Well, it's here. The first official Bond clone (or near-clone). When I first picked up this game, I thought it would be sickeningly like the 007 games, but now, after playing it for a while, I know it?s not quite. The gameplay (driving and boating (and shooting from the car or boat) -- only) is relatively original, but the concepts are similar to Bond (i.e. a souped up BMW-like car that has tons of functions...).

G R A P H I C S
It's kind of hard to describe these graphics. Somehow, parts of the graphics are good and others are bad. For example, the car itself has wonderful detail, but the fire is extremely pixelized. There must've been some screw-up porting it over to the GCN, because the graphics for the fire are worse than N64. If they did that on purpose, what the hell were they thinking? It looks awful. The scenery is greatly detailed compared to some other games, but that's not saying much, because I'm comparing it to some N64 games. The water effects are nice; they show the ripples and the sense of speed the ripples move at well. Other than the fire, the graphics are fairly good, although definitely not the best I've seen.

G A M E P L A Y
I'd say it's original, yes, but is it good enough to shell out $50? HELL No. What do you do? You drive around on land, shooting things and driving over things, and then you fly onto the water, change into the boat, and drive around in the water, shooting things and driving over things. Sound fun? Well, I have to admit, it is for a few seconds, but if you're stuck on a level, it's really boring to try to get it done and all the objectives complete. One thing I don't like is the fact that no matter what objective you're missing, you have to finish the primary objective fully, even if you've done that four times already. You should just be able to focus on the one or three objectives you are missing. Also, it gets very boring to go hunting though every crack of each level to try and find the "SATCOMS," whose purpose are never explained. There are also seemingly pointless objectives, such as shooting at a plastic-looking target on a wall with a plasma gun. There isn't much plot, and the plot that's there isn't too original. It's the usual; an evil company is plotting to destroy the world, and somehow, you're the only one that can stop it. Bad game. Oh well. Better luck next game.

C O N T R O L
Thumbs up. I think. It's hard to tell. They are noteworthy on land, but in the water, it slips and slops a little more than it should. Also, it seems as if the motorcycle goes faster than the regular-sized vehicle, but that could just be my imagination. The motorcycle is a little easier to steer, both on land and water, so sometimes I intentionally hurt myself enough to change into the cycle, which doesn't seem right. On land, I love these controls. It turns, accelerates, and stops perfectly. For instance, the obstacle course is hella-fun, because the turning is so great that it's fun to do. It's the perfect balance of skill and easiness. But... then there's the water, which kind of ruins the whole experience. It's sloppy. When you tap the control stick to the right, the boat takes a while to turn right, which you don?t want if you're trying to dodge mines and other dangerous obstacles. Controlling the weapons is alright... it gets better as the game goes on, because you can target missiles and machine guns later, which make it a lot easier. Without these upgrades, it is very hard, because there's no way to manually aim towards something.

S O U N D
Wha...? Sound? Oh, right. Somehow, it seems hollow. Like a deep hole in the ground. The music theme in the menu is nice, but it just about stops there. There are sounds, but they aren't anything special. They match what's on screen, but there's still nothing special. I can't even remember if there's in-game music; if there was, it must've been pretty bad, because my memory didn't want to waste the space to store it. Not much else I can say, because there's nothing else good about the sound and i don't want to list all the bad things; it would take me a few hours.

- I N - B R I E F -

Graphics - 7.0
GamePlay - 3.6
Control - 7.5
Sound - 4.2
Overall - 5.0