Game Boy Review: James Bond 007 (1998)

Our first Game Boy review, and no better way to do it than to take a look at one of the most curious games in the James Bond franchise. Keep your eyes on Code Redd Net for more 007 coverage in the very near future.

It's always nice to play something a little bit different. Ever since GoldenEye broke out on the N64, the 007 franchise has stuck fairly close that first-person shooter model. Sure, there were a few misfires with third-person action, such as Tomorrow Never Dies, and a few hits, such as the inimitable Everything or Nothing, but overall the series has stayed within a pretty limited range of first- and occasionally third-person shooters. James Bond 007 for the Game Boy has its fair share of action, no question, but it's much more Zelda or Pokemon than anything else, as there's far more puzzles to solve and items to collect than thugs to gun down.

008, not 006.

Most of the plot and dialogue is recycled wholesale from old Bond films, including key villains Oddjob and Jaws, and there's just enough of a simplistic gun smuggling subplot to tie it all together. On your travels to find the source of the smuggling, and to locate the missing 008, you stop in mainland China, Marrakech, the Sahara Desert, Tibet, and a super-secret final base. Most of your time in-mission will be spent in trying to track down the right people and to collect the right keycard or item. Some of the puzzles you have to solve range from absolutely dumby-proof to esoteric, and many times an ally will only hand over the proper keycard when you've spoken to him twice, which can be quite irritating to find out after spending an half hour wandering around the level once again. Too often the puzzles to be solved only require persistence and not intelligence. I found that running alongside the walls would often yield the location of secret switches much more efficiently than solving the riddles by wit. Combat is kind of odd, too: pressing the select button brings up an inventory where you can assign an item to either the A or B button, such as a pistol, a rocket launcher, a very un-suave machete, or a pair of fists. Shooting can be difficult and slow, and bullets seem to take an hour to reach their target. Though later stages require more ammunition in order to get through the levels, earlier stages have a bit more variety to recommend them. I particularly enjoy laying the fisticuffs down on the streets of Marrakech, then ducking into the casino for a game of Blackjack. For me, this is the principal appeal of James Bond 007: you don't just shoot baddies, you go undercover, you partake in a little high-stakes gambling, you have to find a way to survive without water in the Sahara. There's not much to do once you beat the game, and it won't take long to do so, but upon completing your mission the game rewards you with passwords to unlock the gambling mini-games. So, not only do you have a solid, if unspectacular, Bond experience for your next flight or bus ride, you also have the best baccarat simulator around. It's worth picking up if you're a Bond fan with a mind for something different.

Nobody Reviews It Better: GoldenEye (1995)

We now move into the era of Pierce Brosnan, the Bond we grew up watching. As Chicken Man intimates in his review, we came to appreciate Brosnan-Bond in GoldenEye through an inverse method: it was the N64 shooter of the same name that turned us on to the film (and, eventually, all the others in the series). That's probably not an uncommon phenomenon for our generation. Nevertheless, whatever the course of our affective relationships with the multiple texts of GoldenEye, the film is unquestionably one of the finest in the series. Indeed, if the Code Redd Net Awards and its Best Bond Movie prize were the last word on the subject, we'd have to say GoldenEye is tops.

 

 

For myself (and I imagine for a few others) GoldenEye is the movie adaption of a very popular N64 game. Though not saying much, it is probably the best movie adaption of a game ever made. Kidding aside, I find GoldenEye  to be everything a Bond film should be. If we think of James Bond as the man men want to be and women want to be with, Pierce Brosnan plays this part succinctly. I find him to be the most "charming and sophisticated secret agent" of the Bonds, as Valentin Zukovsky suggests. Unlike Moore, he is not upper-crusty, but fits well on the cover of Cigar Aficionado.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Jean-Claude Van Damme I'm fine!"

 

His enemy well chosen: an MI6 agent, Alec Trevelyan, 006 (Skyfall seems to be trying to replicate this villain device). Trevelyan is also a personal friend; one who grew tired of serving a government that betrayed his family. He wants revenge and thought of asking Bond to join him, but accuses him of having greater loyalty to the mission than to his friends. As I've mentioned before, it interests me when Bond's servitude to the state is put into question. It would have been better had Trevelyan's plan not intended to harm so many innocents, making Bond's decision not so clear cut. Regardless, it is so much more enjoyable when the Bond villain is a respectable adversary. It is somewhat refreshing that he doesn't have some ridiculous scheme involving the destruction of Earth, but an EMP space weapon that seems plausible and reasonable in furthering his objectives. Bond is really being unfair in calling him "nothing more than a common thief."

The surrounding cast is good as well. Female villains are always interesting, especially when they have not-so-subtle names. Xenia Onatopp is one of the most vivacious of Bond chicks, along with May Day, and is as easily remembered. Boris Grishenko is a likable, though arrogant computer programmer who, like Baron Samedi, is "invincible." Quite a team, they are.

A (mostly) required element to a good Bond movie are the gadgets, and Q keeps it pretty simple with a belt containing a rappel cord (I enjoy how Bond asks about a possible contingency, considering my criticism in the past of Q's perfect foresight), a grenade pen, and a watch that can detonate mines and shoot lasers.

The final requisite is the action scenes, and I find GoldenEye to be unsurpassed in this regard. It certainly is more violent (according to my count, Bond shot more people in his escape from the Russian military archives than Connery did in whole movies), enough to make a game out of it, but this isn't what makes it good. It is the frequency and the way in which it is done. During the tank chase scene, the Bond theme music is well incorporated (something noticeably missing in previous films), especially with its dramatic flair in the crescendo with the timpani drums. Fantastic work.

It's all here. Bond seems like Bond. The villains are cool and scary. The plot is high stakes yet believable. The gadgets are practical. The action is constant. GoldenEye is what a 007 movie should be.

Nobody Reviews It Better: The Living Daylights (1987)

At last, Moore-Bond has been relieved of his duties! Now, in an effort not to sound unduly harsh of Sir Sleeze, we should note that not all of his 007 films were as bland as the last few; some, like The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only, were actually quite good, and to some degree justified his overlong tenure. But when he was boring, nobody did it better. Or worse, rather. Nevertheless, it's about time we moved on to the short, but somewhat underappreciated legacy of Timothy Dalton. For being such a champ and withering most of the Moore-Bonds, Chicken-Man has first dibs on the refreshing The Living Daylights. Thrasher will check in later with Dalton's second, and regrettably final, film.

After the Moore-Bond marathon, I have never looked upon Timothy Dalton more favorably. First impressions, though, were a bit rougher than they ought to be; Dalton's first "Bond. James Bond," seemed more like how one would address a commanding officer than handle a self-introduction to a beautiful woman. But the gritty push-back against the goofy Moore-Bond style was thankfully not overdone as Daniel Craig's was/is. We see this firsthand in Bond's refusal to shoot a sniper because she is an amateur (and a woman).When told that this might have consequences for his job security, Bond is ready and willing to toss away a job that would require him to do things he felt were wrong. Unlike Craig, the grittiness of the Dalton-Bond doesn't mean being without emotion. In fact, he can be downright sentimental.

One of my favorite parts in this movie is seeing something we might not typically associate with Bond: the act of courtship. After helping the celloist sniper escape from the Soviet's reach, he takes her on a date in Vienna. First he buys her a new dress and they attend the opera. They go to a carnival-like atmosphere, where Bond uses his marksmanship skills to win her a very large stuffed animal. They get caught smooching at the end of their Ferris Wheel ride. "You want to go around again?" asks the conductor. It really is quite cute. I hope one can understand how refreshing this is to me, as Moore-Bond seemed to have less emotional attachment to his conquests than I imagine the typical John does with his ladies of the night. This actually seemed romantic.

As for the other elements of the movie, they seemed to be done quite well. The plot is a bit hard to follow, but doesn't suffer from the implausibility of the outlandish Moore films. The villain is an arms dealer/drug trafficker who fancies himself as an expert warfare strategist and is played by Joe Don Baker (who, interestingly enough, also plays CIA agent Jack Wade in Goldeneye and Tommorow Never Dies, which means he's in more Bond movies than Timothy Dalton!). He finds himself in a jam when the Russians cancel their arms deal since he has the money tied up in trying to profit from heroin trade. He is in league with a rogue KGB agent who falsely defected to the British, only to be "recaptured" by another rogue KGB agent in a plot made to look like the Russians tried to reclaim him. I'm still trying to figure it out.

The most confusing part is how Bond allies himself with General Pushkin, a Russian betrayed by the fake defector, while also allying himself with the Afghan muhajadeen against the occupying Russian army. He seems to be the inverse of Switzerland: instead of being neutral, he's on everyone's side.

The action scenes (including an ice chase and a guerrilla attack on the Russians) are good, and 007 Legends 2 could easily use a scene from The Living Daylights for a bonafide mission. Overall, I'm impressed with Timothy Dalton's debut.

"Q, perchance this outfit makes me look like a doofus."