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16 • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIDEO GAMES
THURSDAY,FEBRUARY 13,2003
Bond game has new features
I'm OK with secret agent scenario games, so I tried out EA's 007 Nightfire for the Playstation 2. I'm a fan of Nintendo 64's Goldeneye, so I figured that I should try the new Bond game.
This new game in the Bond series has a few new things to go with it, but the main premise remains. First person shooter is still the genre of the game, but some surprising new vehicles gives it a new feel.
The game starts out in a true James Bond essence. You know — the whole James Bond shooting down the gun barrel and the blood trickling down the screen. The dancing women and cool CG effects like an intro to a Bond movie follow the first level.
One feature that Nightfire has is a code name. The code name is what players use to keep track of all the missions they take on. It keeps the progress of the game saved and gives you the opportunity to use your very own custom character for Multiplayer gaming.
As always, you are in control of James Bond, one of the most legendary secret agents of all time. This time you must do battle with international green industrialist Raphael Drake.
Drake is organizing the theft of a secret component of missile guidance hardware intended for the U.S. Space Weapon Platform. You must stop his plans or he will surely take over the world (so what else is new?). This mission will take you all over the world and even out of this world. No matter how many times Bond runs into crazed megalomaniacs, it always seems interesting.
The graphics of the game are exceptional. James Bond himself, Mr. Pierce Brosnan, lent his figure to EA Games to be the template of the Bond character, but he doesn't supply him with the voice, which seemed rather odd.
One gadget Bond always has with him is his car. Now you are able to use it when the situation calls for it. James' Aston Martin V12 Vanquish is fully loaded with Q's latest gadgets including machine guns, rocket launchers, turbo boosters, smokescreen, and even an EMP discharger.
REVIEW
Chris Moore
cmoore@kansan.com
007 NIGHTFIGHTER ... C
Now available for Playstation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, and PC
Rated Teen for suggestive themes and violence
- Sells for an average retail price of $50 for Playstation 2, GameCube and Xbox; $20 for PC
The major flaw of the game is, like most first person shooters, all you do is run. point, shoot.
The action is plain redundant and can get tiring pretty fast. Perhaps if they change it to a third person rather than a first person view it would be more interesting. Being in third person would have James pulling off better moves rather than just showing his hand carrying a gun.
One feature for this game that the Bond games of the past possess is the multiplayer mode. For this, I enlisted the help of my roommate. It's always fun to play a multiplayer game, because slaughtering CPUs can become too boring too fast.
All in all, 007 Nightfire is a decent game to play. A rental for this would be fine. This game isn't the best there, but for first-person shooter fans, it will suffice.
Moore is a Tulsa, Okla., freshman in journalism.
Rocking the house
Eric Braem/Kansan
Singer/guitarist/pianist Ben Kweller and his band Ben Kweller rock to a packed Bottleneck crowd. Tickets for Thursday's concert, which also featured opening band Brenden Benson & the Well Fed Boys and local group The Belles, sold out the night of the show. Kweller improvised little until the encore, which included a solo acoustic version of Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice Baby."
Have a local band? Puting on a show?
Let Jayplay know.
E-mail Brooke Hesler, Jayplay editor, at bhesler@kansan.com