The reason that GoldenEye seemed to click so well in the minds of gamers were because of two things: an immersive single player campaign, and customizable multiplayer options. Eurocom seems to have realized this; The World is Not Enough’s single player is intense, varying and extremely engrossing. None of the missions feel as if they’re becoming repetitive; each mission has something new to try out, whether it is a set of weapons, skiing down a mountain or swimming through a series of underwater tunnels. There is hardly ever a dull moment in The World is Not Enough, and that’s what keeps the player determined to finish a level, even after dying multiple times. The mission objectives are never too far fetched (although it might seem like that once you hit the 007 Agent difficulty), and there were only a few times where it seemed a bit foggy as to what I was actually supposed to do. It was due mostly to the fact, however, that all the objectives were located at the very end of the level, which had me confused about half way through, thinking I had somehow missed something from before.

If nothing else, what sets the James Bond movies apart from the rest are the unique gadgets that he uses all the time. There are numerous points where Bond will have to give his intelligence a try, and use the nifty gadgets that Q has developed for him. Needless to say, Q has definitely come up with some very cool stuff this time around. His wristwatch has four different modes (stunner, laser, dart, grapple), and each has a situation where it comes in handy. Not all the gadgets are used to take out the enemies though, since many of them will be given to Bond in order to make it past security or relay information back to MI-6 headquarters. Some of the gadgets that Bond will run into include a Bomb Disposal Kit (somewhat frustrating to use, at first), Camera, Flash Bang Gun, Keypad Decryptor, Phone Tap, Safe Cracker and X-Ray Goggles, among other things.

Besides the crazy gadgets, there are also enough weapons given to Bond right off the bat, in addition to the ones littered around the environments, to equip an entire continent for a good month. While many first person shooters fall into the trap of keeping with the standard weapon formula (pistol, shotgun, rocket launcher, etc.), The World is Not Enough sets itself apart from the pack with its many diverse firearms that pack quite a wallop. Bond starts out most missions with his trusty Wolfram P2K, but soon enough he’ll have much more powerful items at his disposal, including various sniper-equipped rifles (such as the Suisse SSR 4000), GL 40 (single-shot grenade launcher), Raptor Magnum (powerful semi-automatic pistol with heavy-calibur rounds), Soviet KA-57 (heavy assault rifle) and the Meyer TMP (small machine pistol with high rate of fire).

It might not provide the same amount of flexibility or customization found in Rare’s GoldenEye or Perfect Dark, but the multiplayer options in The World is Not Enough are none too shabby, either. You start out by choosing from one of the game’s nine different modes: Arena (standard deathmatch), Team Arena (standard deathmatch with teams), Capture the Flag (each team has a flag, has to grab the other team’s and bring it back to their own base), Capture the Briefcase (same as CTF, but both briefcases have to be at a base for points to count), King of the Hill (score extra points by commanding “the hill” part of the level), Team King of the Hill (same as before, only with teams), Uplink (two teams and three uplink locations in a level, and each time one team touches an uplink it becomes theirs until another team touches it), Last Agent Standing (each player has “x” number of lives to survive with) and Golden Gun (somewhat taken from GoldenEye, players have to gather three pieces in a level to assemble a gun that kills in one hit). From there, players then choose the mode type, which determines what weapons are used in the selected mode.

One advantage that The World is Not Enough has over the competition, is that the frame rate during nearly all the multiplayer sessions keeps a steady pace, unlike the chug-a-thons that can happen when enough features are turned on in GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. It’s no TimeSplitters, sure, but it’s better than the majority of what’s been released on the Nintendo 64.

Instead of following the control scheme lead by GoldenEye (analog for movement, R for precise aiming, C buttons for strafing), Eurocom has adopted the style that was introduced through Acclaim’s Turok series. The analog stick is used to aim and the C buttons are used to move forward, backward and strafe. Personally, this is the method that I’ve used in all first person shooters that have the option; it makes it easy to avoid enemy fire and pump it right back at them, and provides the closest a controller can possibly get to the mouse and keyboard combination found on a PC. There are some people, of course, who prefer GoldenEye’s choice of control, and Eurocom included controller variations just for them.

Considerably odd is that due to the complexity of The World is Not Enough’s missions, there are actually load times between initiating a level’s introductory cut-scene then another loading segment before you gain control of Bond. Now mind you, the load times are not more than three or four seconds long, but considering that there the amount of Nintendo 64 titles with actual loading in them is less than the amount of fingers on one hand, it’s odd to actually run into the feature.

It might not cause as much commotion as GoldenEye, but there’s no reason why gamers shouldn’t pick up The World is Not Enough; it has an awesome single player experience, decent multiplayer, steady frame rate and an extensive array of weapons and gadgets.