James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing is the newest entry into the James Bond series of video games. EA Games has spent a whopping three million dollars to create this game, and it definitely shows. Has EA finally created a James Bond game to out-do Rare’s GoldenEye legacy? You’ll just have to read the review to find out. Let’s start off in the graphics category.

EoN’s graphics are a lot similar to those of Nightfire. However, EoN’s graphics are a lot more polished up and are generally presented in more cinematic style cutscenes than Nightfire’s were. Along with the good graphics are excellent actors portraying each character. Instead of creating characters from scratch, EA decided to get real life actors to lend their likeness to the game. This means that James Bond actually looks like Pierce Brosnan, just like in Nightfire. The movie characters are still the same as well, which means Judi Dench is still M and John Cleese reprises his role as Q. As for new characters, Shannon Elizabeth plays Serena St. Germaine, Heidi Klum is Dr. Katya Nadanova, Mya is Agent Mya Starling, and the great actor Willem Dafoe plays the arch villain Nikolai Diavolo. Among some other characters are Misaki Ito as Q’s assistant Miss Nagai and Richard Kiel as the all time bad guy Jaws. Overall, EoN’s graphics are nothing less than stunning.

The game succeeds yet again with wonderful sound and music. From start to finish this game is music to the ears. All the character’s voices are done by the real actors, which means this is the first Bond game to actually have Pierce Brosnan do the voice of 007, let alone the first Bond game to use an entire real cast of actors for the voices. As for the music, it has been composed by the top notch composer Sean Callery, who worked on the hit TV series “24”. Among other musical achievements in the game, EoN actually has its own theme song, which is performed by Mya.

As with any piece James Bond work, a good storyline is essential. This section of the review will contain spoilers pertaining to the storyline, so if you don’t want to know, then just continue to scroll down. Anyway, the storyline in this game revolves around an ex-KGB agent by the name of Nikolai Diavolo. Apparently he is so ruthless that the KGB itself tried to kill him. Diavolo also happens to be the prodigy of Max Zorin, who was the main bad guy in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill. The game starts off with you searching for Dr. Katya Nadanova, who was kidnapped during a speech she was giving. Bond destroys an entire lab in Egypt in order to rescue the doctor and gives the last remaining nanobot to her. You find out later in the game the entire thing was a setup so that all evidence of nanobot technology would be destroyed and that the last remaining nanobot would be in the hands of Diavolo. You heard me right, she’s one of the bad guys. Anyway, you do a lot of investigating here and there and don’t really find out what he plans to do until five or six missions before the end. Basically, the nanobots were built to help repair structures that humans can’t reach. Anyway, he’s upgraded the nanobots with a certain technology that allows them to eat through any metal they touch. Among that, he’s also built and entire army of tanks out of platinum, which happens to be the only metal that the nanobots won’t eat through. With this in mind, Diavolo plans to use his nanobots and his tanks to first take over the Kremlin in Russia and then move onto taking over the world. The storyline of the game was written by James Bond veteran Bruce Feirstein, who was also the writer of GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough. Overall, the storyline is definitely interesting, and Willem Dafoe makes a great arch nemesis.



Now it’s down to what really matters, the gameplay. This time around, you’ll play as Bond in third person view instead of the normal first person view. While many thought that this was a bad idea, the game works extremely well in third person. There are so much more things that you are allowed to do and it makes the gameplay an overall better experience. There are many types of levels you will go through, including shooting, stealth, driving, and even a free fall from the top of a cliff. EoN isn’t like the normal Bond game where you are able to beat the level by running and gunning. This time around you are going to need to take cover behind walls or crates and shoot when the time is right. The shooting levels are generally fast paced and fun, with some of them being extremely challenging. A new feature added to the game is the ability to repel up and down walls. I thought this would be used just once or twice in the game, but you will find yourself repelling very often. The driving levels are mainly fast paced, with only a few of them being a “get from point A to point B” type of level. Overall, the single player levels are very diverse and will keep you hooked until the very last level.