Student Classic: 'James Bond 007: Nightfire'

My assignment title this month was "Student Classic" and the Xbox/Gamecube/PS2 game James Bond 007: Nightfire is just that.

It was released in 2002 on the back of the Bond film Die Another Day, which according to the unwritten rules of video game quality means it should be terrible.

Nightfire is difficult to write off in this manner not because it's great (it's not), but because it is so much fun to play with other people.

Nightfire is a first person shooter that doesn't really do anything innovative or clever with a genre that has always been plagued by mediocrity.

The single player experience is fairly dull but thankfully it shouldn't bore you for more than a few hours before you have completed it.

What makes up for all of this is the multiplayer mode which with four people playing at once is some of the most fun you can have offline with a games console.

There are eight different maps available to play on, not a huge amount and there are only a handful of those that can be played repeatedly but the 12 different game types compensate for this.

A nerdier equivalent to the pub

Marcus Moore

The game types on offer include the standard deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag variants along with some interesting Bond specific ones like "Goldeneye Strike" where you fight to secure the keys to an airborne super weapon and then use it to annihilate the opposing team.

Players are given the option to add up to six AI players to any match that you play, which is a nice touch.

You can also fiddle with their intelligence to make them as lethal or as stupid as you like, although this doesn't normally change the fact that their prime directive is to get within two metres of you and fire wildly to the left and right of your head.

As long as you have people with you though none of this should be a problem, you'll be having far too much fun to notice.

Readers I implore you, dig out your ageing Xbox or Gamecube and plug in a few of those ridiculously large unofficial controllers, pick up a copy of Nightfire from a second hand bin and find some mates to play it with.

You have here the formula for a nerdier equivalent to the pub but you can always add beer if this worries you.