007 NightFire

007 NightFire Description

When the Game Boy Advance was first released, few people imagined the machine was capable of running a 3D, first-person shooter. Then Doom came along and introduced us to portable 3D gaming. Well, that particular genre has now been Bond-ified for the first time, with EA's GBA conversion of 2002's 007 game, NightFire. Staying faithful to its home console big brothers, NightFire's main gameplay offers players a series of objective-based missions, filled with action, stealth, hot chicks and masses of cool gadgetry. The game features both new and familiar characters from the Bond universe, one in particular being Zoe Nightshade from the Agent Under Fire games. As is always the case with James Bond plots, there's an evil criminal mastermind at work, creating a threat to world security. In this case, the culprit is one Raphael Drake, and in order to defeat him once and for all, players must travel across a variety of exotic locations, such as the Austrian Alps, a Japanese high-rise, an island in the South Pacific, and even a zero-gravity space station. Each of the nine levels that make up the game can be approached from two different angles: you can go in, all guns blazing, and blast your way through, or you can opt for more stealthy tactics and rely on tricks and gadgets to accomplish objectives and maximise scores. There's a host of upgradeable Q-lab gadgets to be found, some unique to console versions of the game. 007 NightFire manages to recreate quite well the action of its home console counterparts. 3D on the GBA never tends to look too fantastic, but it's gameplay that counts and this game has plenty of it.