Game 1: 007: The World is Not Enough

Starting at the top of the list of Gameboy games, I assumed I'd get some weird "1,300 in one" sort of game. Unfortunately, I got a James Bond game instead. I'm not a huge fan of the Bondster. I've seen and kind of liked the new ones with Daniel Craig, but I remember explicitly hating the ones with Pierce Brosnan even as a child. And I've never even played Goldeneye, so there's that.

James Bond laying on his back in the
eye of a hurricane, shooting at God

But here we are playing a Game Boy version of an N64 game that seems to be best known as "not Goldeneye." Starring Pierce "The Pixel" Brosnan. Great. At least it's in color.

The first thing I noticed is that the music is only playing out of one speaker. At first I thought my headphones were busted again, but it turns out this is a design decision, if you can call it that. Apparently they thought it was important that all the music is in my right ear, while all the sound effects are in my left. This is instantly irritating, especially considering that every sound effect is awful and the music is squealy and makes me want to die.


That's okay though because the rest of the game is just as irritating. I'm given a mission by M, which I accidentally skip because apparently the A button is the "skip everything important" button. Then, I have a conversation with someone named "Prance" or "Priere" or something, which consists of aggressively incomplete sentences. Was the dialogue in the movie this bad?

Then, I discovered that JaBo's method of interacting with the world is to punch it.

Punch the wall

Punch the water cooler

Punch the computer

After punching my way into an elevator and punching the buttons until I was on the 4th floor, I was assaulted by an unarmed guard who proceeded to beat me half to death. Despite punching being the primary action of the game, it is intensely awkward to actually use. You know how in Castlevania there's that delay between hitting the button and the whip actually going forward? It's like that, except instead of a whip you might as well have a foam finger, and instead of Simon Belmont swinging it, it's wielded by a drunken brawler on his last legs.

Punch the air

Ugh.

After figuring out the timing of "punching guys to death" I beat up some more green dudes and proceeded to head back down to the first floor via the emergency stairs. Whoever designed this building must have intended everyone to die in a fire, because each staircase only goes down one floor.You then have to go around the maze of walls and filing cabinets to get to the next staircase. OSHA would have a field day with that.

Anyway, I eventually found a gun, which made me think maybe, just maybe, the awkwardness was over. Hahahahahah no what was I thinking of course it's not.

gun gun gun gun gun gungungungungung

The gun shooting animation is, if anything, longer than the punching animation. JaBles puts his gun away after every single shot, and the bullets travel only slightly faster than the characters walk. Which is very slow. On top of that, it takes the same amount of shots to kill someone as it would punching them to death. I'll stick with my fists, thank you.

After getting all the way back to the first floor, I discovered that the door was locked. 

Oh, you're one of those games.

After punching it a whole bunch I decided there must be a better way. A key perhaps? Then I shot the door about 15 times just to make sure.

I started to backtrack. And backtrack. And backtrack. Aaaand...you guessed it, the key was on the very top floor, where I started, in a hidden garden populated by patrolling guards.

Obviously. 

So after going all the way up, then all the way down again, I unlocked the door...and was immediately punched in the stomach. To death.

Nope, not gonna happen, I am not restarting this. This game is just awful. No no no no no.

Should be a severed fist.

What a way to start, huh? Terrible licensed game based on another game based on a movie that sucked.

Ah well, that's life, sometimes you get gold and sometimes you get a handful of processed lard...which is still more effective than the gun.