Multiplayer
In the multiplayer mode of Nightfire players can play in many different levels, including Fort Knox, from Goldfinger, Atlantis and the sub docking pen from The Spy Who Loved Me, and many Nightfire-related levels, including Drake's castle, Drake's underwater base, and Drake's secret missile silo. Other levels include Skyrail and Ravine. The player may choose to play against AI bots with customizable reaction time, speed, and health. The number of usable bots vary in the console version. In the GameCube and Xbox version, up to six bots may be used. In the PlayStation 2 version, up to four bots may be used and up to four humans can play. In the PC version, up to 12 bots may be used. The PC version also has an online multiplayer mode.
Some medals obtained will unlock new characters. Notable characters included from previous James Bond films include Francisco Scaramanga and Nick Nack from The Man with the Golden Gun, May Day and Max Zorin from A View to a Kill, Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, Elektra King and Renard from The World Is Not Enough, Auric Goldfinger and Oddjob from Goldfinger, and Baron Samedi from Live and Let Die. Players can customize multiplayer settings before playing. However, one disadvantage to this is that the game will not save the alterations players make to the multiplayer mode.
Plot
In Paris, James Bond (voiced by Maxwell Caulfield with the likeness of Pierce Brosnan) helps French Intelligence operative Dominique Paradis evade a gang chase while chasing a truck with a stolen nuclear weapon, before continuing in his Aston Martin V12 Vanquish. After preventing the truck from blowing up the Eiffel Tower, Dominique and Bond celebrate New Year's Eve.
The UK Government sends Bond undercover to a party at industrialist Raphael Drake's Austrian castle. M (voiced by Samantha Eggar) believes that the party is a cover for the exchange of a missile guidance chip between Drake and Alexander Mayhew—who manages the Japanese branch of Drake's company, Phoenix International—had stolen the chip from the United States. Phoenix is believed to be a front for weapon smuggling. M gives Bond the instruction for him to rendezvous with CIA agent Zoe Nightshade and Dominique, who is posing as Drake's mistress. While Zoe distracts the guards, Bond makes his way to the exchange and steals the chip. Bond and Zoe attempt to escape via cable car, when Drake's bodyguard, Rook, attacks the cable car with a rocket-launching helicopter. Bond shoots down the attacking helicopter using rockets found in the cable car. Bond and Zoe then escape Drake's forces in an armored snowmobile before continuing in Bond's car. They rendezvous with Q (voiced by Gregg Berger), who evacuates them from Austria to safety.
After the breach, Drake threatens to kill Mayhew, should the operation fail. Mayhew contacts MI6, saying he will provide vital information if Bond comes to his rescue. At his Japanese estate, Mayhew is attacked by Drake's men, consisting of Japanese thugs before hiding in an underground bunker. Bond fights his way through the estate and manages to obtain a file from Mayhew's safe. As they are prepared to make an escape from the estate, Mayhew is killed by a ninja. The file leads Bond to Mayhew's office at the Phoenix Building in Tokyo.
Bond is able to infiltrate the building when the security guards are changing shifts, and secures official NightFire documents. He is then attacked by Drake's men before Dominique provides a distraction, which allows Bond to escape via parachute off the roof of the building.
The NightFire documents lead Bond to a nuclear power plant being decommissioned by Phoenix International. Bond retrieves evidence of Drake's activities and escapes. However, he is then double-crossed and captured by Kiko, Mayhew's former bodyguard, and turned over to Drake. On the top of the Phoenix building, Drake decides to kill Bond, and reveals that he has unmasked Dominique as a spy with the hidden camera in the stairwell, which showed her helping Bond to escape. Dominique is then kicked to her death from the top of the tower by Kiko, but Bond escapes to ground level before being saved by Australian Intelligence agent Alura McCall, who drives him away from the building.
M sends Bond and Alura to Drake's private island in the South Pacific, where Drake has set up a jamming signal. The pair infiltrate the island and eliminate Drake's defences. M makes Bond aware of the UN, EU, and NATO forces arriving on the island to dismantle remaining enemy combatants. After killing Rook in a shootout, Bond makes his way to Drake's underground silo, fighting Kiko before entering one of three space shuttles intending to capture the Space Defense Platform. Kiko is incinerated in the blast pit when Bond's space shuttle launches. Bond reaches the U.S. Space Defense Platform, where Drake is. He successfully sends all eight missiles off course, saving millions of lives, and causes Drake's laser weapon to malfunction, leading to a huge explosion. Finally, Bond kills Drake. As the station goes up in flames, Bond blasts from an escape pod and returns to Earth, where M informs him that astronomers from around the globe are reporting "unexpected meteor showers" (which is actually the debris of the now-destroyed Space Defense Platform). Bond celebrates with Alura before setting the auto-pilot on the Vanquish so he and Alura can have a romantic evening.
