007 Nightfire 2002 By: Electronic Arts

Overview:

Do you enjoy martinis, fast cars, and have commitment issues? Does dressing up in a tuxedo make you want to blow things up? If this sounds like you, then you've probably already played "007: Nightfire", but on the off chance you haven't, get ready for a satisfying, if not slightly underwhelming, entry that returns to the FPS style that made the series a hit with gamers everywhere.

Fans of the Bond series will appreciate the fact that the story weaved in "007: Nightfire" is original, while staying true to the Bond universe. Many of the characters will be familiar to Bond fans, there is no shortage of beautiful women for Bond to interact with, and the stage locations are varied and exotic. That's the good news.

Unfortunately, the Game Boy Advance is not the best platform for an FPS game. The graphics are less clear than Wolfenstein 3-D with the graphic settings turned all the way down. The blurriness presents a problem when trying to differentiate between allies and enemies. To the game's credit, I was playing "007: Nightfire" on an enlarged window on my computer monitor (one of the perks of playing on Console Classix), when I minimized the window, the game did not seem as blurry or choppy (it was never meant to be played on such a large screen). The controls can also be frustrating as well, requiring the player to use button combinations to do things such as duck. That's the bad news.

"007: Nightfire's" underwhelming graphics, and frustrating controls should not deter players from giving this game a try. The original score is impressive, and the sound effects are awesome (enemies frequently yell orders at Bond). I was also really impressed with the enemy AI, which adds to the difficulty and results in a challenging game. While I am not a huge James Bond fan, I am a huge fan of first-person shooters, and as such had a lot of fun playing "007: Nightfire", despite its drawbacks.

Directions:

"007: Nightfire" plays like a typical FPS with the a few caveats. Enemies will not react to the player until he has come close enough to be noticed, however, there are times when enemies will spawn around the player seemingly out of nowhere. This can make it difficult to know what direction you are taking damage from.

As with any 007 game, there are weapons-a-plenty, numerous pistols, automatic weapons, sniper rifles, rocket launchers (a must for dealing with helicopters), and even an experimental Phoenix Samurai Laser Rifle will provide plenty of variety for dispatching the bad guys throughout the 12 stages, and ammo is everywhere, so keep your finger on the trigger. There are also numerous explosives and gadgets that must be utilized to navigate stages.