I just recently picked this game up and started playing, and I was hooked from the first intro mission. The first time you load the game up, and you have nothing on your hard-drive saved for the game, it starts right out into mission. After you complete the mission you get to see a true Bond beginning just like if you were watching a movie. I probably never would have picked this game up except now older games for the PS2 are so much less expensive now-a-days I find myself playing games that I probably would never have. Since the first couple of installments to this serious were really a bust, Bond got back on track with the game Everything or Nothing featuring Pierce Brosnan. With this new installment, From Russia With Love 007 they stuck with what worked staying with the third-person shooter instead of first-person. I was very please with Everything or Nothing and did like this game as well but, there were some noticeable problems that just could have been avoided, I think, with more time on game development. Still, you will get a good third-person shooter with a lot of action and bang for your buck.


Story
Even though I did enjoy playing through this game and liked a lot of what I saw, there was some things just not done up to par or just missing. This starts with the story unfortunately. For anyone that has never seen the movie From Russia With Love you will probably be just fine here and really enjoy the plot as it unfolds. For everyone else, you will be somewhat disappointed as there was a lot of key events that were left out for some reason. There were also some name changes like SPECTRE is renames to "Octopus" which was confusing at first. They must have some legal issues somewhere with the names but, at least what they changed it to was a familiar Bond name so that did not bother me too much. I just wish they followed the story a little closer.

The main plot is centered around Bond, James Bond as he travels to Istanbul to meet up with a Russian who is supposedly defecting and wants to hand over a Russian cipher machine called a Lektor. Of course this Russian is a beautiful woman and will only do this if Bond is the one that she meets up with because she is in love with him even though he has never met her. The story has it's share of twists and turns and has moments that will have you guessing, if you have not seen the movie. From there the story is filled in with a lot of cut-scenes that keeps the story going at the beginning and end of each mission. These cut-scenes, for the most part, are enjoyable to watch and look very good. The story-line overall was a little loose and you will have a tough time really getting an intense feeling about what will happen next. I am a fan of games with a strong story-line plot having more story thrown in even during game play with some cut-scenes or interactions. As long as it does not interfere with the game play and not over used but, that is completely absent here. This really hurt the feel for me really getting into the story because by the time the mission is over the story is out of your head until you start the next mission. Still, having watched the movie more than once in my Bond days I still did enjoy seeing some of these characters brought to life after all of this time and Sean Connery is as good as ever. That voice is still one of the best ever even in video games and his on-liners are still even funny in a game.


Game Play
If you played the previous installation Everything or Nothing you will be able too just sit down and get right into the game as they play very familiar. In the beginning you go to Q and see some of the gadgets you will be using during the game. Not all at once as you get more as you progress through the missions. Some of these are actually pretty cool like a watch that shoots a laser through bullet proof glass or a remote helicopter that can be used as a weapon or fly through vents to open locked doors. The gadgets themselves are fun the only problem is you won't find yourself needing to used them very much. Whenever you are introduced to a new one that mission will require a couple of uses of course but, there just is not enough throughout the game I didn't think. You will also get to rapper from your belt again to go from place to place that you couldn't otherwise get to but, as the first game used this in action sequences that you found yourself fighting while rappelling or things blowing up around you, that is completely absent here. I have no idea why they took these action sequences away but, they did and it hurt the game play more than they probably thought. Still, the gadgets are fun, when used, and a great addition to the overall game. You may find yourself just using them even when you don't have to just so you get a chance to use them as I did.

You will get what they call the World Dossier which is where you view all the of missions you have completed or need to complete and your stats in them. Also what you have unlocked which includes different villains like Goldfinger or Dr. No to use in multi-player games, game videos, and concept art, and what weapons and gadgets you have so far and what upgrades you have on them. These upgrades are, for example, being able to hold more ammo in each clip, upgrading the speed rate in which they fire, or overall power like your Q-Copter. All of this is easy to thumb around in and to the point.

Once you enter a mission the game screen is also good and well done. You are given an easy to understand map with a location finder so rarely are looking around lost trying to figure out where to go next. It will show your overall health bar, armor bar, and what weapon you are currently using. Most of the time you will just find yourself running around and shooting as there is not much deviation from mission to mission besides location and background changes.


Controls
Firing your assortment of weapons is easy, unfortunately just to easy. Even though the computer AI is pretty strong and they will react accordingly and shoot well, the controls are a little to easy. You pull the left trigger to auto-lock onto an enemy and fire however, you can also do a Bond focus mode by the the X button while locked on. This will give you a close-up view of a vital area to it. Although still hitting them in the head does the job you see some other fun places to shoot. For example, some are wearing grenades and you will given a small circle to aim at. Just move the right thumb-stick a little and pull the right trigger and fire at the Fernande knocking it off his belt and "BOOM", he is a goner and anyone around him. This is also used for ropes knocking down enemies that are hanging about in a couple of missions and even radios stopping some from calling in backup troops. These are a lot of fun however, make the game to easy most of the time. You will find yourself wanting to play this game on the hardest difficulty level to make it even a challenge.

You will also find yourself in some vehicles throughout the game of course. You will be driving your Bond car, firing a turret gun from a speedboat, and flying in your jet-pack on some missions. These are more like small mini-games then missions unfortunately. The car missions are extremely brain dead easy and that also goes for the jet-pack since you get to use the lock-on controls as well. The only tough missions, on the hardest difficulty, was the speedboat missions. Since you don't control the boat and have no lock-on feature just a zoom option you will find yourself in harms way a lot. This of course made these missions fun. I did appreciate where they try to go with the game with the vehicle missions and the graphics are really good, they just don't bring out the Bond feeling as I would expect driving in my Bond car or flying around in my jet-pack.

The rest of the controls are well put together and you do have plenty of things you can do. You will find yourself getting behind walls and peeking around shooting by just pressing the Y button up against any wall, or even hedges. You can also crouch behind desks or you can push tables over to crouch behind them by pressing the black button. Your enemy will also do this but, it seemed I was still able to take a well aimed aim shot and hit them somewhere. I didn't understand why the AI is smart enough to get behind a wall and poke out and fire at me or crouch behind a desk but, still showing some part of themselves for me to lock-on, Bond focus, and hit the top of their head or an arm still a little visual. However, being able to sneak up enemies and take them down with a short scene is fun and there are different scenes depending on what weapon you are using at that time. You can also fight close up if they see you and it becomes a very fast game of, hit the button it shows you in time. If done correctly it gives you a different scene where you take the enemy out. These look good there is just not used much because the missions are so spread out. Unless you force the issue by trying to sneak up on enemies or if you would rather brawl more than shoot. Still, all of the controls were well put together and I never had any frustration besides I think the game was just a little to easy for me.


Graphics
The graphics were not the best you have seen in a game however, they are well over par. The main characters look fantastic and Mr. Bond looks great. Some of the unlock-ables you can get in the game are some makings of the game and they show some of the digital work put into some of the characters. When they show a scene from the movie and then game right after it, you really get to appreciate the detail the character models have. The first thing I noticed is the way Bond held his gun, just like in the movies down by the waist. The animations are also done every well and the way different characters roll on the ground or fall when killed are on the money. The environments look good and let you go back to the 60's but, I was not impressed with detail here. There really is not much to the different environments themselves and look kind of pasted on but, the cars, boats, water, and being able to destroy a lot of what is in the different environments is done well. The worst thing in the game is the explosions. They look like something that would come out of an arcade game from the 80's unfortunately but, at least the game is not built around them and you don't see to many anyway. Still, with all of the characters looking as good as they do and getting that 60's feel with all of Bonds outfits it wont matter what complaints you have. You should really enjoy the effort and realism the graphics give good.


Sound
This is where the game shines as they got everything right here. Sean Connery coming back and playing Bond yet again puts it over the top. Even though Connery does not sound exactly like he did in the 60's, of course, and you may have a tough time understanding a word hear and there just hearing him say Bond, James Bond once again was good enough. The rest of the voice-overs for all the characters sound great and helps with the story-line the best they could. Also, having the Bond soundtrack filtered throughout the game keeps the game alive just as it did for the movies. They also did great work on the sound effects with everything from hearing broken glass to your grapple gun as you shimmy up and down. I have no complaints with any area of the sound or music and you can tell they really put a lot of work in getting the character voices correct.


Multi-Player
The game does come with this mode and you can tell they tried to put some effort here and make it fun. There are the standard modes like Death-matches or Capture-The-Flag variants, and a Dogfight mode where everyone uses a jet-pack the whole time. The two different modes are a Single Event or Survival Royale where you play several matches in a row but, there really is nothing more than you expect any game of this genre to at least offer. The only place where this is different is in Survival Royale mode where you can use different traps or have Bond Moments which, when achieved, were fun. The downfall really goes back to the controls and how easy they are locking on to your opponent. This really makes killing a human opponent much to easy as they only have a split second to dodge once locked on and very seldom are you able to avoid the shot. If they had just gave an option to maybe take of auto-lock then the Multi-Player may have been a lot more interesting. You will not spend a lot of time here since this is way down the list for shooter games out there in the Multi-Player category.


Conclusion
Whether you are a James Bond fan or not, this is a solidly put together third-person shooter for the PS2. I was only let down because of some of the story-line ad-ons and take aways the game had compared to the film and the somewhat easy game play. There is still plenty to do here and you should have over five hours of some pretty intense game play. Even longer game play if you choose to go back and make sure you get all of the stars and schematics for each mission so you can unlock all of the upgrades and the four bonus missions. You may even just go back and play a mission or two again just because they were really a lot of fun. Even though I feel that the last Bond installment ,Everything or Nothing, was quite a bit better I still recommend this game to anyone that just enjoys a good shooter style game. Or to anyone that at least liked the movie From Russia With Love.

Thank you for reading.

If you have any questions about this game just let me know.

My Ratings:
Story 3.5/5
Game Play: 4/5
Controls 4/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Sound: 5/5
Learning Curve: 15min
Replay Value: 4/5
Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
ESRB Teen

Game Specs
Players: 1-4

Recommended: Yes