EA's Bond series hit its peak last year with Everything or Nothing. But the departure of Pierce Brosnan left the series in turmoil. How could EA possibly top itself without the cooperation of MI6's finest agent? Simple: they went back in time to get the best Bond of all. My apologies to those hordes of George Lazenby fans out there, but I'm talking about Sean Connery.
Sir Sean lends his voice and likeness to the game, and once you get used to old Connery's voice coming out of young Connery's mouth, it's pretty cool. Unfortunately, the rest of the game is fairly drab. The environments are bland, and a shocking lack of difficulty adds little excitement. The biggest problem is that the source material doesn't offer any truly engaging action sequences, just a lot of third-person running and gunning. A Moonraker-inspired game would have offered more thrills, and that's just scary.
TONY HAWK'S AMERICAN WASTELAND (T) (3.5 stars)
Activision
PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube
Somewhere along the way, Tony Hawk games became more about vandalism than skating. American Wasteland adds a cohesive story to justify the carnage, but since the story mode forces us to earn back tricks we've known and used for years, it occasionally feels as irritating as a handrail in the crotch.
WITHOUT WARNING (M) (2 stars)
Capcom
PlayStation 2, Xbox
This game endeavors to be a 12-hour version of TV's 24. You'd think that might make it only half as good, but it's actually worse. The presence of multiple characters just means you'll play the same dull sequences from different perspectives. Consider yourself warned.
DRAGON BALL Z: BUDOKAI TENKAICHI (T) (3.5 stars)
Atari
PlayStation 2
Since no fighting game arena is large enough to host Dragon Ball Z's Saiyan combat style, Tenkaichi deviates from the Budokai formula and plays more like a free-roaming adventure game. The result is a series of thrilling fights, except the occasional ones you'll have with the camera.
NBA 06 (E) (2.5 stars)
Sony Computer Entertainment
PlayStation 2
It's admirable that a sports-game developer actually dared to take a year off from its annual releases to insert some originality into its franchise. So it's unfortunate that NBA 06's poorly-implemented, RPG-like Life Mode makes you wish it had a suicide option.
Matthew Scott Hunter has been known to mumble, "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start" in his sleep. E-mail him at
[email protected].