007 Racing's developer, Eutechnyx, puts the following tag line underneath their logo: "Advanced gaming science." If 007 Racing is any indication of this pretentious moniker, than it's wrong on all counts. There's nothing "advanced" about 007 Racing. There's no "gaming" to be had here. And it's certainly not "scientific,"—that is unless you're planning on using this game in a study of how human behavior is affected by wasting precious time and money on sorry excuses for entertainment.
007 Racing looks bad, sounds bad and plays even worse. However, the real reason for this game's failure is much more simple. While you're playing, it never for one second feels like you're in James Bond's world. It doesn't matter that there are movies in between the action and voice overs during gameplay. That's all cosmetic stuff that was thrown in after the fact. That crap has nothing to do with how the game plays. GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64 remains the best James Bond game ever made because while you play it, you feel like James Bond. It isn't because of any fancy full-motion video or voice work. It's how the game plays. In 007 Racing, I never felt like James Bond. Instead, I felt tired and bored out of my skull because I wasn't having any fun not being James Bond.
As Dale mentions in his review, the scenarios make absolutely no sense whatsoever. How's this for fun? Drive around a city, run over some floating microchip icons without stopping, and then drive your car into the harbor. Or what about this one? Drive your car into a makeshift demolition derby arena and do battle with armored forklifts while a bunch of blue, blocky, smudgy people shoot at you. What the hell is "James Bond" about that? Even when you clear one of these ridiculously lame levels there's no satisfaction in it. The game shows you a complete replay as if it's supposed to be some big accomplishment when in fact the game is just embarrassing itself by showing us more of its grainy, choppy visuals. This game gets half-a-point because I almost got a little excited when the computer-generated Bond girls talked to me. It gets another half-a-point because I don't have to play it anymore. 007 Racing is—wait a second—why am I still writing about this game when I could right now be taking it back to the video store? Sorry, I've got to go.
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- Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer - April 29, 2010
