Game Review: James Bond 007 - Everything or Nothing

The James Bond franchise will always have a special place in my heart.  I grew up watching the likes of Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan grace my grandad’s television screen in so many different movies.  While the actors who play the titular character may have changed over the decades, the core premise of the British super spy has remained the same no matter the setting or time period. There’s just something so engrossing about the stories agent 007 goes on across the world to stop a plethora of super villains in their aim for global domination.  There’s a reason this franchise stands strong to this very day across multiple forms of media.  While we wait for the next James Bond movie to be revealed, I figured now was as good a time as any to revisit the video game adaptations in the franchise.  My earliest memories of James Bond video games are of my dad playing Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64, but my most prominent memories are from the PS2 era of games.  007 Nightfire is a clear GOAT I will happily replay and talk about one day, but I wanted to put a special spotlight on arguably my all time favourite 007 video game, which is Everything or Nothing.

Developed by EA Redwood Shores (More commonly known as Visceral Games) and published by Electronic Arts; Everything or Nothing is a third-person, action-adventure video game released in February 2004.  It’s interesting to note this game released a year prior to when Daniel Craig was announced as the newest actor to fill the role of James Bond, so it actually served as the final send-off to Pierce Brosnan’s interpretation of the character after his final movie, Die Another Day in 2002. It’s interesting to note that while it’s essentially a video game, the grand narrative and celebrity cast behind this game could have easily been a big motion picture for Brosnan to go out on if they wanted to.  On the general reception front, the title aggregated a generous 83 score from critics.  On the sales end the game totalled 3.37 million total unit sales, which is very impressive when compared to other James Bond games.

The narrative of Everything or Nothing follows British MI6 agent James Bond (Played by Pierce Brosnan), codenamed 007 as he is tasked with rescuing a kidnapped nanotechnology scientist called Dr. Katya Nadanova (Played by Heidi Klum).  It’s soon learned that Dr Nadanova’s technology is being repurposed as part of a nefarious scheme by an ex-KGB agent called Nikolai Diavolo (Played by Willem Dafoe) in an attempt to destroy the worlds metal infrastructure and dominate with his own military ties and platinum minerals.  Tasked by M (Played by Judi Dench) to investigate this plot, Bond will be sent all across the globe to locations like Egypt, Peru, America and Russia in an attempt to foil Diavolo’s evil plot before it’s too late.

Like I mentioned earlier, the scale and budget behind this game’s narrative feels so grand that I genuinely would have loved to see this on the big screen.  I think what helps give this story its big spectacle is likely down to Bruce Feirstein, who was the credited writer for Brosnan’s earlier 007 movies like GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough. His familiarity with the well-regarded tone and structure of a Brosnan-Bond story is likely why this games narrative feels so iconic and memorable. There’s everything you could ask for in this games story:  grand locales, high stake encounters, and most importantly, larger than life characters.  Brosnan going up against Dafoe in a bond film is a golden ticket idea that the game brilliantly utilizes.  Dafoe was always built to play a titular villain and his role as Nikolai Diavolo feels well realized as he seems to fit the nefarious and egocentric role reserved for a lot of iconic Bond villains.  If you had to pull some gripes out of me for the story then I’d probably argue its pacing isn’t easily translated through the mission-centric format.  As the missions primary aim is to do setup more than anything, so you only get small slices of the necessary exposition which is needed to flesh this narrative out.

As a third-person shooter, there’s a lot of consideration clearly on display from the developers when it came to capturing the pure essence of a James Bond experience.  Bond is much more than just a gun wielder, especially in Brosnan’s era. There are the flashy cars, lengthy chase sequences, a plethora of gadgets and all-around espionage. All of these core components are given some true exposure throughout the course of the games hefty 29 missions. The fact there’s so much variety layered into the kind of missions you’ll be thrust into really goes to emphasize the fact this game knows how to capture the best elements of a James Bond experience.  Some missions will have you infiltrating high-security facilities, others may have you chasing down a high-speed train in a flashy Porsche Cayenne Turbo.  Tanks, helicopters, nightclubs, Russian nuclear silos; this game has everything you could want in terms of mission variety and it really helps in reflecting the quality this game retains even to this day. 

When it comes to the way the gameplay feels, this is where the game’s dated nature sadly rears its diamond-scarred head.  I think fundamentally, the control scheme for the main navigational and combat  feels too clunky.  Bond is able to utilize standing cover but can’t do the same for lower covers and the way you have to stick to these covers can come off as very finicky to initiate and get out from.  There’s also the shooting and weapon/gadget system.  I think the auto targeting is a neat feature, but again deploying this isn’t easy as it’s very temperamental.  I can’t count the number of times this system got me killed because it wouldn’t initiate properly on a nearby enemy and they end up shooting me down quickly.  Generally, the control scheme just feels too cumbersome and it’s a notable weight which holds this game back from being a truly phenomenal experience.

When you’re not shooting and fist fighting your way out of a situation though, you’ll be driving and flying your way though many different vehicle segments.  It’s worth recognizing that these segments were designed by the EA Canada team utilizing a modified Need for Speed engine, and it clearly shows.  The dated issues don’t show at all during these segments, I was genuinely surprised by how responsive the controls were for these sections.  The variety of vehicles and tracks you’ll be put into are distinct too and given a lot of key detail within the environment that’s hard not to appreciate. My fondest memory as a kid was the Jaws chase sequence on the bridge in New Orleans and I’m happy to report it’s still just as fun to this very day.

Visually, you can tell a lot of the game’s budget went into capturing the likeness of the games packed celebrity cast.  For a PS2 game it’s mightily impressive how well they’re able to render these actors to be recognizable with their character models.  Alongside the genuinely decent animations it also has to be said how good the games rendered environments are.  As you’re on a globe trotting adventure, it’s impressive how much EA Redwood are able to craft and subsequently capture the distinct beauty of it’s exotic locations like Peru and New Orleans so easily. What also helps is the soundtrack, this feels like a quintessential bond movie score with how much it utilizes the core theme with its own added variations composed by Sean Callery and Jeff Tymoschuk.  What really cements the bond aura of the game is the games titular musical number, Everything or Nothing by Mya which is iconic in its own right.

Despite some of it’s dated limitations, I can happily sit here and proclaim Everything or Nothing as one of the best James Bond games to ever exist.  I think what really cements it for me is just how much effort EA Redwood put into capturing the essence of James Bond within every aspect of its narrative and varied mission structure.  There’s a clear display of love for the James Bond franchise embedded within this game and I’ll always happily find time to revisit it whenever I have a James Bond itch to scratch.