Review By:  Christopher Coey
Developer:	MGM Interactive
Publisher:	EA Games
# of Players:	1
Genre:	FPS
ESRB:	Teen
Online:	No
Accessories:	Memory Card
Date Posted:	7-24-02

There are two general types of gamers, console gamers, and PC gamers. Of course there is a lot of crossover. Nearly everyone has a PC in there home these days, and I doubt that anyone reading this doesn’t have at least one game on their hard-drive. And there is a growing trend to crossover certain genres. One of the most heralded of the PC genres for years has been the Real Time Strategy, but few RTS games have ever made it to consoles, and those that did were downright awful ports. Until recently that is. It may be considered ‘baby-steps’ compared to the PC counterparts, but Army Men RTS for PS2 (see my review) was a great game. If you ask most PC gamers about their choice of game systems, they’ll tell you that you can’t play a First Person Shooter properly without a mouse and keyboard. Sure they have Quake and Counter Strike, but we eventually got Half-Life, Doom, and Medal of Honor. To be honest though, the only time I’ve ever heard any small amount of jealousy from a PC gamer was when Goldeneye came out on the N64. Let’s face it, Red Faction, and TimeSplitters may have been okay games, but they were nothing compared to most current PC FPS games.

Having said all that, Agent Under Fire isn’t really going to usher in the new dawn of FPS hits in the console market (that honor I suppose should go to Halo, the only OTHER time I’ve heard jealousy from the PC gamer crowd.) But it is a respectable stepchild of Goldeneye.

This game has quite a lot more to offer than most FPS. First off, it’s basically two games in one. There were a lot rumors surrounding this game’s development, which seemed at the time to be suffering in the development process. Constant delays, team changes, etc. Initially, there were two separate James Bond games in development. One was toted as a racing game, the other a FPS. Agent Under Fire is both. This biggest rumor I was privy to was that the developers cancelled the racing game once SpyHunter was released, realizing that they just couldn’t compete. But, rather than scrap all the work they had already put into it, they decided to combine it with the FPS into the game we see now. Although the driving missions are great, they certainly do not compare with any of the missions in SpyHunter. Nor does Bond’s car hold a candle to the G-6155 Interceptor.

One aspect I loved about this game was that the main-man, Mr. Bond himself isn’t actually any of the incarnations of agent 007 from any of the films. This character is sort of an amalgamation of every Bond (well, except for maybe Timothy Dalton.) He’s got the deep, more heavily textured accent that Sean Connery had, but probably looks most like Pierce Brosnan, with a personality mostly like Roger Moore. If this guy were true to life, I think he’d be my new favorite James Bond actor.

The game is rife with sexual innuendo, and the occasional scantly clad female, just like anything surrounding James Bond should be. There’s a fun shower scene (leave it at that), and another where Bond sneaks into a hotel room to find a woman changing behind a screen. Okay, he’s not actually sneaking in to find the woman, but it doesn’t stop him from lingering an extra few seconds. Of course, the other things that any James Bond game should have are the gadgets: Q-Claw, Q-Jet etc. They’re here as well, and used extremely effectively within the missions (and in multi-player, which is a real bonus.)

As with most mission-based games, there are several objectives, and several levels to reach in order to score medals. Bronze and Silver don’t really mean much in the end, apart from being able to move onto the next missions. Achieving gold level in any level awards various cheats and weapon upgrades. Once gold levels are achieved, you unlock yet another set of objectives: finding 007 tokens throughout each of the missions. By then going back through the game again, you can score platinum medals, unlocking multi-player goodies. Speaking of multi-player, once again this game may not be in the top of it’s field (TimeSplitters beats it for shear fun), but it has solid gameplay. And who doesn’t want to play out international spy vs. spy onscreen.

I talked earlier about how some argue that FPS games require a mouse and keyboard to play properly. I’m not sure I completely agree. The PS2 port of Half-Life had excellent controls. Basically the same control scheme used in nearly every console FPS. So why then, did the developers of Agent Under Fire decide to change what wasn’t broken in the first place?! I found these controls awful. Once I got to know them, I didn’t have any real problems, but they were anything but intuitive. It should be pretty simple, left stick: move, right stick: look, shoulder buttons: strafe. Which is sort-of what the controls with Agent Under Fire are, but they’ve attempted to ‘alter’ things, and it doesn’t work. Simple is better. They should have stuck with the Half-Life controls (ALL future FPS games should stick with those controls.)

The music is perfect, but it would be hard to screw up such a recognizable score. Sound effects are on par with most other games, and the Graphics are certainly above average. I enjoyed the fact that the levels were rather crisp and vibrant. A lot of games these days are trying to get away with dark shading, and grainy textures in order to cover up general design laziness. This game runs very fast, and very smooth from start to finish.

HIGHS:

• Great variation in gameplay
• Excellent storyline and mission animations
• Good use of a movie license

LOWS:

• Too short
• Poor control scheme

If you’re a huge fan of the FPS genre, and are looking for a new game to tie you over until Doom III comes out on your PC, then you probably don’t own a PS2, or don’t really care about this game at all. Keep on playing those mouse and keyboard games in the basement of your mom’s house. If, however, your platform of choice is in fact the PS2, then you could do far worse than this game. And if, like myself, you’re a Bond fan, then the only incentive you really need to go out and buy this game is to be assured that it doesn’t suck; far from it. It is, in fact, a great use of a top license, and that is certainly something this particular gamer would like to see a lot more of.

Overall Score: 8.0

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