They say the third time's a charm, and that adage held true with the release of Electronic Arts' "007: Everything or Nothing."
After Rare's production of the widely acclaimed GoldenEye on N64, EA took the reins of the Bond franchise and released two games, "Agent Under Fire" and "Nightfire." Neither game sold well, nor proved to be anything exceptional. However, with a complete redesign of the game engine and a script written by veteran Bond screenwriter Bruce Feirstein, EA has finally published the game GoldenEye fans have wanted for years.
In "Everything or Nothing," James Bond (played and voiced by Pierce Brosnan) investigates the theft of nanotechnology by villain Nikolai Diavolo (Willem Dafoe). Bond girls -- played by Mya, Heidi Klum and Shannon Elizabeth -- are friend and foe as you race, fight and fly through exotic locations. MI6 helpfuls "M" (Judi Dench) and "Q" (John Cleese) make appearances as well, giving Bond his missions and much-needed gadgetry.
"Everything or Nothing" feels more like a movie than any of the other Bond games. When you first start the game (you're never even presented with a menu screen), you find yourself in the middle of a confusing firefight as you're quickly taught combat basics -- just enough to get through the first stage, but not so much that you feel like you're being led through by hand.
After a few battles in which you fight with a variety of weapons, fire a rocket launcher to take down an attack jet and escape from the heavy fire of tanks, you'll think it's a job well done for the first stage as you sit back and enjoy the introductory movie.
Despite the fact that every button on the controller is used, the game's controls are fairly simple. Unlike "GoldenEye" and other Bond games of the past, "Everything or Nothing" is a third-person shooter, using an auto-targeting system that is anything but foolproof. When targeting an enemy, you are presented with a crosshair and given a free range in which you can adjust your aim with the second analog pad. A moving enemy will easily avoid auto-target fire, but a quick adjustment of your aim will score the headshot you need. Ducking, sneaking and shooting from behind corners a la "Metal Gear Solid 2" also play a role, giving players the option to stealthily defeat their enemies without raising alarm.
Cheats and Rewards are an interesting system that evolved as a fusion of Nightfire's scoring system and GoldenEye's cheat challenges. For each stage completed, your performance is scored based on stealth, accuracy and performance. You unlock rewards such as weapon upgrades, production shots and even the Bond girls in revealing clothing by achieving certain scores in each stage. After unlocking a reward and completing a stage on its hardest difficulty, you can replay the stage with a challenge to unlock cheats. Challenges range from the traditional "Beat the clock" to "Use no ammo" and "Take less than a certain amount of damage".
Co-operative play modes allow up to four players to battle through completely original stages not available in single-player mode, hunting new villains and forcing teamwork. In one stage, as one player disarms a bomb, other players are required to protect him from enemies that can cost the success of the mission. Unfortunately, there is a lack of a good multiplayer death match. It is instead replaced with an unintelligent shooter that is a reminder of the fights that occurred in the old Spy v. Spy games on NES.
There are very few noticeable differences between the GameCube and PlayStation 2 versions of "Everything or Nothing." Performance is flawless on both systems. Neither version suffers from random slowdowns, strange graphical clipping or bad control schemes. Video cutscenes look more authentic on PlayStation 2, but GameCube makes up for this with superior in-game texturing that Sony's console cannot match. However, the PlayStation 2 version offers online cooperative and competitive play, making it a great choice for players who already own a broadband adapter.
"Everything or Nothing" is a game highly recommended to anyone who has been waiting for "the next 'GoldenEye.'" The single-player campaign is top-notch and feels so much like a movie that you'll be surprised that it isn't adapted from one. While the multiplayer co-operative game options are great, the death match is not. However, Electronic Arts recently announced that their upcoming title, "GoldenEye 2," is now in production. With "Everything or Nothing's" success in bringing the Bond gaming franchise back to life, we can sleep better knowing that EA won't fail us in making the real "next 'GoldenEye."
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