James Bond 007

I'm a lifelong fan of the James Bond film franchise. The Bond films have always been the perfect mix of action, suspense, mild comedy, and sex appeal. Even the worst of the Bond films like Moonraker and Die Another Day have something appealing to them. Unfortunately, virtually none of those elements made it into the first Bond game on the Atari 2600, simply called James Bond 007.

Naturally, the Atari 2600 couldn't translate 1983's Octopussy or 1985's A View to a Kill... or any of the movies for that matter. The technology was just too limited. So, they built the game around one recognizable element, the heavily armed Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me. The whole game is a scrolling shooter in an armed car. It is basically a straight rip-off of Moon Patrol. That shouldn't be so bad; after all, Moon Patrol was a good arcade game that got a decent adaptation on the 2600 the year prior. Unfortunately, James Bond 007 couldn't even count as a decent Moon Patrol rip-off. It just sucks.

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How would you like to play a shooter where almost all the enemies are invincible? That's what happens here. Your firepower only works on the diamonds in the sky and the divers under the water, neither of which can hurt you. The enemies that CAN hurt you are completely immune to your weapons. Also, the maneuverability of the Lotus sucks. While you can shunt forward and backwards to dodge shots, jump, and dive underwater, the movement is so sluggish that it's extreme difficult to dodge anything. Even the visuals are pretty pathetic, especially for a late era 2600 game. The landscapes are drab, and the lightning that comes from shooting the diamonds is just a lame flash.

There are a couple of things that kept this mission from being a total failure. The beeping render of the "James Bond Theme" is decent; it's one of the few times music was done well on the Atari 2600. The 2600 version doesn't have the environment deformation that the 5200 version had which made that version flat out impossible. However, the biggest complement I can give was the attempt to put variety into the game. Each of the levels provide different objectives from blasting diamonds to trying to land on an oil rig at sea. The variety would be a great thing if the basic gameplay wasn't garbage.

James Bond 007 on the Atari 2600 is crap. It wouldn't even fly by 1984 standards since Moon Patrol did the same concept so much better in 1983. Every moment of the game was as annoying as a marathon of Bond spoofs. This one deserves to be a target for testing some of Q's explosive gadgets.

THE END
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JAMES BOND 007 (ATARI 2600)
James Bond Will Return In
JAMES BOND JR. (SNES)