James Bond, eh? Its all about the marketing now, but why care – it’s a terrific franchise, and one whose continuity is uniquely malleable: anyone who looks the part can play the lead; anyone at all can play Felix Leighter. Change the actors, swap them about, it doesn’t matter – let Maud Adams play a trio of Bond girls, of course the villain of The Living Daylights can be the goody in Goldeneye.
Which makes the value of the current line-up all the more apparent. Apparently we like Pierce Brosnan, Judy Dench and John Cleese just the way they are, enough so that Electronic Arts invested a moderate fortune in their services for their latest game to use the licence – Everything or Nothing. It does a decent job of copying the actors into cyberspace, but all other aspects seem to be in dispute – a slender majority of the reviews found the title to be polished but pedestrian; the remainder were glowing with unlikely praise.
I have a theory. This is a big title, and EA were adamant that it would be the ‘missing’ Bond film of the year, filling the gap between cinema outings. It was easy to guess that their plan would be to plaster the bus shelters of Britain and abroad with glossed-up faux movie posters, each emblazoned with the selected wit and insight of a game review or two. And in an industry not awash with integrity, it doesn’t seem impossible that there would be some reviewers so cheap that their head could be turned with the promise of such fleeting publicity. Wouldn’t there?
If this is true, it’s disgusting. So in the interest of balance,
It rocks and it rolls! It drives forward the genre and pushes back the envelope! It swings through level after level of thrilling gameplay with breathtaking graphics to take your platform of choice to an earth-moving orgy of paradise! Every last second of play is like having sex on crack and no amount of love, money or status could compensate for the nirvana of joy that is playing this game and I for one shall not rest until each living soul on this planet has been subsumed into its unceasing glory!
Credit to the name below, please.