James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire Review

The license is not enough.

If you think your life is beginning to feel scripted and chock full of regularity,

just look at the life of James Bond. Every movie, every book – it’s the same thing,

over and over. Sure, it might be a life of fast cars, fast women, and fast bullets,

but think of where it’s all headed. I mean, did any of you see over-the-hill Sean

Connery fumble through the nightmare of Never Say Never Again? It’s almost

like watching a geriatric Hugh Hefner running amuck. Not a pretty picture. Instead

of depending on Bond to always get his fill of action, you can count on Bond to

always fill his Depends.

While

Bond has somehow managed to remain ageless, his video games haven’t. Agent

Under Fire, the latest in Bond games, is a first-person shooter built upon

a recycled formula. At least there’s some variety with shooting-on-rails and

driving stages, but it’s hard to overcome the pervasive feeling of dated gameplay.

AUF is best served stirred among the company of friends through the Goldeneye-esque

multiplayer.

The story behind Agent Under Fire is an original hodge-podge of old

Bond movies. Once again, the world is in peril, this time involving some sort

of DNA cloning plot. Bond himself looks like the secret love child of Pierce

Brosnan, Roger Moore, and a young Sean Connery. Don’t forget the requisite pretty

babes and nerdy villain. Sadly, no Korean guy in a Bowl Hat.

The FPS controls resemble the Medal

of Honor series. Console shooter controls tend to be structured differently

by game, so this setup might take some getting used to for some. There are alternate

setups, but AUF lacks customizable controls and a keyboard and mouse

option. Guess those USB ports on the PS2 will just have to remain unused.

Along with some semi-familiar weaponry, Bond has a host of Q-gadgets to complete

multiple tasks. The item inventory is a bit lunky and it gets annoying scrolling

just to get to a certain weapon. Unfortunately, you are unable to swap your

weapons while paused.

The game tries to add some flair by including “Bond moves.” These dashing acts of daring-do seem to require simply blowing crap up. For example, Bond is awarded for shooting an oilcan, thereby exploding an enemy, giving him third degree burns and scarring him for life. Some Bond moves are naturally awarded with progression through the level. There’s even a Bond move awarded for barging into a lady’s dressing room.

After you finish a level, your Bond moves are tallied up along with the completion

time and other statistics. If you play well enough, you earn extras such as

new weapons for multiplayer. AUF tries to add more replay by scattering

Bond tokens around the completed stages. Collecting all the tokens on top of

other criteria will earn additional awards, like new multiplayer levels.

AUF takes you through some classic Bond scenery. Hong Kong, Bucharest,

and plenty of evil lairs make for adequate backdrops. Even though Bond is racking

up the frequent flyer miles, his visits are short. These areas are heavily linear

and limited.

Like its misogynistic dinosaur of a hero, Agent Under Fire is a bit

behind the times. Due to its hardcore linearity, the game bluntly pushes you

through scripted events rather than inspiring a sense of adventure and intrigue.

Walk 5 paces forward. Shoot grappling hook up. Duck down. Walk 10 paces forward.

Turn around and shoot a guy in the head. The scripting is severe and unwavering.

After experiences such as Half-Life and Halo,

where AI and scripting are used to create a sense of an environment, AUF

seems ready for the rest home.

The

big problem is that, well, there isn’t really any problems to solve at all.

Right when you think some kind of clever action or maneuver is required to get

past a tricky bit, you realize the answer is smack dab in plain sight with big

neon signs pointing out the way.

Enemy AI is dull and repetitive. You’ll kill most baddies by simple strafing and shooting. Must be evil henchmen from the temp-agency. Even the levels where you are required to do some sneaking feel so limited in comparison to games where the enemy AI is given more freedom.

Thankfully, the whole game isn’t subpar first-person fragging. The addition

of some genuinely fun third-person driving levels breaks up the monotony. It’s

kind of like Crazy Taxi where you are given a large

city environment, except you must pick up objects and disable enemies. Still,

replaying these stages reveals the ugly truth of a repetitive game experience.

The multiplayer keeps Bond’s head above water. Lucky for us, they’ve followed

the Goldeneye formula and created a high-res counterpart. It can be quite

fun. At the least, AUF will remind you of the good ol’ Bond-ing sessions

you enjoyed during Goldeneye‘s heyday.

Unfortunately, the game doesn’t allow you to add bots to multiplayer like

in Timesplitters, so you better have a few friends

handy. AUF could have used some digital dates for Bond to flesh out the

multiplayer experience. The graphics are slick and polished. Explosions look

great and the framerate is solid. The facial animations for Bond are very impressive

with sarcastic nuances to match his bad puns. I wish the design allowed more

level exploration.

AUF continuously pounds the Bond theme into your head. At least you

get different arrangements and mixes of the theme, as well as the classic refrain

every time you snag another Bond point. The voice acting is right on the moneypenny.

M, Bond, and R sound like their real life counterparts. Bond has the favored

Connery voice, which is great.

But the scripted adventures of Agent Under Fire aren’t. While it’s

got some good moments and fun multiplayer, the short, bland single-player game

makes this better suited as a rental than anything else.