From Russia With Love

From Russia With Love
North American box art.
Developer(s)	EA Redwood Shores
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Release Date(s)
Nintendo GameCube	NA: November 15, 2005  EU: November 18, 2005
Nintendo GameCube	NA: November 15, 2005  EU: November 18, 2005
Platform(s)
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Rating(s)
ESRB	04
PEGI	04
USK	04

From Russia With Love is a 2005 action/adventure game for the GameCube based on the 1963 James Bond film of the same name. Sean Connery, the actor who portrayed Bond in the movie, returned to supply the likeness and voice talent for the game.

Gameplay

Singleplayer

In the singleplayer campaign, the player can get through 14 main missions and a bunch of bonus levels, which can be unlocked during gameplay. Beside third person shooter levels, the game includes driving missions in different vehicles, such as speedboats or the previously mentioned Aston Martin. Weapons ranges from Pistoles over machine guns up to rocket launchers. Bond can also use hand to hand combat. The player have access to different Q gadgets, such as the rappelling gun, a laser wrist watch and mini helicopters.

The player can earn points for either finding these or killing enemies in a specific way. The points can later be redeemed, to upgrade Bonds gear or unlock behind the scene material, such as concept art or movies.

The PSP version includes more minigames, but removes all driving missions.

Multiplayer

The game offers a offline multiplayer for up to four players. The game allows players to customize and upgrades their Bond. It offers the game modes "Play Mode", which is Deathmatch and Survival Royal. Survival Royal contains a bunch of different game types, from capture the flag variants, to Deathmatch with jetpacks, up to team based games. The PSP version includes one more map and characters.

Plot

The story of the game follows most of the time the plot of the movie. Differences are additional characters, locations, and a different villainous organization. Also, the Aston Martin DB5 that debuted in Goldfinger (1964) and the jet pack from Thunderball (1965) have appearances as gajets and vehicles.

The villain organization was renamed to OCTOPUS do to legal reasons. The game starts with a pre-intro scene, in which the prime ministers' daughter, Elizabeth Stark, while attending a party, got kidnapped by OCTOPUS.

With the help of Tatiana Romanova, a Soviet agent, OCTOPUS wants to embarrass Bond for the death of Dr. No. They want to steal a Soviet encoding machine, named Lektor. Romanova is leading Bond into a trap for killing him in a humiliating fashion. Romanov turns out to be a double agent for OCTOPUS and the KGB. Her immediate subordinate, Donald "Red" Grant, protects Bond through the first half of the game and attacks him in the second. The game ends with a final assault on OCTOPUS headquarters, during which Grant is fatally shot by Bond.

Reception

German GamePro states in their video review, that they like the action and stealth missions, praises the great presentation and bond flair but the controls of the Q copter were a bit to imprecise. In their print issue, they also praise the great German voice cast and giving the game a 89 out of 100. PlayTV - the video department of the "Play the PlayStation" magazine - criticizes the game, in their review, for it's not so great driving missions, the "to linear" levels and that the German voice cast, did not reach the original voices.

External links

• From Russia With Love at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• From Russia With Love at GameFAQs
• Official Website