Monday 28 November 2011

Game On #4. The World Is Not Enough

Christmas comes early for Bond in 1999's The World Is Not Enough...

This week's Game On completes our 007 Double Bill with The World Is Not Enough, EA's pumped-up PS1 tie-in to one of Bond's most disappointing outings, marked by the departure of Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and the rise of the rampant silliness which would climax in Die Another Day (Tamahori, 2002) and its infamous riding-the-wave scene...

After a thrilling pre-credits boat chase, The World Is Not Enough had threatened to be another solid entry into the Bond canon for Pierce Brosnan, but sadly the film never again reaches the heights of its opening moments. It's over from the moment R (John Cleese) rears his buffoonish head, but the introduction of Dr. Christmas Jones (a comically miscast Denise Richards) seals the deal - this is undoubtedly one of 007's weakest outings. What's most disappointing is the fact that the central relationship between Bond and oil heiress Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) has real heart, and is given a fair degree of emotional complexity by the actors. Their final exchange ("I never miss") has real dramatic weight, but everything around it is so ridiculous that it hardly matters. For example, Renard (Robert Carlyle), the film's megalomaniac villain, has a bullet lodged in his head which is slowly killing him, but until the moment he dies it will only make him stronger. There are a few solid action set-pieces, notably a high-velocity bomb chase through one of King's oil tunnels, but the film as a whole is empty, containing none of Bond's trademark wit or brawn. It's also one of the most boring entires in the series, clocking in at 129 minutes with the overwhelming feeling of having taken a leisurely Sunday stroll through a lake of gloopy treacle...

The cover art for EA's PS1 shoot-em-up The World Is Not Enough...

After the brilliance of Tomorrow Never Dies, which I hailed as the PS1's most underrated shooter, I had high expectations of The World Is Not Enough, but sadly they weren't met. It's not that the game is bad, but for some reason EA felt the need to revert back to GoldenEye's FPS formula, and the results are mixed. Once again there's no multiplayer option here, and the 10 campaign missions (based around the film's story) can be polished off in under two hours - in fact, I clocked this one in at 90 minutes playing at the hardest possible difficulty. None of the levels present any real challenge to the player, with hordes of half-baked henchmen blocking the path between you and a clear-sighted end goal. The AI is surprisingly feeble, with most enemy goons firing off rounds in any general direction, often getting stuck and glitching behind objects. Bond's automatic lock-on system makes it all too easy to knock them off without even stopping in your tracks, and each level ends up as nothing more than a full-throttle sprint to the finish line. If I hadn't stopped to explore side doors and collect armour I fear that the game might have been even shorter.

007 once again packs an impressive arsenal, and kudos to EA for really giving each one differing weight, control and impact - there are many PS3 / 360 games which still can't achieve this easy feat. Shotguns, uzis and grenades all pack a unique but equally pleasing punch, and despite the simplistic level design I can't deny how much fun it is to blast your way through the first couple of missions. The second - a chase through the streets of London for Cigar Girl - finds you swathing through a linear succession of heavily armed thugs, and filling them with uzi lead is a particular treat. The problem is that the gameplay doesn't really feel like Bond, and the 1st person perspective, combined with the generic mission structure, means that there's no real sense of tension or atmosphere. I noted Tomorrow Never Dies for its "genuine sense of Boy's Own adventure... a feeling of being stuck behind enemy lines." If that's what you're expecting here, then you might want to look elsewhere.

Compared to its predecessor, the game is also incredibly bland in terms of visuals - the badly textured interiors are all differing shades of brown and grey, and none have any real shape or character. Tomorrow Never Dies had a remarkably colourful and varied world, and Bond really looked like Brosnan - he even carried his shoulder in agony after receiving too much damage, notably affecting your style of play. There are some nice technical effects here - for example, walking through snow is much harder than gravel - but none of them substantially effect gameplay. It's a muscular little shooter, and fine for wiling away an hour or so, but Bond fans - especially fans of Tomorrow Never Dies - might find The World Is Not Enough a little disappointing. Still, it's not as bad as the recent Blood Stone...


Next week's Game On will focus on Ubisoft's recent PS3 tie-in to Spielberg's The Adventures Of Tintin (2011)...

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