At Least We Get a Bit More of the Movie Here

We’re now four games into the Domark era of James BondThe world's most famous secret agent, James Bond has starred not only in dozens of books but also one of the most famous, and certainly the longest running, film franchises of all time. video games and this time it finally feels like the company is figuring out how to make a good, varied title for the franchise… mostly. The company had the license for the whole series, so despite just giving us an adaptation of a Roger Moore title with Live and Let Die, we’re now bouncing back over to the Timothy Dalton era for an adaptation of Licence to Kill. Clearly this is more about finding a mechanic and then fitting it to a movie than taking a movie and making a good game out of it.

The game was developed by Quixel and released by Domark, and it features a whole lot of vertical shooting. You could really summarize the whole game by calling it a vertical shooter, although that doesn’t really give credit to the fact that this is six different versions of a vertical action game rolled into one. Previously Domark stated they didn’t want to do games with multiple play modes (after their failed adaptation of A View to a Kill) because it diluted the game and created too many game modes that were too hard to focus on. 007: License to Kill streamlines that, giving a more varied play experience while still largely sticking to a single gameplay style: the vertical shooter.

The game starts off with Bond flying in, via helicopter, to the drug base of Franz Sanchez. Although not detailed in the game, Sanchez had just killed Felix Leiter’s bride, and Bond is on a quest for revenge. He flies into the base, blasting out gun encampments and blowing up jeeps, before landing. Then he moves on foot through the base, shooting soldiers on his quest to find Sanchez. The drug lord tries to escape but, via a helicopter, Bond is able to grab ahold of the tail of the plan and capture the drug lord.

Sanchez escapes, though, so Bond has to pursue him in the water, avoiding Sanchez’s men while collecting bricks of heroin (because you never know when you might want to have a good ti- I mean, for evidence) before catching up to the boat. He waterskis onto the boat before Sanchez flees again, this time by plane. Bond has to pursue, landing on a truck so he can have a road chase with Sanchez. In the end, Bond destroys Sanchez’s truck, killing the drug lord in the process, getting his revenge. And then the game loops and you start it all over again.

What I appreciate about 007: License to Kill is the varied gameplay. If the game were just a helicopter chase game, or an on-foot shooter, or any of the other mechanics singly in here, then it would be a pretty boring experience. But because each stage is based around a different mechanic, and each stage lasts only a few minutes, the game never feels stagnant or dull. You aren’t doing the same things over and over again across a bunch of cosmetically different by, realistically, the same levels. Each one makes you do something different with a different goal on top. That’s varied gameplay that works.

Wisely, Quixel designed all of the play modes in the same engine, so players don’t really have to rewire their brain between stages. Yes, you control somewhat differently when you’re flying the chopper over the ground than when you’re running along on foot, but it all works with the same control scheme and the same level of precision. You move up, shoot at things, and those things die. It’s simple and effective, but for an arcade-style shooter, that’s really all you need.

With that said, not all the sections of the game are equally interesting. The helicopter and truck chase sequences are fun, and they don’t overstay their welcome. The boat sequence is imbalanced, feeling too easy without a clear goal to it, though. The on-foot shooter is slow and plodding and though I appreciate that the game gives you sixteen points of rotation to shoot from while on-foot, that doesn’t really spice up the gameplay at all. A boring on-foot section is still boring no matter how you dress it up, especially when it’s also the longest section of the game.

In all of these cases there are simple things that could have been done to spice the gameplay up more. The on-foot sections could have had multiple guns available, along with more than a single enemy type, to make the gameplay more varied and interesting. The helicopter section could have stolen ideas from Xevious, with two weapons (guns and bombs) to manage while you deal with a variety of targets. And, frankly, the plane capture and water ski sections are so basic, and at times irritating, that both portions could have been excised and it wouldn’t have hurt the overall game. It probably would have helped.

Game length is also an issue. The whole game clocks in at an easy ten minutes, assuming you get through all the stages on your first try, and then it loops. No change to format, no real differences beyond, “do this all again.” A few more stages with different graphics reusing some of these mechanics would have helped increase the overall length of the game while letting it feel like a longer, more accurate adaptation of the source material. Plus, truly, ten minutes of gameplay is just criminally short by any measure.

Yes, sure, you can play the game over and over again but, once you’ve seen everything the title has to offer, are you going to? This is an arcade-style shooter but it’s on a PC, not in arcades. All you’re doing is competing against your own score (in an era without the internet to upload your scores online) and after a little while that’s going to feel pretty boring. If you aren’t competing against others in a live setting then you need to have a longer solo experience, and 007: License to Kill doesn’t provide that. It’s a handsome game, with a nice variety to its gameplay, but it doesn’t provide enough meat to really sink into.

In the end, this, 007: License to Kill is a noble effort that still doesn’t quite hit the mark. It’s certainly the best James Bond game Domark has released up to this point, and I credit the company (and the developers it works with) for trying to push their titles and take bigger risks. But they still aren’t quite getting there yet. This is the best game they’ve made so far, but that’s still a very low bar to climb over and, with their license soon to expire (after their next game), there might not be much chance left for them to deliver the best James Bond experience we could hope for. We’ll just have to see…