Everything or Nothing

The name's Bond, James Bond. Yes, the old vodka-swilling misogynist is back in a new adventure against actors with unconvincing Russian accents. Throw in a handful of great actions scenes and some terrible puns and we have the making of a Bond classic, don't we?

The first time I ever went to the cinema was to see a James Bond film. And since then, I've only missed two of them at the multiplex. Sure, James Bond movies are unrealistic, corny and often beset by huge plot holes. But I just love them anyway. From Sean Connery's tough and ruthless Bond, all the way to Pierce's suave understated sense of danger – there hasn't been a Bond movie I didn't have some fun with.



My relationship with Bond Games has not really been as cosy. From the ZX Spectrum right up to today's high-powered PCs and consoles, games based on the Bond franchise have been more Octopussy than From Russia With Love. The only shining light amongst a range of games that have varied between mediocrity and dullness is of course Rare's GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64.

So now we have the latest offering from Electronic Arts and, great heavens above, it's actually pretty good. Not a classic, but a good solid game with some moments of real excitement. Not bad for a company that's been pumping out some pretty average games with James Bond attached to them.

The first thing that's obvious about the game is the lengths EA has gone to in attempting to bring us the James Bond movie experience. Pierce Brosnan, Judy Dench, John Cleese, Willem Defoe, Shannon Elizabeth, Heidi Klum, Mya and Richard Keel have all been signed up to provide their likenesses and voices for the game. It certainly adds a sense of authenticity to hear the real actors speak the lines for the characters we know and love from the movies. A switch to the third person view for this game also adds more of a sense of identity for Bond as we can see Pierce Brosnan's accurately recreated visage on the screen at all times. The writer behind the movie GoldenEye has even penned the script for the game.

Some opinions of the game seem to suggest that Everything or Nothing is an interactive movie, or that it feels like a genuine Bond movie that the player takes part in. I think that's probably over egging the pudding, so to speak. Everything or Nothing is a third-person action adventure that features the voices and likenesses of members of the franchise's movie cast. Yes, it has some cut scenes, but that's par for the course in the average action adventure. EoN is not an interactive movie, it's resolutely a third-person adventure and is stronger for that. Interactive movies have been, on the whole, rubbish – so it's good that for all the big name talent roped into the events EA has stuck to creating a game rather than a movie featuring the occasional button press.

So, onto the action itself. Well the plot is pure hokum, but if you're going to complain about hokum, it's really not worth bothering with Bond at all. The plot surrounds nanotechnology, dodgy Russian accents and beautiful women who aren't what they seem. Yes, it's the usual Bond fare. For the most part the player controls Bond as a third-person character and the gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has dabbled with Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell. There are also sections that require the control of vehicles such as cars, bikes, tanks and helicopters, but we'll deal with those later.

Stealth does play a part in the gameplay, though on the lowest difficulty level it is possible to run around blindly and play the game doom-style without a care for keeping hidden. Bond has an impressive number of moves to call on, the most useful being able to hide against walls and look out to shoot at the bad guys. A rappel gun is supplied for scaling and abseiling down walls and the arsenal of weaponry includes robotic spiders in addition to the usual firearms.



The enemy AI is pretty good. Enemies will use cover, push over tables to hide behind etc. But should the player wait a while, the bad guys will often get impatient and run from cover. They do often manage to get behind Bond, which brings up the games weakest feature – the camera and targeting system. Third person games often struggle with the camera and locking on to a target. EoN works better than GTA in that respect, but it's by no means perfect. It's far too easy to be killed by a bad guy behind the player because turning the view round to target them is very difficult in a hurry. The interface is equally clunky and makes changing weapons in the heat of battle rather tricky. Some elements of the control system do work; the game is a lot of fun when facing enemies in front of the player. The ability to use cover, and shoot over or around it, is well implemented and makes for some cinematic gunfights.

When James gets close to an enemy it's time to engage in a little fisticuffs. EoN is no slouch when it comes to the fighting mechanic, with plenty of moves on offer for Mr Bond. Many of the moves are context sensitive, so if an enemy is near a crate Bond may choose to slam the bad guy's head against it, or if near a wall slam him into the wall. A variety of throws round off a strong hand-to-hand fight system.

Sometimes the game throws up sections where it's a little unclear what the player has to do. At one point Bond must leap off a cliff and fall to catch a girl that has been thrown from a helicopter. Falling down the cliff, the player must direct Bond away from obstacles along the way before catching up with the heroine. When I played the game, I had to try five times before I succeeded. No problem there, there's no reason games should be easy. Yet when I succeeded I had no clue why, I'd pretty much done the same thing each time I'd tried to complete this section and I'm none the wiser how I managed to catch up with the girl the final time and she fell to her doom the other times. This is a problem with several sections of the game where it's often hard to know what the player did wrong or why they succeeded when they did.