Shadows in love. Voices inside.
Somewhere to start becoming one.
Somewhere to start becoming one.
The One With… all the driving-themed missions.
007 Racing is a 2000 video game based on the James Bond franchise, developed by British studio Eutechnyx and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation.
One of the Bond games developed in The '90s which isn't based on any pre-existing work, 007 Racing follows an original plotline.
After an intense escape from the Eastern European border, where Bond extracts Cherise Litte, the kidnapped daughter of billionaire Dr. Hammond Litte, Bond returns to MI6 to be informed of his next mission; a NATO freighter filled with high-tech weaponry and a state-of-the-art GPS system has been hijacked, the shipment stolen and ready to be auctioned off to international terrorists. Sent to rendezvous with his CIA ally Jack Wade, Bond must uncover the missing weapons in multiple driving-based missions.
Before anybody asks, no, you can't drive an invisible car. This game came out two years before Die Another Day.
Preceded by The World Is Not Enough and followed by Agent Under Fire.
Mr. Bond has a License to Drive.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: Every now and then, Bond can collect a foldable shield that covers the back of his vehicles (similar to the shield seen in Thunderball); when activated, this shield serves as an extra life bar.
- Bottomless Magazines: The twin-machine guns, should Bond be given access, stores what appears to be infinite rounds of ammunition. Sure, the player sees the ammunition meter going down, but its depletion goes so slowly it's impossible to run dry of ammunition. Averted for the rest of his supplies, however.
- The Bus Came Back: Multiple vehicles from the Bond franchise made a comeback in this game, including the Aston Martin DB5, the Lotus Esprit, Aston Martin V8 Vantage, and the gadget-laden BMW. Doubles as a Continuity Nod, the V8's laser-equipped side-wheels and the Lotus Esprit's ability to convert into a submarine turns up as key features necessary to complete the game.
- Car Fu: Goes without saying in a Bond-themed video game filled with driving missions. The player as Bond can pull off some crazy stunts in the New York and Lousiana chase missions.
- Construction Vehicle Rampage: The mission in Mexico, in a military compound where Bond must do battle against two massive excavators (some five times larger than his Aston Martin). These giant construction vehicles are vulnerable only from their sides, and Bond must figure a way to destroy them using the limited amount of missiles he have access.
- Continuity Nod: The game throws a few of these to the franchise:
- Cherise, wearing a white bikini in a cutscene, asks Bond "Are you looking for something, or just looking?"
- The Aston Martin V8 has laser-cutters attached to it's sides for disabling tires, exactly the same way as seen in The Living Daylights.
- Bond versus Xenia Onatopp on a car chase, although this one's more of a Call-Forward if the game is assumed to be set before GoldenEye.
- Cool Car: It's a Bond video game that brings out most of the cool vehicles Bond had driven throughout the franchise's then-38-year run.
- David Versus Goliath: Whenever Bond takes on tanks in his car. And also the mission in Lousiana where Bond pursues the henchman, Whisper, who is on a heavy vehicle which Bond must disable using the laser-equipped Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
- Forklift Fu: The third mission has Bond battling heavily-armored forklifts which repeatedly attacks Bond by ramming his side.
- Hidden Villain: Dr. Hammond Litte, father of Cherise Litte, who is behind the hijacking of a NATO freighter filled with weapons. Bond's rescue of Cherise in the first mission is simply a decoy set up by Dr. Litte to throw MI6 off while he carried out his plans.
- Homing Projectile: The Stinger Missiles, where upon selection will have a radar screen to home in on targets. Usually used to take down airborne enemies like helicopters, or to destroy a pair of guard towers.
- Mook Carryover: Jaws and Xenia Onatopp shows up as bosses in two levels as minions of Dr. Hammond Litte, trying to stop Bond from uncovering the villains' plot.
- Police Are Useless: The NYPD shows up in the two New York missions on 007 difficulty, and they are somewhere between annoying to simply obtrusive. They spend the entire level trying to detain Bond while Bond is either trying to jettison a bomb in his car, or attempting to hack the network four limousines carrying vital information to uncover a terrorist plot. Worse of all, since both missions have Bond in civilian mode, he's not allowed access to his arsenal of weapons.
- Prequel: Although not directly stated, the game is implied to be one given the appearance of Xenia Onatopp (considering she died in Brosnan's first film, GoldenEye, which came out five years before the game) and the presence of Q still in service to MI6, given how he had explicitly retired in The World Is Not Enough. Also causes a bit of Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole, considering Bond doesn't seem to recognize Xenia in GoldenEye, plus the BMW Z8 from The World Is Not Enough (coming out after GoldenEye's events) showing up...
- Run for the Border: The first mission has Bond extracting the prisoner, Cherise Litte, from a military outpost in Eastern Europe before making a dash for the border.
- Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The third mission begins with Bond driving into a wide open area filled with spare missiles, shields, med-kits, and various power-ups to stock up in his vehicle... because the immediate following area is an army camp full of enemy soldiers, turrets, and two hard-to-destroy excavators which can deal massive damage to Bond.
- Slippery Skid: The Oil Slick feature from The Spy Who Loved Me returns, and could be used in various chase-themed missions to slow down pursuing enemies by coating the road behind Bond with a layer of slippery crude oil.
- Tank Goodness: Tanks are a recurring enemy in military-themed missions, usually serving as Giant Mook-type enemies requiring four missiles to destroy. They're ridiculously slow however and can be avoided just by speeding past.
- Timed Mission: Most missions comes with a timer that leads to a Game Over if it runs out. It gets really frustrating in the two New York levels, where Bond must race against time to respectively dispose a Time Bomb hidden in his vehicle and pursue four limousines containing vital information to hack in their systems.
- Underwater Base: The game's second-to-last level has Bond infiltrating Dr. Litte's base under the Baltic Sea in the Lotus Esprit to uncover the villain's final plan, and then destroy the base. It ends with Bond driving the Lotus into the water, at which point (much like the movie it debuts in) the Lotus morphs into a submarine.
- Why Am I Ticking?: The second mission (appropriately titled "Give Me a Break!"), where Bond arrives in New York, only to discover his BMW has been rigged with a Time Bomb, and also twelve similar bombs have been located throughout New York. The entire mission involves Bond driving like crazy around New York (avoiding the NYPD in 007 difficulty) trying to collect all twelve detonators, and then jettisoning the BMW into the Hudson River where the bomb goes off without hurting anyone.
