Agent Under Fire videogame
Specs:
Title: Agent Under Fire
Genre: first-person shooter video game
Series: James Bond video games
Missions: "Bad Diplomacy", "The Night of the Jackal", "Streets of Bucharest".
Director/ Developer(s): EA Redwood Shores
Writers: EA games
Distributor(S): MGM Interactive, EA Games
Publishers: Electronic Arts
Release date: PlayStation 2 -NA: November 13, 2001 & EU: November 30, 2001; GameCube & Xbox NA: March 13, 2002 (GC) & NA: March 26, 2002 (Xbox) & EU: June 14, 2002
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Country: Romania
Characters: Agent 007, Zoe Nightshade, James Bond, Nigel Bloch, R, Reginald Griffin, Adrian Malprave, Dr. Natalya Damescu, Carla the Jackal
Setting: Hong Kong, Bucharest, Malprave Industries - Switzerland, South China Sea, Mediterranean.
Synopsis:
Zoe Nightshade (CIA agent) is captured as a mole inside Identicon Corporation (botanical research firm, dealing also with weapon smuggling). James Bond - Agent 007 - infiltrates the facility, rescues her and retrieves an important case. Nigel Bloch (Identicon CEO) has troops chasing them in Hong Kong. Someone interferes and Zoe gets killed in a rocket attack, and the package also disappears, but Bond recaptures it. In that case there were nine blood samples of world leaders, including the British diplomat (Reginald Griffin), who was serving in the British embassy in Bucharest. Agent 007 finds the man dead and travels to Switzerland thanks to the information coming from Nigel Bloch, found on Griffin's computer. The message contained clues to a Dr. Natalya Damescu (Malprave employee) who was working in the embassy. Going back to Bucharest, Bond fights the terrorists who killed Zoe and raids the embassy, running into Damescu. Then the action takes an unexpected turn regarding a secret project named Poseidon!
Personal view:
The three missions set in Romania, "Bad Diplomacy", "The Night of the Jackal" and "Streets of Bucharest" denote a very corrupt, and dangerous place even for the British Embassy. The architecture in Bucharest is the only positive thing presented there. Instability, corruption and promiscuous behavior are the concepts emphasized regarding Romania, a very dangerous place, especially for an embassy in which terrorists and agents can easily infiltrate, a place where bad diplomacy happens.
"Bad Diplomacy" depicts Agent 007 infiltrating the embassy where he kills the soldiers. It is no-sweat kind of mission because there is no one else but a few scattered military men. In one of the rooms, Bond finds a woman (shown in a very sexualized manner) wearing a nightgown acting homey despite the foreign agent who just killed her coworkers.
"The Night of the Jackal" displays Dr. Natalya Damescu, taking cover in the British Embassy to protect the location of a chip in which "Poseidon" project is storred. The architecture shown is highly contrasting to the one in Switzerland or Hong Kong. The art developers inserted the well-known cubic stones present on the streets of Bucharest. After Bond infiltrates the embassy, he watches Damescu taking a shower, again presented in a very objectifying manner, but it turns out it was just her hologram. Towards the end, Agent 007 rescues the doctor, the Romanian doctor who, typically wears a very sexy black outfit with a generous cleavage.
"Streets of Bucharest" has Bond driving in a vintage car around the empty city. The most important thing to notice here is again, architectural design. It looks like a medieval city although it tries to be faithful to the surroundings (Cotroceni, Gara de Nord, Lipscani). Contrasting reality, it looks very structured compared to the inconsistencies in the architectural style of Bucharest. Bond also captures a tank with a "funny" but familiar red star on it and destroys at ease everything standing in its way in order to capture the chip stolen by his enemies.
