From Russia With Love
| Developer: EA Redwood Shores | Publisher: Electronic Arts |
| Release Date: November 1, 2005 | Also On: GCN, PS2, & Xbox |
“The name’s Bond, James Bond.� This introduction is quite possibly the most famous in movie history. James Bond is a legendary action hero on the screen, and has gained a following in video games to boot. It’s not just girls that are attracted to Bond: moviegoers and gamers alike are Bond fans. With Electronic Arts’ monopoly on the license since the ill-fated Tomorrow Never Dies on the PlayStation, Electronic Arts has had exclusivity to the Bond license for more than six years now. Even with successes like Nightfire and Everything or Nothing, fans of the Bond series expected more from their super spy. Does From Russia with Love successful return Bond to his roots? Find out.
As you probably know if you’re reading this, From Russia with Love is the second Bond film from 1963. The British try to steal a Lektor decoding machine from a defecting Russian agent. However, the Russians are involved in that their agent was tricked by SPECTRE to lure James Bond into a trap in return for the death of Dr. No. Electronic Arts strays away from the beaten path in the game’s storyline, changing it to fit gameplay. Nothing is dramatically changed, other than SPECTRE’s name, now Octopus, due to legal reasons. There’s parts there that weren’t in the movie, and events in the movie are changed for sake of gameplay. Also, the jetpack from Thunderball is in this game, even though it didn’t appear in the movie (more on this later).
As I said, From Russia with Love is a third-person action shooter. If you’re used to the Bond FPS’, this system will be foreign to you. For those of you that have played Everything or Nothing, you’ll be acquainted with this system of play. After managing the camera, you’ll learn the basic of lock-on, precision shooting, dive, stealth walk/crouch, wall-cover, etc. You can melee attack enemies by getting close, pressing R, and one of the four buttons. Your moves include dive, dodge, jump over objects, and even tip them over for cover. Rappel is back, but isn’t used as wildly as Everything or Nothing, where you could scale walls and run from left to right.
I’m sure you’re wondering what locations are included from the movie. The first level will have you rescue the Prime Minister’s daughter in mid-air, using a jetpack in front of Big Ben. The hedge maze puts the stealth moves that you have to use; it’s also my favorite level in the game. You’ll get a chance to drive in the streets of Istanbul, and gun in the reservoir/escape from the border. Finally, there’s also the gypsy camp, Russian consulate, etc. There are also four bonus levels that need a certain number of awards to unlock. Awards are provided for completing in a time limit, Bond move, kill count, and whether you played in 00 Agent or not.
The weapons that you’ll be using range from the PP7, SMG, shotgun, bazooka, assault rifle, magnum, sniper rifle, and more. For the first time since the N64’s The World is Not Enough (also made by Electronic Arts), Desmond Llewelyn plays as Q. Q Branch gadgets will play a small role in completing your objectives, but the laser watch, Q-copter, and rappel are all necessities. There’s also things like grenades, a machine gun that folds into a suitcase, among other things.
From Russia with Love isn’t quite a lengthy game. I’d say it took me about five to seven hours to complete it (without all unlockables, of course). From there, it’s your choice whether you want to defeat the game in all of the three difficulty levels or if you want to unlock the many unlockables. Unfortunately there isn’t much a multi-player offering until you unlock levels and characters, so the ‘unlockables’ are really just characters and levels needed to even play with a decent amount of choice. Among the unlockables are also various videos that you can buy, along with concept art.
At first, I thought the multi-player in From Russia with Love was weak, but that was before I unlocked new levels and characters. Even so, you better turn off the ‘radar’, as all it does is put an icon above your head, making it impossible for your opponent to not know where you are. The point of playing in a hedge maze level is to sneak up on your opponent and use the level to your advantage. Once that’s turned off, everything’s pretty fun. The melee combat seems random as to who gets hurt, variant weapons are sparse, and the vehicles only detract from the game. There’s enough strategy and skill involved though to keep you interested. Just don’t expect GoldenEye-caliber multi-player.
From Russia with Love is one of the best Electronic Arts Bond titles, with the possible exceptions of Everything or Nothing and Nightfire. I'm honestly getting frustrated with EA changing formulas with each new game; four new Bond games since 2002, each of them feel different. While I usually don’t have to justify my ratings in the actual review, I feel it’s necessary to explain how I went about this, before I get e-mails saying how I mistakenly gave this a lower score than it should have gotten. Even though Everything or Nothing received a 9.2, our review system calls on us to review games at the time of release. That game was a 9.2 at the time of release; this one is not at the same level of quality as that was when it was first released. With competition from other third-person action shooters, From Russia with Love stands tall, but slumps in game length and multi-player.
| Graphics: | 8 |
| Sound: | 8 |
| Gameplay: | 9 |
| Creativity: | 8 |
| Replay Value/Game Length: | 7 |
| Final: | 8 |
| Written by Kyle | Review Guide |
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