The only thing that really keeps me from going into the spy business is my name. James Bond is a good spy name. But when you say, "Herold, Charles Herold," the women do not swoon, the bad guys do not snarl and, no matter how many times you ask for your martini to be shaken, it is always stirred.
Fortunately, Eurocom's action game 007: Nightfire gives me the Bond name, Pierce Brosnan's likeness and a wide assortment of weapons and gadgets.
Whether I am shooting guided missiles at a helicopter from a ski lift suspended above the Austrian Alps, escaping pursuers in a snowmobile, driving my modified Aston-Martin on the ocean floor or bedding yet another indescribably beautiful woman, I do it with a panache sadly lacking in my day-to-day existence.
Unlike previous Bond games, Nightfire is not derived from a movie. With its fast pace, minimal plot and over-the-top action, Nightfire plays like one of the best of the Bond films, including my favorite, "The Spy Who Loved Me," except you get to do all the shooting yourself.
Nightfire is not an especially long game, and you probably can finish it in a weekend. But it is worth playing over again to find all the ways to complete your missions. I found three paths into the castle of Bond's nemesis. Two of these were rewarded by a burst of music and a revolving 007 in the air, indicators that I had completed a Bond move, which means I had met a goal by using skill and ingenuity rather than brute force.
I almost did not bother playing Nightfire. I had dabbled in the two previous Bond games and found them dull, and I had never played the one that started it all: Goldeneye. Goldeneye is still considered the best of the Bond games by those who have played the whole series, but Nightfire is being hailed as a close second, except for the PC version, which has been declared vastly inferior to the console versions. (I played the Xbox version.)
HARM's Way
Console-deprived would-be spies might be better served by Monolith's campier version of Bond-style spying, No One Lives Forever: A Spy in HARM's Way.
In Forever, set in the swinging '60s to a score reminiscent of the Austin Powers movies, you play as Cate Archer, a sexy British superspy. Armed with a nail-clipper lock pick, some explosive toy kittens and lots of guns and swords, you face female ninjas and disgruntled communists as you seek to thwart the plans of HARM, a crime syndicate.
With a full complement of wacky characters and locations ranging from India to Ohio, and weapons that include a mascara stun gun and a banana that can be used to slip up your opponents, Forever can be a lot of fun. Sometimes it can drag -- I did not enjoy Siberia any more than the people who live there do -- but when fighting an assassin in a house that has been swept up by a tornado or sneaking around India removing wanted posters with your name on them, the game is quite entertaining.
Splinter Cell
Still, I lost interest in Forever because I found something better: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, developed by Ubi Soft.
Like Nightfire and Forever, Splinter Cell puts you in the role of a spy. But in Cell you are not a dashing, elegant spy; you are a National Security Agency operative who must remain unseen as he skulks in the shadows, killing when necessary but preferring to knock out his opponents and hide their bodies before they are discovered and an alarm is raised.
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