007: Nightfire Video Game Review

James Bond games will forever be judged against Goldeneye. And why not? Goldeneye was (and still is) one of the greatest console FPS's of all time. Yet over the past couple years, not a single Bond inspired game has come close to the greatness of it. Last year it was 007: Agent Under Fire. That was a fun game, but again lacked the fun that the classic N64 title had.

So its another year, another James Bond game. This time it is 007: Nightfire. The only reason I even decided to play his game was that it had been a while since I had played an FPS; oh, and the video store was out of Timesplitters 2. Luckily, Nightfire is actually a very entertaining game, and well worth the price of a rental.

Although this title was released along with the film Die Another Day, the game itself has nothing to do with it. Then again, it does the follow the proper Bond storyline: an evil man is attempting to take over the world using a super satellite. As James Bond, it is your job to hunt down this man, spy on his plans, drive some fast cars, get the girl(s), and eventually take the guy out.

If you played Agent Under Fire last year, then you will pick up Nightfire quickly. It keeps the same pace and style. Most of the time you're on foot, but there are a select few stages in which you get to drive a vehicle.

No matter which you are playing, you still get a decent variety of weapons and gadgets. While thwarting evil forces on the ground, you get the usual PP7 or P2K (weapons based on real the real guns Bond uses: Walther PPK and P99), and pick up some others as you take down the endless minions. This was one area in which I was actually rather disappointed. The guns really aren't that great and you don't get very many of them. Far too many of the submachine guns only fire in "bursts" and not real automatic fire. This gets really annoying when you are surrounded by countless enemies and you can only fire 4-5 shots at a time.

Graphically it looks pretty, but it just isn't Goldeneye...

Credit: Jason Freeden