While Goldeneye is a nostalgic classic for many, it was during the sixth generation of consoles that James Bond games thrived. Across consoles, handhelds, and even PC, the British spy starred in a number of amazing adventures. Yet one of them has eluded me for many years. I started playing these games with Nightfire and had thus completely missed out on Agent Under Fire. Let's fix that.
Being so familiar with Nightfire, it's unavoidable to compare these two games. They both attempted to bring the hybrid gameplay of Goldeneye to the next generation and it's clear from their design that the two games inspired each other to an extent. The differences are subtle yet very significant. Where Nightfire feels polished and rich in features, Agent Under Fire ends up feeling stunted.
Its foremost issue is the mission design. 12 levels is fairly neat for a console shooter, but these missions are short and not particularly replayable. Characterized by mostly linear paths and objectives that are usually directly on said linear paths. You never get to feel like you're figuring things out the way you had to in Goldeneye's levels. Or that you can complete objectives in creative ways like in Nightfire. Here you just shoot your way through goons and sometimes get to circumvent a fight if you go through some vents.
You do have an assortment of gadgets on you, but utility for them is low. Most of their uses are again part of the mandatory story path or they open up those vents (and other minor detours ) for you. Though the remote hacking tool is fun to use to activate cinematic kill opportunities. I don't care how signposted these are, it's just too much fun blowing up these idiots while they casually lounge about next to volatile machinery.
As a shooter, Agent Under Fire is passable, but again outclassed by Nightfire's efforts only a year later. You go through corridors, blasting enemies with a diverse assortment of weapons. You got pistols, rifles, explosives, and good old shotguns. Some of them with alt-fire modes or silencers. Enemies also behave intelligently and are generous enough to drop plenty of ammo, so you never feel starved for resources.
The controls just aren't particularly good. By default both sticks again share duties for camera controls and base movement, instead of having each stick do one of these each. Even on better control schemes, the action feels stilted—awkward. An aggressive auto-aim feature always draws your aim toward the body of enemies, which feels ineffectual. Even the most powerful weapons will take forever to chew through their armor that way. You can aim manually, but that leaves you locked in place and feels awfully slow. Not ideal in a hectic firefight.
Weapons also feel underpowered, even when you do aim manually. Their fire rate and clip sizes are both low, while the spread on automatic weapons is insane. I'd frequently use assault rifles like shotguns just so I could kill the average enemy before needing to reload. It's not too bad on the average enemies, but late-game goons and bosses can tank egregious amounts of damage. That's not very satisfying to play through for a shooter, even on consoles at this point in time.
Where Agent Under Fire does succeed is in those dedicated gimmick missions. On-rail shooter segments where you can find creative ways to dispatch enemies, Aston Martin driving stages, and the few, pure stealth levels are amazing. I love the car levels in particular. Bond controls perfectly behind the wheel and the levels are amazingly open-ended, as well as atmospheric. A stark contrast compared to the actual FPS levels.
Agent Under Fire does also offer a multiplayer mode. While not as developed as Nightfire's would be, it does betray the Quake inspiration a lot more. It's frantic and exciting, with plenty customization and bots that can hold their own. Certainly worthy of its own place in the franchise.
That does make this game hard to recommend in general. Most people now would play a Bond game for its story campaign and then look towards Nightfire for the multiplayer. When doing so, Agent Under Fire is consistently underwhelming, but never to a point that made me contemplate quitting. Its story is still entertaining and there are certainly highlights to be enjoyed. Overall though, the gameplay feels incomplete and unimpressive. Even barring Nightfire, 2001 is the year that Halo released and Half-Life first came to consoles. Quake III: Revolution was out and Max Payne released a month later. Agent Under Fire? More Like Agent Under the Radar!
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