From Russia With Love Review

Game_Name: From Russia With Love
Platform: Xbox
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Publisher: EA (Electronic Arts)
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
ESRB Rating: T
GamePlay Rating: 7
Graphics Rating: 9
Replayability Rating: 7

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From Russia With Love puts you in the fancy shoes of the original James Bond, complete with Sean Connery providing the legendary spies’ voice. Does this ancient incarnation still have something to offer? Read on and find out.

License To Cool

License To Cool

The idea of going back and doing a game with the classic Bond may not seem too exciting, but with Sean Connery providing the voice of the spy he helped rocket to international acclaim, it’s a hard idea not to like. Being born in the 80’s, I wasn’t old enough to appreciate James Bond movies until 1995’s Goldeneye with Pierce Brosnan, and so Brosnan will always be the James Bond to me. Yet, it’s hard to deny the charm and utter coolness that oozes from Sean Connery’s James Bond’s pores, even in digital form. This Bond is one hip cat, and then some.

For fans of the movie (and the book), they’ll be a little disappointed with the changes made to the plot. For the most part, it remains true to the original story, but minor changes were made. Some changes were made to make the plot more video game-friendly, some were made because of legal issues (SPECTER is changed to Octopus), and some were changed just because.

Anyway, here’s a rundown of the game’s plot: Bond has to travel to Istanbul to meet with a woman who defected from Russia. She’s agreed to turn over a Russian Cipher machine, known as a Lektor, if she can meet James, who’s she completely infatuated with. Naturally, trouble follows Bond wherever he goes. It’s all a trap, masterminded by the nefarious organization known as Octopus. The results are a fun-filled sexy romp, featuring everyone’s favorite super-spy.

Funderball

Changing the Bond games to third-person was a good idea, especially since Bond hasn’t had a good first person shooter since Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. Forgetting the God-awful Tomorrow Never Dies for the Sony PlayStation, From Russia With Love continues the trend of quality James Bond third-person shooters.

You’ll get an assortment of weapons and gadgets, as always, to complete your mission. To aim, you’ll hold down the left shoulder button to lock on to your target and hit the right shoulder button to fire. It’s a good system and it works well. While aiming, you can enter “Bond mode” which will give you a small aiming reticule that you can move around, allowing you to shoot enemies in specific places. It will also highlight key areas to shoot, which will earn you bonus points. This system adds to the fun, and oftentimes, you can shoot an enemy’s grenade from their belt and blow them sky high. This has brought a smile to my face far too often. You can also put your back to the wall and aim around corners, which works too well. It’s all too easy to aim for a perfect headshot, pop out and shoot, all before the enemy knows you’re there.

Unless you’re standing right out in the open and directly in front of an enemy, you’ll rarely take any fire. And even when you do, there’s always a good amount of bulletproof vests around to refill your armor meter. And with the new “Bond mode” aiming system, it’s ridiculously easy to get headshots.

You can also do melee attacks, provided you’re close enough to the enemy. If you get in close and hit the right trigger, you’ll initiate a combo. A button will appear on screen, and when you hit the appropriate button on your controller, Bond will take down the enemy in one of many ways. There is also a simple, yet effective stealth aspect involved. When you move while crouched, enemies will not be able to hear you. This allows you to sneak up behind enemies and silently take them out by using the right trigger. Both combos and stealth takedowns award bonus points.

There are levels that offer a variety of gameplay, including flying around with a jetpack and driving a car. Both handle remarkably well, and help to mix things up a bit.

Unlockables Are Forever

There are plenty of things that can be unlocked in From Russia With Love, given you have enough points. Searching through filing cabinets and secret rooms, you can find secret documents, which will give you research points that can be used to upgrade your weapons. With bonus points, which you get from shooting key areas on enemies and taking down enemies with melee attacks, you can unlock bonus clips, with which you can unlock "making of" featurettes, concept art, and the like. Finally, you can earn advance points by completing the level within certain parameters, which will unlock bonus levels.

Audio and Visuals Are Not Enough

The character models in the game, especially that of James Bond, look amazing. They’ve captured Sean Connery’s look perfectly, and he even has that odd, shoot from the waist method that blows me away every time he actually hits someone. He’s not even aiming! The audio is wonderful. The music and sounds are perfectly on cue for the world of Bond. It’s great having Connery voice the role, even though his accent is heavy and he sounds a tad older. The 1960s universe is pulled off incredibly well, both in sight and sound.

James Bond Never Dies

From Russia With Love is a well made game that suffers from being far too easy, and because of that, way too short. You’ll finish the game with very little trouble in no time at all. That being said, you’ll have damn fun while you do it. And even though you might breeze through it rather quickly, the unlockable elements and the amount of fun the game has to offer and more than enough to keep you coming back for more.