From Russia With Love
When I read about From Russia With Love the first time, I immediately checked my bank account for ten million dollars magically appearing because I was sure that that day was the day that all my dreams were going to come true. Only through the wonders of gaming could Sean Connery ever reprise his role as James Bond and no other gaming company could of pulled that off except EA. So thank you EA for being a multi-million dollar, money grubbing, soulless, corporate company, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Of course reality is often a cold dose of water and while having Connery back as Bond was possibly the greatest moment in mankind’s history, having old Connery’s voice coming out of young Connery’s face was immensely creepy. As far as loyalty to what many describe as one of the best Bond films ever, there isn’t as much as you’d like but, then again, From Russia With Love doesn’t really fit into a shoot em’ up format at all since it is one of the more down to earth Bond films.
I was immensely excited for this game since I liked Everything or Nothing so much and figured this would be similar, but with Sean Connery and thus instantly better. Sadly, EA decided to revamp the engine and the new one just seemed to run a bit sluggishly and not as smoothly as Everything or Nothing’s. While the new ‘Bond focus’ mode was great, allowing you to target a gun in an enemies hand or perhaps a grenade on their belt, I think it actually hindered the gameplay more than helped it. Though it was always hilarious to shoot a grenade off a bad guys belt and watch them look around frantically before being blown up. The rocket pack, originally from Thunderball, also felt a bit crammed in and the overall feel of the game just wasn’t as Bondian as Everything or Nothing, which is sad because Connery still brought that ‘je ne sais quoi’ he always had to the character.
I did like the hand-to-hand combat more in this game as it felt much more like brawler Connery than I expected it to. Plus the cut back on super high-tech gadgets, thanks to the time period, made stealth and shooting much more important and more fun in the game. Multiplayer was a big pile of third-person meh, despite the fact you could fly around in jet packs.
Really, any complaint you may have with the game can be easily dashed away by pointing to the fact that it was Connery voicing Bond. Plus, the entire retro feel for a game is something few and far between and awakened a hope in me that we would be seeing many more classic Bond films made into games (you hear me Activision?). Of course, this will probably never happen again since EA has lost the license and while From Russia With Love didn’t exactly sell poorly, I doubt the sales were strong enough to make it worth while cutting Connery another check.
