whereas others will insist on the use of stealth, the new black on the gaming catwalk. This is well supplemented by driving levels, free of the plague that was 007 Racing, featuring the Aston Martin Vanquish, a very nice car indeed. With NightFire, more attention has been paid to the "out of Bond" levels. The driving missions have a decent feel to them, with various motors getting the applied physics treatment. Nightfire stands as an interactive James Bond experience, aimed squarely at fans of the movies, riddled with in-jokes and references to the film series. If you can't get your dad off your PlayStation 2, buy him this for Christmas and shoot him dead in the multiplayer mode.