From Russia With Love

From Russia With Love Multiplayer Hands-On

We've seen plenty of the single-player components of the soon-to-be-released From Russia With Love. But since GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64, each new Bond game has had players asking one question above all others: "How's the multiplayer?" We decided to find out the answer to that question with a hands-on preview of the multiplayer component of the new game. Online play wasn't available just yet, so we went back to the series' roots for some good old-fashioned split-screen battles.

From Russia With Love supports split-screen matches for up to four players on each of the consoles (obviously requiring a multitap for the PlayStation 2 version). Right off the bat, you're given two options, play now or survival royale. The former lets you set up a match to your specifications. You can choose your level, game type, victory conditions, and weapon sets, and decide whether you want radar and gadgets on or off.

Survival royale is the best choice for tournament-style play, or if you and your friends want to have an uninterrupted marathon gaming session. Survival royale is basically several games played in succession, with the person with the highest score at the end being the winner. You can set it up so each match is exactly the same, or you can randomize the matches to keep things interesting.

While playing in survival royale mode, players earn credits based on how they perform during each match, and there are also credit multipliers to pick up. These credits are used to buy upgrades between rounds. Upgrades fall into four categories: offense, defense, tech, and inventory. Offensive upgrades include armor piercing ammo, an extra clip, rapid fire, and an endless clip. Defensive upgrades include advanced armor, stealth kits, and regenerating armor. In the tech department, you can get tech skills, and tech expertise, which both increase your speed at activating traps. A weapon stash upgrade is also available, which makes you spawn with the weapons you had when you were disabled.

You can also purchase a lucky charm, which increases your chances of getting good power-ups. Inventory upgrades include various weapons, which, once purchased, you'll automatically spawn with. Each upgrade costs a certain number of credits, and if you don't have enough you can save them up over several rounds so you can buy the more powerful upgrades later on. For instance, if you want to spawn with a platinum gun every time, you'll have to save up 50 credits. That takes a little while, since you'll usually get fewer than 20 credits each match. By default, the winner of each round will get the most credits, but you can reverse that so the loser gets more credits, or you can turn off upgrades entirely.

Overall, it seems like there could be some fun to be had with multiplayer in From Russia With Love. There are some balance issues due to the overpowered melee attacks and the lock-on aiming, but things like fixed traps and interactive environments add a nice bit of variety to the gameplay. We were also intrigued by the survival royale mode, which seems as though it could be a lot of fun for long multiplayer gaming sessions. From Russia With Love ships next week, so be sure to check back here for our full review soon.