007: Everything or Nothing

James Bond may still triumph at the flicks, but he clearly needs to improve his game on PS2. Will this be the game to do it or will he die another day? Read on...

Release Date: February 11, 2004

There are few more recognisable characters in the world than James Bond. Which makes tucking him away behind the camera seem rather a strange decision - EA’s two previous PlayStation2 efforts, James Bond 007 in... Agent Under Fire and Nightfire, both trod the first-person shooter path. As a result we got to play as cinema’s most famous cufflink in two mostly entertaining but rather shallow adventures that never quite got to the heart of it. Like 95 per cent of James himself, the most iconic Bond elements just weren’t there.

But that’s changed. Electronic Arts has, in true global domination style, reached out from its futuristic glass headquarters to snatch the rights to just about everything. The company is now free to rake the past 20 Bond films for any elements it cares to resurrect, and also own the rights to anything 007 produces until - slow-burning evil cackle - 2010. It’s not an opportunity the company's planning to waste, and Everything Or Nothing lEON from now on, if you don't mind) is stacked to the rafters with villains, gadgets and situations to please even the corest of the hardcore Jamie fans.

//IT’S AN INTERESTING MIDDLE GROUND BETWEEN CUNNING STEALTH AND FULL-ON FIGHTING ACTION//

The first thing of note is the switch to a third-person view. This does more than just give EA’s Lead Tuxedo Programmer a reason to sit up and switch the lights back on. Being able to see your character affords you many more opportunities for interacting with your environment, because Bond can use stealth tactics in a far more entertaining way than before. After all, if you try lurking round a corner or ducking behind cover in the first person view, all you get is a close up of something flat Realistic, perhaps, but not very gripping. A more distant camera allows you to see both Bond in all his stealthy glory and the dangers that surround him. Of course, we want to see ourselves being Bond, too.

So naturally, this time you've got a lot more moves, including the ability to send guards off in the wrong direction with distractions. It's an interesting middle ground between cunning stealth and full-on fighting, as your noises will obviously tip them off to your presence, creating potentially hazardous situations. Timing will be everything (or nothing...)

Bond’s ability to be creative is not just limited to tossing the odd ashtray at the opposite wall, either - we all know spies are far more cunning than that You might, for instance, be able to get yourself captured deliberately at certain points, before viciously taking down your escorts in the privacy of, say, a lift. It's a typical Bond ruse to penetrate those gosh darned secret facilities, and just the kind of thing we want to do in a game.

EA wants you to do it too, rather than just ploughing through the middle with the trigger on the US G.l setting, so the game rewards Bond-like activities. How? Extra helpings of Q’s exotic gadgets, a substantial reward for a bit of brainery when confronted by too many bad guys. And yes, written LARGE between these lines is this point - you have the choice of how to fight and choice is officially A Good Thing. If you want to just wade in with guns blazing like the sunrise then you can, but there are better ways - ways more in-keeping with the subject

You can also fight unarmed, another element that works best with the third-person view - even the otherwise superb Time Splitters 2 - perhaps the most fluid and well-balanced first-person game out there looks ridiculous once the fists start prodding out from beneath the camera. Creep up behind an unwary guard and Bond will even tap him on the shoulder before clattering him as he turns around... most amusing.

It’s also possible to snatch up something that’s lying around - a plank of wood perhaps, bottles, chairs or even power tools - and use it to bring about an embarrassing DIY death that’s just begging for a pun-tastic quip. Naturally, even a few sharp slaps with a rake makes a lot less noise than several hundred rounds of heavyweight munitions thudding into the scenery, so it's the best way to kill if you really want to stay undetected - especially as you can frequently steal identities from fallen foes and bluff your way through ensuing sections in disguise. Well, you are a spy.

You’re clearly the world’s best spy, too, seeing as no-one seems to be able to kill James Bond, even though they know who he is, where he lives and what he drinks. The developer has struggled with how to represent this infallibility, as Bond, it feels, simply thinks more quickly than most people. How do you give the player time to react in a pleasingly suave way? The designers toyed with a rather sorrowful version of The Matrix's bullet time called, somewhat pathetically, the Bond Zone - everybody just get over it before wisely dropping the idea. Spinning in slo-mo fashion even looks old in The Matrix Reloaded and it has NEVER looked good in games. EA has finally settled on something less redundant Played Max Payne? You didn't actually need those treacly dives, did you...

Originally, cunning play In EON filled a bar that allowed the unleashing of some unspectacular slow-down when you saw fit Such treatment is now reserved for certain set pieces. For instance, you may be quietly riding along on your motorcycle, minding your own business as you head for the French Quarter of New Orleans. Well, speeding along, weaving in and out of traffic, minding your own business as you head for the French Quarter of New Orleans. Well, weaving in and out of traffic firing the rockets, machine guns and flamethrowers attached to your bike at a phalanx of bad guys in cars as you head for the French Quarter. Well, all right, bad guys in massive juggernauts.

Eventually your shooting causes a petrol tanker to jack knife across the road, blocking it Hit the correct button (it'll appear on screen) in time and Bond throws the bike on its side and slides underneath, swerving upright afterwards instead of crashing, just as everyone has since it first happened that way in Mission: Impossible 2. React quickly enough to another button instruction and he'll fire his flamethrower, triggering another slomo drama as the tanker evaporates in a ball of rising flame. And if your reactions aren't up to super-spy standard? You’ll just have to ride around it, and miss out on the cinematic carnage Bond so often causes. Which, of course, would be an act of folly.

Vehicle-based shenanigans account for around 40 per cent of the game, and when we say ‘vehicles’ we’re not just stretching for another way of saying ‘cars’. In proper Bond style, you commandeer all manner of things without needing a single lesson, including a helicopter, the aforementioned bike and a Porsche.

There’s little time for amiable sightseeing, either - Egypt’s Valley Of The Kings may well be something of a tourist attraction, but at the height you must pilot this chopper you’re a bit too close to creating your own, slightly more mangled pyramid headstone to pay much attention. Similarly, the exact number of cup-holders the Porsche holds may escape your notice as you boost its rocket-firing ass after an armoured train...

Actually, if we’ve a bone to pick with EON it's in the choice of car. Yes, it’s a Porsche, but it’s a Cayenne - a new model and their first ever people carrier, but a people carrier all the same. It's almost as bad as Bond’s shocking choice of the barge-like BMW 750iL in Tomorrow Never Dies, a car driven by unexceptional career business-bores with suspiciously wide arses. It smacks of product placement and consequently has about as much romance as a microwave meal. Okay, the Cayenne is a 165mph, £69,000 turbo, but it's still a car millionaires' wives are going to buy for the school run. Its a sexed up Ford Galaxy for the price of a house. Shame on you James. And you, EA.

On the other hand, it does fire missiles. And no matter how sensible the real thing, piloting the game version is going to be fun. The latest much-improved version of the Need For Speed engine (soon to appear powering NFS Underground] has been specially modified for Bond’s very specific demands. Cue much high-speed camera shake and some particularly saucy motion blur... it's just the kind of visceral approach Bond's driving sections need.

At times you’ll even be able to choose between, say, a car or a bike, and the choice you make influences the route you take and things you see through the next level. That's going to give you a significant reason to come back and play it again, something Electronic Arts’ previous Bond games have been notably lacking. But as we said earlier, they were also conspicuously lacking the man himself, Mr James Bond. Thankfully, that's all changed.