James Bond games have had a very inconsistent track record over the years. Between the license bouncing around and more than half a dozen studios reimagining the super spy as a gaming hero, we’ve seen Bond be everything from a text adventure to a glorified Gears of War character with a high neck However, among the best 007 games, there is something surprising to be found: a throwback modernity that overlaps with the styling of a more recent star hitman.
From Russia With Love is one John Wick game at its core, and that’s incredible given its age. I’m not being hyperbolic or twisting search terms to feed the algorithm, the content devourer, the high lord of search engine optimization; I am very serious, and as surprised as you.
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When I set out to give From Russia With Love a second look, it was with the mindset of exploring how a game could update and remake a classic film. It was a trend in the sixth generation of consoles, with the likes of The Great Escape, The Godfather, the ill-fated Dirty Harry game and Starsky & Hutch just to name a few. Among its peers, EA Redwood’s From Russia is by far one of the more ambitious accounts. They got Sean Connery to voice Bond, hired two additional Bond girls (Maria Menuous and Natasha Bedingfield) and created an immensely complete action game.
That alone would be enough to warrant a review, but then something incredible happened. You see, From Russia is, in many ways, a cover game long before the subgenre was popularized by Gears of War, but it has one crucial difference: blocking. From Russia he never wants you to worry about whether you will achieve a goal, but whether you are achieving it as efficiently as possible. Are you making the most of every trait? Is there a faster way to clean a room?
We’ve seen this kind of mindset grow in popularity thanks to people like Hotline Miami – that primal drive to find an even better way to break levels like artistic ballet. While the standard lock-on aim lets you shoot freely while focusing on movement, From Russia layers in a refined aim known as Bond Focus that highlights critical weak points.
Maybe you can shoot the unused RPG ammo in a bazooka trooper’s backpack, or pull a grenade from an assault trooper’s belt; maybe even take out a commando’s armor as his minigun tears up the landscape. Not only are you encouraged to do this, but you’re rewarded for achieving a certain amount of weaknesses, which give you skill points to unlock bonus levels at the end of each stage. It’s also an incredibly effective way to conserve ammo, which you’ll want to do, as it’s balanced to be scarce enough that you can’t rely on a single weapon for too long.
Combine that with a skill-based melee takedown system that counts as a weak spot as well as dodge rolls, and you have one of the most aggressive combat loops in gaming. At its height, you barely stop moving unless your body armor is in shreds, spending much of your time slogging through levels while feeling like the most dangerous man in the room.
It’s such a simple series of systems, that work with just a handful of buttons, and that’s amazing. Far more complex games have attempted to capture the feeling of embodying a highly trained living weapon, and even fewer have done so with such gleeful glee in the midst of lethality. There’s just enough edge to feel dangerous without losing the cathartic joy of the best action movie, so From Russia shouldn’t be forgotten.
John Wick: Hex tried to translate Wick’s frantic gun-kata with turn-based combat and instant post-combat replays, but it just resulted in repetitive and awkward battles. Any other use of Wick’s character so far has been a token addition to another setting, like Payday 2. With the fast pace of Russia, we have something really special.
You have to hold it in your hands to feel how sensitive it can be from Russia. Even when a target is moving, Bond Focus lives up to its name, rewarding quick reflexes and target assessment over stop-and-pop shots like so many modern third-person shooters. Meanwhile, any sudden ambushes that catch you off guard can be instantly answered with the touch of a button, allowing you to consider which weapon is best used against your current opponents.
That’s not even getting into all the other nuances, like the serum gun that can temporarily turn enemies to your side, the bonus stages, the upgrade system that rewards exploration, the piercing rifle that lets you attack enemies that hide under cover, the surprisingly intuitive Q-Copter gadget or the stunning and rugged car chases set in a wide-open view of Istanbul.
It’s all so absurdly ambitious for an adaptation of a decades-old tie-in game, practically unexplored i Max Payne rolled into one, but even easier to control. It just begs for a new iteration or at the very least a proper re-release on modern systems – it emulates well and is playable on Xbox 360, but a gem like this really deserves better than living in obscurity.
For a game set during the height of the Cold War (and starring one of the most troubled Bonds in the franchise), it’s one of the most cutting-edge games in the series, at least mechanically. There’s nothing like it on the market right now, and that’s a real shame. Since Russia With Love solved a problem that its developers couldn’t have foreseen, it’s time for modern shooters to revisit this combat system.
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