NIghtfire mixes a solid singleplayer with a great multiplayer to make one of the best bond games since Goldeneye.
The first mission in the game is actually an optional tutorial, during this tutorial you're forced with the tasked of saving a French agent and, of course, the French agent is a pretty gal, but she's not the only one. In the next mission your objective is to find out more about Drake. In this mission you will also meet up with your old buddy from Agent Under Fire: Zoe Nightshade who Bond suspected to be dead. That is only the first small plot twist that happens in Nightfire, many other un-expected plot twists happen as the story un-folds. Throughout the rather short singleplayer adventure you will cross paths with two other females that attract Bonds attention, one is a Japanese body guard and the other is an Australian agent. All of the female characters that Bond meets in Nightfire really captures the feel of a Bond movie.
Another thing that makes the feel like a Bond movie is the levels. While it is a given that the levels are more packed with enemies, many of the levels have been influenced by a couple of 007 films. Such as one snowy level that has been influenced by 1981's For Your Eyes Only, a Japanese level influenced by 1967's You Only Live Twice, and a mission in space which is, of course, influenced by 1979’s Moonraker. Although, probably only bond fans will notice these influences, everyone else will notice good gameplay.
Nightfire also implements some good gameplay elements. One of the best parts of the singleplayer missions are the seperate paths that you can take to get to the same objective. This keeps the game feeling fresh, even if sometimes all you are doing is taking down a bunch of enemies. Another thing that keeps the gameplay fresh is the great variety of environments and gameplay situations. One mission you will be taking out guards protecting a snowy base, another mission you'll be blasting away Japanese thugs in Japan, and in one you will be driving an Aston Martin underwater. The weapons are also add a nice touch to Nighfire's solid gameplay. The weapons in Nighfire are all just plain awesome. Nightfire makes even the weakest pistols seem cool, but it also makes the rocket launchers look even cooler. While Nightfire is solid, it still has a couple of noticeable flaws.
The AI is one of these noticeable flaws, the enemies have to observe me for a couple of second before they even start shooting. I have walked into a room of full of bad guys with a pistol and came out without a scratch. The bad AI also carries over into the bad stealth missions. In these short stealth missions you sneak around with a tranquilizer trying not to be seen, although this seems a little too easy at times because sometimes when you're too far away or not directly in a guards view you won't be seen. Also, in game where you play as a spy I was expecting stealth to be an option in the misssions. Nightfire does attempt to implement stealth into the missions that you aren't armed with a tranquilizer. In Nightfire you're able to come up behind enemies and steal their guns, while this may sound good on paper, it doesn't work out as well in the game since there are only about 2 or 3 times that the game obviously wants you to take someones gun. When you try to use this trick on others it just doesn't work out and if you try to be stealthy in every mission it just won't work either. I found out that it is works way better to go into a room guns blazing than to try to be stealthy because in the end you're probably going to run into the same amount of opposition. Another factor that gets in the way of Nightfires polished gameplay is its length. Some driving missions you can blow by in about ten minutes or less, and the missions that take longer aren't that challenging.
Despite the games short length, Nighfire has great replay value. Certain medals are given out to a performance, the better you do the bettert medal you get. These medals will also unlock modes and characters for multiplayer plus weapon upgrades for singleplayer. Another thing that adds to the replay value is the multiplayer. The multiplayer offers a bunch of modes, maps, and characters to chose from. The multiplayer has the regular deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag type modes and it also brings in some new ones like king of the hill where you gain points by standing in a blue circle. Most of the maps are well-made, such as a snowy map named Skyrail which contains one huge base and one smaller one each on other ends of the map. Although other maps, such as one titled Sub Pen just seem uninspired. The characters also are great and they will also make bond fans happy. You can be such characters as the short Nic Nac or the dangerous hat-weilding Oddjob (yes you do get to throw his hat). You can also put in AI bots to make the game more exciting, while the bots are dumb they still make it rather fun to play multiplayer by yourself. The bots are also a good way to get a good look at the character models without being shot at too much.
The character models sure look good, you can see the detail in anything from a thugs tuxedo to a thugs sunglasses. The weapon model also are pretty, you can see that attention has been paid to every little detail in the gun. Thanks to the great gun models, I liked every gun in the game even before I shot it. Also the environments are probably the best part, none of the textures are blocky making all the unique locales look even better. To aid Nightfires great graphics is Nightfires musical score. The great theme song from the movies is included along with a couple of new songs that fits right in to the game. Also all the guns sound like they should and all the explosions sound like they should too. All the voice acting is quite good and the cutscenes really draw you into the plot.
Nightfire isn't only a great game for James Bond fans, but it is also one of the best first person shooters to come out for the PS2 since Medal of Honor: Frontline. I recommend this to all Bond fans and I suggest renting the game if your not a fan.