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James Bond 007 Racing
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Graphics & Sound:
Many people, including me, are willing to sacrifice a lot when it comes to living in James Bond's shoes. Or in this case, his car. 007 Racing is a mission based, car-combat game as seen through the world of Bond. In a lot of ways, Bond's world looks rough. Graphic problems abound, but the voice-acting and images of characters from the Bond movies are nice. Truly, there aren't problems with the graphics that don't plague almost every other 3D game on PlayStation, and EA saved face by trying to create variety in the mission locations. Some are better than others, but they're all noticeably different. The famous cars are all here, Aston Martin, BMW and Lotus... The models for the cars are adequate, but don't expect Gran Turismo. The biggest surprise to me was that EA didn't make more of the weapons' effects. It's hard to even tell you're firing some of them, and 007 Racing could have benefited greatly from some improvement in lighting and detail for the weapon activity. This is about combat, right?
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Gameplay:
FADE IN to windowless room filled with programmers, hopped up on Mountain Dew and unwashed for many days... Coder A: 'Okay, for 007 Racing I finally got the levels full of enemies, obstacles and power-ups.'
Coder B: 'Sweet! Good job, A. We've had this blocky cursor-type thing representing Bond's car until now, but I've got graphics for the car models, so we're set.
Coder A: 'Excellent! Now who's taking care of the engine that drives this and makes the car not feel like a blocky cursor? Wasn't that C's job?'
Coder C: 'No way, man! I thought B was doing that... Or maybe D was supposed to do it?'
Coder A: 'Oh, forget about it! We'll just map B's graphics onto this and send it out. Nobody will notice.' Yes, my friends. Sad but true, this could have been the scene just before 007 Racing hit the streets. Although there are some nice gameplay elements, be prepared to motor your way through levels in what feels like a Lincoln Towncar pretending to be an Aston Martin. But, the good... Nothing pleases me more than to see well-designed levels and creative objectives paired with balanced enemy AI and variety between levels and stages. 007 Racing gets it right in so many ways that it's especially shameful to see poor graphics and control in what could have been a real winner. Think about the driving section of Die Hard Trilogy and you're getting close. 007 Racing even has you race through a city against the clock, defusing bombs (like Die Hard), but missions often seem more like what you'd expect in a 3rd-Person action title. Bond drives for stealth, grabs weapons and goes on the offensive, or tries to find items and get the hay out before some baddie sends a banana up Bond's tailpipe. Each mission has a short briefing and mini-walkthrough detailing your objectives and showing you at least the first area. Depending on the nature of Bond's mission, full-on attack may be the preferred approach, but stealth and subtlety come into play as well. Completing a mission gives you access to the next in line, and the progress is strictly linear. You'll be assigned a car complete with gadgets at the beginning of a level, and then it's up to you to pick up items that might help you. These can be traditional power-ups like health or shields, but EA found some nice items that work with level objectives to raise the fun. Couple this with constant attacks by bad guys and Bond must master both the quick pick-up and the one-hit kill. Weapons are lots of fun, and enemy AI is somewhere between 'impossibly smart' and 'stumpishly dumb,' so you get plenty of opportunities to try new pieces of your arsenal and unload on some foot-soldier or vehicle. Opponents are balanced well between cars and other vehicles and enemies on foot, but working against the vehicles is tough. If you don't like the CPU players much, 2-Player is available for two modes, Challenge and Pass the Bomb. Seems like everybody is getting on the 'Bomb' bandwagon, but for you who don't know, Pass the Bomb Mode is about playing a game of vehicular tag with a fat explosive device sitting in as the
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Difficulty:
There are plenty of adjustable elements here, including standard difficulty and aiming options. Within any difficulty setting, 007 Racing uses 3 aiming systems with various degrees of lock-on. It's a nice option, but my big beef was trying to cycle through weapons to find one that you need. If you happen to nail an item while driving, it becomes the active weapon, even over what you may be firing at the time. This is just a dumb control move, and learning it takes time. Controlling the cars is downright frustrating, and I think any fan of the car-combat genre out there will feel let down by how sluggish all the cars seem to be. I mean, it is a game about driving, so what happened to making the cars fun (and easy) to drive?
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Game Mechanics:
The 'good' here is logical control schemes for driving and firing weapons. EA used the shoulder buttons to both fire and cycle through weapons, leaving the other buttons free for driving and action. Because there's more to 007 Racing than just combat, some levels require more thinking or strategy to reach the goal. Some coaching from 'Q' is helpful, but often it's easy to tell what you need to pass a level. Which is not to say it's too easy, because with plenty of enemies and big levels that you have to run against a clock, 007 Racing provides a good challenge. Weapons like missiles or machine guns are easily grasped, but other elements of your weaponry are more limited in use. Oil slicks and smoke screens might seem just fluff, but at least one of the levels pits you against forklifts that don't respond to normal weapons. However, there are some explosive crates (handy, that!) scattered around the level, and you have to lead the forklifts in to destroy them or set traps with smoke or oil. Fighting against other cars can work the same way, but nothing says, 'You're toast' like a Sidewinder missile at close range. Getting too close can drain energy and damage the car, though. Enough damage and you're toast, but 'Q' keeps a good tally on whether you need to be fighting or looking for health power-ups, scattered through levels. At the end of the experience that is 007 Racing, you'll probably have mixed feelings. If you're a big car-combat fan, I'd probably recommend something else over Bond, like Demolition Derby Raw or Star Wars Demolition. But, if you're somewhere between a mission-based action game fan and a casual driving or car combat person, 007 Racing might be just what you're looking for. For me, only some creative gameplay and level design saved this one from lower-than-average ranking. If you can look beyond the flaws, 007 Racing has enough going for it to justify a rental, if only to hear that Bond music and watch the cool opening sequence. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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