PS2 Review: Everything or Nothing (EA, 2004)

What makes for a great James Bond game? Certainly it must have the feel of the James Bond film or novel, that curious and pleasurably perplexing posture of self-seriousness and self-consciousness, manifested in its multiple car-tank-ski-bobsled chases, its often blatant sexism, heterosexism, racism, colonialism, its abundant violence, its preternatural gadgets and vulgar puns, and its signature music. These sensibilities have been tethered to many games in the past, mostly first-person shooters. And while shooters like the inimitable GoldenEye 007 (Nintendo, 1997) and the underappreciated The World is Not Enough (EA, 2000) still have that James Bond feel to them, to my thinking they were wonderful shooters first, and Bond games second. Everything or Nothing (EA, 2004) reverses that trend, foregrounding the Bond sensibility, that authentic feel, and tailoring its style to fit this amalgam. The authenticity of Everything or Nothing is in its appropriately absurd storyline and its cavalcade of stars (including the likenesses and voices of Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, Shannon Elizabeth, and Richard Kiel reprising his role as Jaws). Fittingly for the technophiliac themes of Brosnan's Bond, gadgets are front and center, most notably the humorous, but equally versatile, spiderbots. Variety wins the day for this game: players shoot, sneak, skydive and rappel; drive jeeps, motorcycles, tanks, and helicopters. No two missions are anything alike. Everything or Nothing also bucks the trend in regards to its multiplayer support. While previous Bond games have been vaunted for their anything-goes, all-for-one deathmatches, EoN features a co-op storyline instead, and it succeeds, better perhaps than any other co-op game on the market. It's so good one easily forgives and forgets the mediocre, but somewhat charming, arena mode. I dare say no other Bond game, before or since, has come anywhere near EoN in replicating the aforementioned feel of Bond for the video game medium.