007: The World Is Not Enough(Playstation) Review

Before I start this review, I emulated the Playstation version of this game. I don't particularly like the N64 so I decided to play the PS version instead. That and I'm more comfortable with Duckstation than N64 emus.

I wasn't expecting anything out of The World is Not Enough, I thought I was going to play for a few hours and then drop it, play on the first level then customize the controls or eventually start playing with cheats, but shockingly, I didn't do any of those things, outside of say using a couple of save states on some unexpected difficulty spikes, I mostly managed to beat the game on it's own terms which was really surprising to me. I have even gotten used to tank controls over time thanks to games like the original Tomb Raider and the PS1 Resident Evil games so the lack of analog controls in World is not Enough, I got used to. If you can't stand playing games without them then steer clear of the PS1 version.

There is also the fact that enemies move slowly, auto aim is forgiving enough, enemies drop armor, full armor is easy to find that the game despite appearing to feel "dated" does at the very least feel like it is built around it's limitations, it rarely if ever feels unfair.

Other than that, while the game isn't an amazing shooter by any means, I was looking for a quick game to beat on a saturday night to sunday morning and World is not Enough delivered on just that.

The shooting is satisfying, weapons have punch and it feels good to hit enemies even if the shooting itself lacks depth since all you are fighting are human enemies with hitscan guns and in these games you are basically tank where you need to repair yourself using health packs and needing armor to surivive since you can't avoid damage reliably.

To the game's credit, you are never primarily shooting enemies, there was particularly memorable where you need to tap phones and sneak around a house instead shooting your way through, I was expecting this part to be terrible but it was mangeable since enemies can be mostly be punched and tranqed before they raise the alarm.

There is also a mission where you have to handle Bond skiing through a moutain while protecting someone or where you are in a Casino and you need to gamble and distract guards to go further. Some missions require you to save civilians and activate switches to get further into a level. A high speed subway mission and more, the game is always throwing something new and over the top at the player throughout it's run time that is definately a memorable few hours that the game lasts.

The music is also really good and gets you into the moment, I'm not sure if I will listen to the OST after I stop playing, but at the very least, the music feels good while playing in the moment which is what game music should do at the very least.

Only big that somewhat ruins moment to moment gameplay is that the quick select is rather clunky, I would try to cycle through it and never select the weapon or gadget I want, it was far eaiser to select them through the pause menu, like selecting weapons in Resident Evil 4(2005).

Some moments require some random guide searches to figure out like for example to disable a bomb you need to throw a satchel charge, then activate the cell phone stunner to activate, why would I need another bomb to deactivate a bomb? There is also the final mission where you need to activate a radiation scanner or else when you enter a red room with canisters late in the level, it's easy to get hit off screen and get random cheap deaths because you didn't know to activate the raditation scanner before entering that room. It would be nice to know if I was supposed to use it beforehand. I don't recall the briefings telling you this.

Other issues which might be for some is that the voice acting isn't that great and it uses scenes from the movie, but I don't really mind since it's encouraging me to finally give a Bond movie a try.

Overall, I wasn't expecting anything out of World is not Enough, I was expecting myself to either cheat or drop the game within a few hours but surprisingly I saw it through to the end. By no means this is a masterpiece but much like the movie franchise is it's based on, I don't think it's even trying to be