James Bond 007: Nightfire on the Game Boy Advance was developed by JV Games and published by Electronic Arts in 2003 (in North America), and 2004 (in Europe). It is a single-player only first-person shooter, in which you play as the fictional British spy, James Bond.

The story follows Bond as he infiltrates the base of a powerful industrialist, who – it is revealed – is planning to take over the world by hijacking a defence satellite owned by the United States.

Each level has its own individual objectives. These are shown on-screen when a task begins, and if you forget what you’re supposed to do during a mission, you can press Start to review them.

Controlling Bond is simple FPS stuff, with the shoulder buttons allowing you to sidestep, and the ‘A’ button firing your gun. The ‘B’ button, however, is a multipurpose action button that allows you to do different things. Holding down ‘B’ while pushing up on the d-pad makes Bond jump. Holding ‘B’ and pressing down makes Bond crouch, and move stealthily (‘B’ and up is then required to make him stand up again). Holding ‘B’ and pressing L and R cycles through Bond‘s weapons and gadgets. Pressing Select reloads the current weapon.

You can pick up and use the weapons of defeated enemies, which is good because it adds variety to the game. You can also pick up armour plating, which replenishes your health.

Of course, you also have a variety of tech gadgets available, like a laser watch; a keychain stun gun; a dart gun pen, and a grapple hook cellphone, and the game requires that you use these at certain points to progress (the laser watch, for example, can open locked doors, if you zap the locking mechanism, and the stun gun can take down enemies quietly, rather than firing a gun and alerting everyone nearby). Using these gadgets at certain points in the game will award you with a ‘Bond Bonus‘, which will boost your points total at the end of a level. You can also find special ‘007‘ tokens that are hidden in some levels, and these will unlock items that you can use in the game, like the golden gun, from The Man With The Golden Gun.

The 3D graphics in Nightfire are chunky and simple, but they work well enough and have fairly atmospheric lighting. Unlike most other first-person shooters on the Game Boy Advance, you can actually look up and down in this game. Holding the L and R buttons simultaneously allows you to do that, and at times precise aiming is required to use either the grapple hook, or the sniper rifle.

There’s plenty of digitised music and speech from the James Bond films, although Nightfire is not based on a film itself.

In terms of minus points: climbing stairs is a ball ache, and it’s a pity there’s no multiplayer (but not the end of the world). The storyline and cut scenes are also not very good, to be honest, but the gameplay itself is absorbing, interesting and challenging.

Compared to other first-person shooters on the GBA, Nightfire is relatively varied, and you’re given plenty of guns and gadgets to mess around with, which should please most Bond fans – even if the storyline won’t. Being able to look up and down is a plus point, and using the sniper rifle on distant targets is very satisfying. Overall, James Bond 007: Nightfire is a pretty good game, in spite of its faults.

More: James Bond 007: Nightfire on Wikipedia