A Review: 007: Tomorrow Never Dies, PSOne 1999

Today I shall be posting three reviews, the first is for the game 007: Tomorrow Never Dies, a PlayStation One game from 1999, enjoy.


007: Tomorrow Never Dies is a 3rd-person shooter game with stealth elements developed for the PSOne by Black Ops Entertainment and published by EA Games/MGM Interactive. I found this game in my local Gamestation's bargain bin (before the company went into bankruptcy in 2012) when I was a youngster for £5. I thought nothing of buying it and giving it a go based purely on brand recognition and the box art. I can remember playing through it at least three times and finding the game to be average at best. When I found the files for download on a ROM site, I decided to look at this game with adult eyes and see if I could still enjoy it.

This is the first Bond game to come from Electronic Arts after the company acquired the licensing rights from the previous developer/publisher and followed on from the successful Goldeneye game of 1997.

Originally, this game was supposed to be a continuation of the film's plot and was going to explore the events after the Tomorrow Never Dies story. However, focus groups decided that the idea wouldn't gain enough traction with fans and instead decided to focus the game on recreating the film's plot instead. The game went on to be delayed several times, ended up being stripped of a multiplayer feature, and had several levels removed completely.

I can remember from old gaming magazines that this title didn't do as well as it was hoped it would. There were many complaints, and ultimately, the game seemed to fall below the standard that Goldeneye had set two years earlier. Personally, I found this game to be aggressively mediocre at best and horridly dull at worst. The play was clunky, with unresponsive controls and a generic enemy AI. There were problems throughout with hitboxes and collision detection, making it nearly impossible to hit some enemies' at times. That, combined with the low render distance, meant that the player could be shooting at what they thought was an enemy in the open. Only to realize once you'd gotten closer, they were behind a wall or level object that had failed to load in. It frustrated me playing this game, as far too often I was swarmed and killed before I could even advance through a level. This was especially true of the Ski Mission, where I couldn't even make it to the midpoint before being bullied into a fall and dying. The control issues were very much highlighted at that point, and it was from then onward that I also started to dislike this game more and more. I suppose that it didn't help that I could no longer keep the rose-tinted glasses in place. I honestly feel that this game, while not atrocious, was not the best version of itself. It had the foundations laid, in my opinion, but failed to build on them in any meaningful way. There was so much that this game could have been, but it all just fell short, almost like the development team just gave up halfway through.

From a visual point of view, this game wasn't bad to look at; it had fairly pretty environments with a well-chosen color palette. Level objects, buildings, and items were nice to look at, and the breath details given to the characters were a nice touch in the cold areas of the game. Weapon use, spent ammo casings, and the like were also pretty, and I liked the reloading and use of animations. The world rendering was a problem I found hard to ignore, especially during the sniping sections of this game. Objects just didn't load in, and it made it seem like enemy NPCs were out of cover when they weren't. I did like the backgrounds though, even if they were just simple static images, and some of the NPC's looked nice close up.

Overall, this is a game that I didn't hate but far from loved.

5/10 – Okay!

Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ