How to play James Bond 007 online
- Move forward / ease back: right and left arrow keys
- Jump: up arrow; dive: down arrow
- Fire: Space bar. Shots alternate between a bomb lobbed downward and a shot fired upward at a fixed angle.
- Choose Novice or Agent level: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
The screen scrolls from left to right as you push forward. Pushing up makes the vehicle leap into the air, and gravity brings it back down. Each press of the fire button releases the next weapon in turn: first a bomb that drops towards the bottom of the screen, then an angled shot towards the top. Learning which one comes next is a big part of the game. You start with five vehicles, and finishing a mission carries the ones you have left over to the next.
The 2600 manual describes three missions:
- Diamonds Are Forever: cross a desert at night, avoiding craters and attacks from satellites. Shoot diamonds to light up an oil rig, then land on its helipad while helicopters and frogmen try to stop you.
- Moonraker: from a lake, destroy three spinning satellites while space shuttles, submarines and torpedoes attack.
- The Spy Who Loved Me: bomb Stromberg’s undersea laboratory, then pick up the capsule carrying agent Anya Amasova before it drifts away.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Diamond | 50 |
| Torpedo, rocket, fire bomb or poison bomb | 100 |
| Frogman, space shuttle or submarine | 200 |
| Spinning satellite | 500 |
| Completing a mission | 5,000 |
At the end you get a rating, from 006 on Novice up to 007 on Agent.
Tips
- Count your shots. Because bombs and upward shots alternate, fire a spare shot if the wrong weapon is next before a target arrives.
- Don’t rush forward. The screen only scrolls as you push right, so easing back with the left arrow buys you time to deal with what is ahead.
- Remember the mission goal. Shooting everything scores points, but a mission ends only when you complete its task, such as landing on the oil rig.
- Start on Novice. The game is hard, and Novice lets you learn the missions first.
The story behind James Bond 007
The game had a troubled start. Parker Brothers first announced a Bond game in 1982, but an early demo by Charlie Heath, based on the end of Moonraker, did not impress the company, and no copy of it survives. A version tied to the 1983 film Octopussy was then given to Western Technologies, which never finished it. Parker Brothers finally hired On-Time Software to build a new game from scratch, and that became the version released in 1984.
It also came out for the Atari 5200, the Atari 8-bit computers, the ColecoVision and the Commodore 64, and in Japan for Sega’s SG-1000. Reviewers liked the variety of missions and weapons but found the game frustratingly hard.
Similar games to play next
- Moon Patrol – another scrolling vehicle that jumps craters and shoots up and ahead
- Spy Hunter – a spy car that also turns into a boat
- Super Cobra – a hard scrolling shooter from Parker Brothers
- Seaquest – underwater shooting and rescues