From Russia With Love [GC]

Next week the first videogame starring Sean Connery will hit retail stores courtesy of Electronic Arts. From Russia With Love, a third-person perspective mix of shooting, action, and racing, harkens back to the second Bond movie with great care for the original intellectual property, wrapping on new levels and a modern, up-to-date look and feel for gamers who're enjoying the 21st century.

Though EA long ago broke from strict movie-based Bond games, this return-to-roots title captures the witty, sharp bravado that emanated from the young Connery in a way no other Bond actor could replicate. Working with Connery for motion capture, voice-acting, and guidance on Bond's style of melee combat and shooting style, EA has re-created a fantastic looking polygonal Connery. Most gamers, sadly, don't really give a hoot about the old guy, they just want to play a good game. But they should care. It's all quite well done.

Beyond the excellent production values bestowed upon this new shooter, EA's Redwood Shores studio has created a stylish-looking game with excellent cutscenes, menu set-ups, and an artists eye toward the Cold War Soviet aesthetic. We've been talking about the game's RPG-lite aspects for a while, but having dug into the final, reviewable version, we've taken a better look at the game's innards, and they're impressive.

The scoring system is particularly impressive. Somewhat like other games, From Russia With Love tallies various moves and scores. For instance, you might remember the "Bond Moments" moves from Everything or Nothing (EON). Those are back. In GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, you were able to shoot grenades from enemy's hands. Now you can do that, plus knocking their radios out too, nixing their abilities to call in back-up.

Oh, and remember the melee combat in EON? It's back, too. The size of the cache you can carry is massive, too. You'll be able to carry at least seven different weapons at one time, use grenades, sonic cufflinks, and deploy the mini- Q-copter to boot. All of these moves wouldn't mean much if they weren't tied into something larger and more global. From Russia With Love recognizes and classifies each type of move with a point value. The game tallies up points in a couple ways: Points, Research Points, and Awards. "Points" are gathered by a number of things, hits, time taken to beat a level, enemies killed, etc.

After every level you'll have earned several hundred points, which go toward unlocking bonus material. This number is always high. These unlockables range from intro movies to artwork to behind-the-scenes work, much like you'd find in a movie DVD. You'll unlock villains for multiplayer, interview footage of the new Bond girls, and concept artwork of each level to name a few.

Research Points, however, are far more useful. By exploring the crevices, extra rooms, and corners of each level, players will find research papers, data sheets, and the like, all of which add up to "research." "Research" equals currency to upgrade weapons and gadgets. Upgrades can range from increasing the ammo cache in any of your guns, add new types of ammo for guns, quicken the speed of fire, increase shot power, and so on. With gadgets, it means you'll upgrade your armor, Laser Watch, Q-Copter, and Sonic Cufflinks. Yes, sonic cufflinks, which stun enemies for a few seconds while you switch weapons and spray the crowd with bullets.

So, everything is tied together and the result is that you're not just beating people up, you're investing in your future. Sounds like a yuppie plan for business school, but it's not. Tying everything together means that every action has significance and can result in a reward of some kind. It instantly makes the game far more enjoyable and encouraging to play than just another shooter.