Stand back, I might get some neo-retro on you.
Back in the days before online multiplayer, there was splitscreen multiplayer - a relic, perhaps, and yes, the boxed-off partitions of your parent's television were rather cramped, but there was real camraderie in only being able to play 'multiplayer' in the physical company of friends, not stone-silent korean strangers and bleating prepubescents.
Now, ranging from the N64 to the Gamecube, there was a particular franchise that strikes up pleasant memories. The arc of quality James Bond games began with Goldeneye, something of a pioneer of the modern FPS, and while the resolution hovered somewhere between "Monet painting" and "Plaid" it still managed to be fun, frantic gunfighting. The next Bond game to achieve greatness was Agent Under Fire - keeping true to the FPS gameplay style, but upping the visuals and adding in lots of quirks. Then came Nightfire, improving on the formula even further in what my friends and I came to consider the ultimate multiplayer game. More guns, more gadgets, and more multiplayer settings made for endless variation - we could set up sixteen AI bots, program them to move in a pack, and bunker down in a fortress with our sniper rifles. We could play matches that allowed only remote-control rockets, or Oddjob's deadly boomerang hat.
The Bond games were solid FPS', to begin with. The range of guns available bordered on excessive, each game boasting around half a dozen different shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, submachine guns, and assault rifles. But what really set the games apart from the rest was their sense of semi-campiness - their willingness to say "Hell with reality, this is more awesome!" Our battles could include grappling hook watches, jetpacks, remote controlled attack helicopters, and Oddjob's infamous boomerang hat. It was an excellent blend of realism and fantasy that added up to a sort of comforting quasi-reality.
And then the next installment in the series, Everything or Nothing, was released. Gone was the solid FPS gameplay, replaced with an odd third person shooter mechanic. In lieu of the rich competitive multiplayer modes of the past was a cheap, top-down deathmath type mode that looked like Metal Gear Solid crossed with Bomberman and played like a bucket full of poisoned mice. It was all very disappointing. The game did have a halfway-decent co-op campaign, but it wasn't what we were looking for. Everything or Nothing was succeeded by Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, a boring Halo 2 wannabe that revolved around dual wielding a handful of strange fictional guns with the occassional gadget worked in to remind you the Bond license was still being used.
The franchise has never been seen again, drifting away into lackluster movie tie-ins. MW2 sometimes feels like a spiritual sequel - juggernauts, snowmobile stunts, and gratuitous dual wielding all seem reminiscent of Bond of yore - but still stands to firmly in the grim political realism camp to recreate the same feeling. Does anyone else miss Nightfire as much as I do?
Back in the days before online multiplayer, there was splitscreen multiplayer - a relic, perhaps, and yes, the boxed-off partitions of your parent's television were rather cramped, but there was real camraderie in only being able to play 'multiplayer' in the physical company of friends, not stone-silent korean strangers and bleating prepubescents.
Now, ranging from the N64 to the Gamecube, there was a particular franchise that strikes up pleasant memories. The arc of quality James Bond games began with Goldeneye, something of a pioneer of the modern FPS, and while the resolution hovered somewhere between "Monet painting" and "Plaid" it still managed to be fun, frantic gunfighting. The next Bond game to achieve greatness was Agent Under Fire - keeping true to the FPS gameplay style, but upping the visuals and adding in lots of quirks. Then came Nightfire, improving on the formula even further in what my friends and I came to consider the ultimate multiplayer game. More guns, more gadgets, and more multiplayer settings made for endless variation - we could set up sixteen AI bots, program them to move in a pack, and bunker down in a fortress with our sniper rifles. We could play matches that allowed only remote-control rockets, or Oddjob's deadly boomerang hat.
The Bond games were solid FPS', to begin with. The range of guns available bordered on excessive, each game boasting around half a dozen different shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, submachine guns, and assault rifles. But what really set the games apart from the rest was their sense of semi-campiness - their willingness to say "Hell with reality, this is more awesome!" Our battles could include grappling hook watches, jetpacks, remote controlled attack helicopters, and Oddjob's infamous boomerang hat. It was an excellent blend of realism and fantasy that added up to a sort of comforting quasi-reality.
And then the next installment in the series, Everything or Nothing, was released. Gone was the solid FPS gameplay, replaced with an odd third person shooter mechanic. In lieu of the rich competitive multiplayer modes of the past was a cheap, top-down deathmath type mode that looked like Metal Gear Solid crossed with Bomberman and played like a bucket full of poisoned mice. It was all very disappointing. The game did have a halfway-decent co-op campaign, but it wasn't what we were looking for. Everything or Nothing was succeeded by Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, a boring Halo 2 wannabe that revolved around dual wielding a handful of strange fictional guns with the occassional gadget worked in to remind you the Bond license was still being used.
The franchise has never been seen again, drifting away into lackluster movie tie-ins. MW2 sometimes feels like a spiritual sequel - juggernauts, snowmobile stunts, and gratuitous dual wielding all seem reminiscent of Bond of yore - but still stands to firmly in the grim political realism camp to recreate the same feeling. Does anyone else miss Nightfire as much as I do?
