James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing

Bond's latest offers Nick a few perplexing conundrums...

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EA are on a roll, these days. Not content with several multi-million dollar sports franchises, the American giant has developed a number of other games that look set to spawn never-ending sequels. Medal of Honour, Lord of the Rings, the Command and Conquer series and Battlefield 1942, amongst others, all look set to be considerable earners for quite some time. EA games these days really are quality, polished affairs. The menus and interfaces are always honed, and seem to share a common development ancestry across all the EA brands. The motion capture and animation excellence that EA has developed primarily for its sports range has produced dividends across the wider product catalogue - the quality of animation in the LOTR tie-ins and this, EA's most recent licensed offering, is evidence of that. This professionalism and polish is evident throughout Everything or Nothing, and speaks volumes of the solid development process and regulated quality assurance through which EA filters its output. It is ironic, then, that this latest EA offering is so aptly named, since it demonstrates so precisely what is best and worst in the EA development process. Everything or Nothing, indeed.

As you probably already know, EA have decided to upstage Brocolli et al and produce their very own Bond adventure, hiring such acting luminaries as Willem Dafoe, Shannon Elizabeth and the usual Bond cast members John Cleese, Judi Dench and the main man himself. Bringing this little lot together is an original Bond plotline, full of the usual excess and drama, sexual tension and over the top action - everything you might expect from a Bond movie. The cutscenes are another example of the supreme polish EA bring to the field these days, being of the highest standard. It's a shame, therefore, that not one of the famous cast could bring themselves to give anything more than a perfunctory performance. Chief sinner on this front must be Pierce Brosnan, who manages to deliver every single line of (admittedly ropey) dialogue in an unconvincing manner.

The game itself follows the traditional structure of any Bond film. The pre-credits action sequence acts in this case as the game tutorial, introducing players nicely to Bond's moves, weapons and gadgets. On completion of this, gamers are treated to a pretty decent Bond song, with shadowy Shannon Elizabeth's gyrating around in the background somewhat satisfyingly. And then into the meat of the game itself. Levels take several forms. The most common are the third person action/stealth levels, which see Bond infiltrate bases, seedy New Orleans clubs and other appropriate environments in pursuit of Her Majesty's Royal Goals. As one might expect of MI-6's finest, Bond is capable of a variety of moves. He can roll and sneak along walls, peeking round corners to take potshots at enemies. He also has access to an impressive array of weapons and gadgets, including the remote controlled Q-spiders. Bond can also employ his 'Bond Sense' , during which time slows to a crawl and the player is free to examine the environment around for barrels to blow up, enemies to target and walls to scale. This allows the player to deal with what otherwise might be overwhelming odds, and usually there is an abundance of exploding scenery components to thin out the ranks before carrying on. Bond is also rather handy in combat of the unarmed variety, being able to employ a variety of impressive moves. He can take down enemies silently if they are approached unseen, or else quickly disarm and disable them if spotted.