Release Date: November 28, 2002
Platform: PC
Genre: First-Person Shooter / Puzzle
I’VE DEVELOPED THE IDEA to do game review series’. Why? I enjoy delving into a world, and I find having marathon sessions is the best way to accomplish that. What will constitute a series is to my discretion. A series will usually contain games made by the same developer, or from the same genre, or a franchise. The latter is what I am doing with 007.
I’M DOING A REVIEW SERIES on a few James Bond titles I wanted to play after getting excited for the release of Skyfall this past November. It began when I started watching the entire collection of Bond films a few months ago. I started with the first, Dr. No, and am currently suffering through A View To A Kill, Roger Moore’s last and most terrible film.
When I was young I enjoyed watching 007 movies regularly, especially when one of the many cable networks would have a Bond marathon for a week or two. I’d set up the VCR to record, nuke some popcorn and enjoy.
GOLDENEYE FOR THE NINTENDO 64 solidified me as a Bond fan though, and I’ve had nostalgia for the franchise ever since. I enjoy many of the Bond films. I know many of them are bad. I know their plots are ridiculous and plot hole laden, but I ignore all of that and enjoy the secret agent as he trots the globe and eventually saves it after two hours and ends up with lady underneath him in some fashion.
FAST FORWARD to my current Bond marathon, somewhere along the way I decided to play a few 007 games and so my idea for review series’ was born.
ONTO THE REVIEW: Remember Goldeneye? Nightfire is no Goldeneye. I wanted to like Nightfire, but it is almost entirely a throw away entry into the franchise.
THE LOCALES are good, but the graphics badly represent them. As I’ve said, a single James Bond film spans the globe, and this game does a good job of doing that. But again, it is completely discounted by its aged graphics.
NIGHTFIRE RELEASED ON PC in 2002. Halo: Combat Evolved came out in 2001, and looks and sounds much better. The original Splinter Cell, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Mech Assault came out in 2002. I remember those games looking good, but I could be completely off base. I’ve played Halo here and there over the years so the shock of its dated graphics goes unrecognized. As for the other games, I have not played them since 2002, including Nightfire, so the shock is there.
NIGHTFIRE PLAYS like Half-Life 1. I researched the game’s engine. It uses GoldSrc, the same engine Valve used to make the original Half-Life. GoldSrc, coined by Valve, is a heavily modified version of the original Quake engine. I didn’t know this, that Valve didn’t design Half-Life 1’s engine. I had always thought they created it.
Coincidentally, I was playing this game at the same time as Black Mesa. The controls and player movement felt almost exactly the same, but the games obviously looked wholly different.
NIGHTFIRE’S LEVEL DESIGN is very puzzle-like, like Half-Life’s. But here you will use the typical 007 gadgets, like the laser watch, to access areas. These simple to use gadgets are aesthetically more fun than just locating a button and pressing it, a la Half-Life.
The puzzle-like level design makes you pay attention to your surrounding, or otherwise become lost. But for the most part the puzzle traversal is not difficult. It’s better than very narrow corridor propelled modern-day shooters.
THE PLOT of Nightfire is a blend of every James Bond story before it, except worse. You go to space at one point, a la Moonraker, (so I guess Klaitu will love it.) I very much like the Moonraker film even though I know that in fact it’s a terrible film. Still though, Nightfire is worse.
THE DIALOGUE in Nightfire is for middle school children and teenagers who’ve discovered their penis. It’s innuendo full, more so than the worst James Bond film you can think of. I understand it’s a staple of the franchise but here it’s more stupid and embarrassing than the usual. As a grown (sort of) man now, it feels so immature. I’m so glad the Daniel Craig films are a serious dramatization of the character, rather than this drivel.
The women of this game (if I can call them that) become jealous of one another during cutscenes. What over? Who gets to have sex with Pierce Brosnan.
Pierce doesn’t voice act in this game but lends his likeness. It’s his last portrayal as Bond.
OVERALL, I very much wanted to like this game. I enjoyed the level design and gameplay. I’m glad the game had one overarching storyline that made sense even though it is a bad simulacrum. If the dialogue weren’t so horrendously immature, the game would be good, but as it stands it is mediocre.
James Bond Will Return In:
THERE IS A CAMPAIGN on Facebook to have Nightfire remade, a la Goldeneye Reloaded. The idea sounds great. But with only a couple hundred likes, it seems nothing will come of it.
FOR MY REVIEW SERIES’ I plan to have a recapitulation at the end of the final review. In them I will give my final thoughts and scores. So, this is the reason Nightfire has no score currently.
I take suggestions.
