EA "Agent Under Fire" (2000)

Generic action for generic Bond


(Click on image to see a preview of the game.)
James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire (2001) was the fourth Bond game which was not based on a film or book in the James Bond series, following James Bond 007: The Duel, James Bond 007 and EA's own 007 Racing. The game was available for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. In this adventure, CIA agent Zoe Nightshade, a mole in Identicon Corporation, based in Hong Kong, is discovered and captured. Identicon, a botanical research firm, is a possible front for a weapons-smuggling ring. James Bond infiltrates the facility in an attempt to rescue her, as well as retrieve a suspicious courier case in the same building. After freeing Nightshade from a submarine set to launch, the pair flee the facility with the courier case. Nigel Bloch, the head of Identicon, has his forces chase the agents through the streets of Hong Kong. The two steal a second case of vials from a nearby Identicon factory. They then rendezvous with R, who provides Bond with a gadget-laden BMW Z8. A limousine pulls up, as an assassin inside launches a rocket at the agents, killing Zoe, and steals the case. One interesting twist feature is that depending on whether or not the player picks up a verification code, Bond and Zoe are either captured or are taken to the carrier unharmed after having sex on the submarine. In either case, the pair investigate the ship. On the ship they discover the bad guy is cloning world leaders -- copping the plot from the 1967 Casino Royale. Whilst the game was praised by some as offering 'astounding' character models, many felt it too easy and paled in the shadow of GoldenEye, a game that was already four years old. Early advertisements for this game showed the "R" character resembling John Cleese (who had recently appeared as Q's assistant in the film). The final version of the game substitutes a generic-looking character (for Bond, as well). An EA executive once commented that late licencing issues with Eon Productions lead to Cleese's departure from the game, but the advertising campaign had already been rolled out. This Xbox game has become an infamous because on March 31, 2003, a hacker called Habibi-Xbox used a buffer overflow in the game and became the first to hack into an unmodified X-box. This was part of a $100,000 challenge funded by Lindows founder Michael Robertson.



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