007: Nightfire

aka: James Bond 007: Nightfire
Moby ID: 7804
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

You take on the role of James Bond and must save the world. The Phoenix International Corporation is focused on dismantling nuclear warheads throughout the world, but later evidence has been found that the CEO of the corporation, Raphael Drake, is using his company's concept as a means to find and use the warheads for his own purposes. Because his plans are so well hidden, it is up to Bond, with the help of Q and his gadgets, to stop Drake at whatever cost.

Throughout the game, you will be taken to more than ten exotic areas, reaching all areas of the globe, confronting the beautiful Bond women. In your quest to stop the Phoenix Corporation, you have a variety of weapons available to you, from your trusty Walther to more advanced and prototype machinery.

There are twelve total missions, all of which combine stealth, combat, and Q's trusty gadgets, such as your laser watch and X-ray eyeglasses.'

There are five levels that take place in your Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, and other exotic but deadly sports cars. These missions aren't available in the computer version of the game, instead the Windows version has some other bonus missions.

On the multiplayer side of things, there are over ten multiplayer modes, some of which include characters and settings from previous Bond moves.

Spellings

  • 007 ナイトファイア - Japanese spelling
  • 007 나이트파이어 - Korean spelling
  • 詹姆斯邦德007:暗夜之火 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

576 People (473 developers, 103 thanks) · View all

James Bond, 007, James Bond Gun and Iris Logos and all other James Bond properties © 1962-2002
  • Danjaq LLC
Aston Martin V12 Vanquish used under license from
  • Aston Martin Lagonda Limited
  • Ford Motor Company
Shelby, the CS Design, and the design/shape of the Cobra 427 are the trademarks and/or trade dress of
  • Carroll Shelby and Carroll Shelby Licensing Inc.
Cobra and the Cobra Snake Designs are registered trademarks used by Shelby under a worldwide exclusive license with
  • Ford Motor Company
Pierce Brosnan name and likeness used under license from
  • Kilkenny Productions Inc.
"Nearly Civilized"
  • Esthero (performed and written by)
  • Paul Alexander Campbell (written by)
  • Henry Priestman (written by)
  • © 2002 EMI April Music [Canada] Ltd./Stinyminky Music [SOCAN]/EMI Blackwood Music Inc./Broughton Park Music.
  • All Right for Stinkyminky Music controlled and administered by EMI April Music Inc.
  • All Right for Broughton Park Music controlled and administered by EMI Blackwood Music Inc. [BMI]
  • All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission.
  • Recording courtesy of Reprise Records Under license from Warner Special Products
"James Bond Theme"
  • Monty Norman (written by)
  • © 1962 Renewed 1190 United Artists Ltd.
  • All Rights Controlled and Administered by EMI Unart Catalog Inc.
  • All Rights Reserved.
  • Interational Copyright Secured.
  • Used by Permission.
Project Lead
Lead Programmer
Programming
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 38 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 77 ratings with 6 reviews)

There are better games, but I still luvs this one :O

The Good
The shooting mechanics hold up very well because you can choose what kind of controls you want to use. Normally you can just the way you look around in a game (normal or reversed), but here you can actually customize pretty much every button function into the way you like it? Want to feel like you're playing Resident Evil and use A to shoot, well you can. There is also a wide variety of weapons that you can use, ranging from crossbows where you actually need to keep in mind that the arrow will lose height in it's flight to powerful laser technology. Almost every weapons also has a secondary firing mode which mostly means switching between single shots and salvos.

I am sure most people already guessed this, but this is indeed yet another old game I used to play at parties and family gatherings back when I was eleven years old. Is that a bad thing? No, but I sincerely hope we are almost through all of these because they are an ass to review. The multiplayer is really good in this one and in terms of customization it is almost on par with Timesplitters 2. You can meddle with pretty much everything, ranging from what weapons will be available to the very exact behavior used by the AI opponents.

The story mode really does have that special Bond-feel to it, that special feeling you get when you watch the movies too. You are not just playing as James Bond, when you play this game you FEEL like James Bond. Sneaking around the castle, been rewarded for entering through a risky cliff-passage without been detected and cruising around in the Aston Martin Vanquish while explosions happen in the background. It is all just like in the movie, except you are the one triggering it all.

One detail that is rather fun and well implemented are the gadgets that 007 uses. I have played some other Bond games, but most of them limit themselves to the grappling hook only, while this game also has a Laser Watch for sabotage, a micro-camera for zooming in, a stunner for taking out enemies without violence and a decoder that hacks passwords.

The enemy AI is pretty good in both the singleplayer and the multiplayer, though part of it naturally depends on what difficulty you choose and how you configure their behavior (the latter only applies in multiplayer). At the easiest difficulty the game can be completed by a kids (roughly aged between 8 and 12) without too much difficulty, while the higher difficulties can be rather tough and challenging. I also like it that you can determine how the AI will act in multiplayer, you can make him gather all the weapons and ammo he can find, have him focus on priority targets and also set his movement speed and health. All the settings required to craft your own, meaty challenge.

Driving sections occasionally break up the action on-foot in the singleplayer mode and there are even controllable mini-helicopters and tanks that can be used in the multiplayer. The controls for vehicles work pretty well and allow you to use gadgets and built-in weaponry. In multiplayer it also nicely balances out because the vehicles are not very durable and while they do a lot of damage, they leave the user stationary on the spot where they started using them.

The female characters are very pleasing to look at, which is a requirement for everything with the James Bond name on it. You got the opening with the girls dancing with guns too, so that's a check, but the actual ladies hold up pretty well too and actually build-up the sexy. First you got the rather clothed French Intelligence woman whose name I always forget, followed by the rather bland Agent Nightshade who has a taste for good dresses and finally there is the Australian Alura who takes the grand prize due to her wearing an armored bra instead of actual clothes.

The Bad
The story mode is very short and not very interesting to follow, it is mostly a collection of cinematic missions that can be completed in about a day. The characters are not really all that interesting and aside from James Bond himself none of them really seem to put up the performance they should or read from the script that the game deserves. Another little flaw is that the game is often very dictatorial on when you have to use stealth and when you have to go around blasting guns, meaning that sometimes enemies instantly turn around and put bullets in you just because you were in a no-sneak section or that you end up having to retry a mission because you weren't allowed to blow an enemy to pieces.

Talking about retrying, that is probably my biggest problem with the game. Every time you make a mistake that leads to your death or compromises the mission, you will have to do an entire section of the mission all over again. There are some checkpoints along the way, but they are not particularly well distributed, so sometimes I get a checkpoint five minutes after the last and sometimes I need to do an entire two hours without messing up even once.

While the multiplayer is pretty good, this game can be easily overlooked due to the huge amount of high-quality shooters with a singleplayer and multiplayer. I admit having fun with the game, but it's rather standard compared to Timesplitters 2, Freedom Fighter, XIII and Halo: Combat Evolved. It has gadgets, yes, but it doesn't really do enough to shine. Strip away the James Bond theme and all you'd be left with is a very bland action game.

The Bottom Line
Let's go over some other business real quick first: I tried Need for Speed 2 and Shadow of the Colossus. NfS sucks due to insane pop-in, too many loading screens and poor driving mechanics and Shadow of the Colossus is on hold until I am mentally prepared to go through a game that only had Japanese voices.

With that said: Nightfire is a pretty nice game to still have around. It is a functional shooter that lives up to the License it's part of and the multiplayer is rich with content due to customization and entertaining gameplay. There are some flaws though, mostly related to the story mode, but these are not big enough to completely ruin it for me (though it does diminish the joy entirely from time to time).

If you're a fan of 007 then this game is good enough to warrant a purchase, if you and your friends like competitive multiplayer shooters with a nice twist to them, then the same story applies for you too. However, if you are not a Bond fan and not particularly moist about multiplayer shooters this game likely won't cut it for you. Also, if you're a nostalgic adolescent/grown-up then get this game right away, because I had fun with it again and you will likely have the same too =)

PlayStation 2 · by Asinine (957) · 2012

As good as the original Goldeneye for N64

The Good
The multiplayer mode is a lot of fun. much better than agent under fire's. Its just fun to play it by yourself with bots. The single player mode is pretty cool especially the driving missions.

The Bad
There is no way to customize the weapon sets on multiplayer and there arn't many missions in the single player mode.

The Bottom Line
It's a good party game for a lot of people and also fun in single player but the missions get really hard... when trying to get platinums that is. Its a lot of fun and if you liked the original goldeneye for n64 you should definatly buy it

GameCube · by Alex Reynolds (1) · 2003

This game ranks up there with Goldeneye, the only other good Bond game.

The Good
The storyline is bad, but neither is it good. Some of the missions seem lacking in point. The multiplayer is what makes this game so good. In my book the secret to a good multiplayer, which also in my opinion is why games should exist, is that they should have massive interactive levels, lots of game play options, and a ton of weapons. This game has all of these and even more than that. The levels are incredibly large, almost always with two different sides. The gadgets in the multi. mode are actually used, I have used the grapple to escape on many an ocasion. There are a control scheme for every bond movie and for the game, which is probably the easiest to use. The AI can be horrible or incredibly smart and well capable of you. I have practiced against these AI so much that my friends will no longer play with me because I always .

The Bad
The way that too many elements are introduced to the same game. Leave stealth to Splinter Cell, and driving to Gran Turismo.

The Bottom Line
You should buy this game for its multi.

Xbox · by Jester236 (34) · 2004

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

Development

After work was finished on 007: The World is Not Enough, Electronic Arts decided to unlink the games from the films since it was very hard to get the game finished simultaneously with the film. They wanted Eurocom Entertainment Software to make a game based on one of the old movies, but updated as in a remake. Keeping the original 60s setting was brought up several times, but always rejected.

After going through the movies, the decision fell on the Bond film You Only Live Twice, but EA preferred Moonraker. Eventually the remake idea was dropped and Nightfire being something of a mash-up of both films. For example, Raphael Drake, the game's villain, closely resembles Moonraker's Hugo Drax. Moonraker also featured narrow escapes from shuttle exhaust, villains fleeing into space and a laser battle on an orbital platform.

Guns

With the exception of some of the more far-out guns (such as the laser rifle), most of the guns in this game are real world weapons (in fact many of them also featured in Counter-Strike). However, to avoid royalty issues with the gun manufacturers, the game gives them all slightly altered names. For example, Bond's famous Walther PPK has now become the Wolfram PP7, and the Fn PN90 from Counter-Strike and Stargate SG-1 has become the Munitions Belga PDW90.

References

The ending credits feature the famous cinematic phrase, "James Bond Will Return."

Additional information contributed by Sciere and Terrence Bosky

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by JPaterson.

PlayStation 2, GameCube added by POMAH.

Additional contributors: Alan Chan, Unicorn Lynx, Corn Popper, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, Zhuzha.

Game added November 24, 2002. Last modified March 12, 2024.