007 - Everything or Nothing

The most telling thing about this game is that it is a Bond film nobody shot. Electronic Arts built it with Pierce Brosnan's likeness and voice, plus Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, John Cleese and Heidi Klum, and then wrote an original story rather than adapting an existing movie. Brosnan's four-film run had already ended on screen, so this was effectively his fifth outing, played with a controller.

The structure alternates between on-foot missions and vehicle sequences. On foot, it is a third-person shooter with a cover system and a lock-on that does most of the aiming work. Its most distinctive trick is the Bond Moves: a way of rewarding stylish play, such as taking out enemies in flashy ways or using the environment, that feeds your score and pushes you to vary your approach rather than simply hold down the trigger. There is also a rappelling mechanic, which gives some levels a verticality the genre did not often offer in 2004.

The driving and vehicle stages are where the game earns its Bond credentials. Chases through cities, with the pace of an action film, break up the shooting and give the campaign a rhythm that feels closer to a movie than most licensed games of the period managed. Co-op play was included too, which was a sensible addition for a game built around spectacle.

What has aged is the combat itself. The auto-aim makes firefights feel loose compared with the sharper shooters that came soon after, and enemy behaviour is rarely more than adequate. The presentation holds up better, since the voice cast and the confident score do much of the work of making it feel like the real thing.

It remains one of the better attempts to translate the Bond formula into interactive form, mostly because it understood that the franchise is about momentum and variety more than marksmanship. Few licensed games of its day were that clear about what they were borrowing.