"Mr. Bond, still trying to write a happy ending? Too bad you're missing the key part of the story."
— Elliot Carver
The one where you can gun down a Rupert Murdoch Expy.
Tomorrow Never Dies is the video game adaptation of the 1997 James Bond film of the same name. It was developed by Black Ops Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation in 1999.
Like GoldenEye, it's a Pragmatic Adaptation that generally follows the plot of the movie. Unlike it though, it's a Third-Person Shooter with stealth elements and strictly single player.
Preceded by James Bond 007 and followed by The World Is Not Enough.
The Video Game contains examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion:
- The movie opens with Bond spying on a terrorist arms bazaar. The game reveals the backstory of Bond's mission; being sent to Russia to take down a satellite dish that is intercepting British surveillance, then escaping from Russian soldiers before making a quick getaway that leads him into the arms bazaar as seen in the movie.
- Additionally, the game provides an additional mission where Henry Gupta's mercenaries are making their way to the Swiss border, and Bond have to travel to Switzerland to stop them in a car chase.
- The Hokkaido level mentioned below, in the movie Bond doesn't even go to Japan.
- In the movie Bond and Wai Lin are intercepted by Carver's mooks in the South China Sea and taken to his Saigon offices; in the game however, Bond actually infiltrates the Saigon office himself, only to get captured in the process.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Dr. Kaufman in the movie gets tricked into stunning himself by Bond and was immediately killed. In the game, however, he is the first boss and takes several shots to take down, as well as being capable of throwing knives at Bond with deadly accuracy.
- Elliot Carver in the movie spends his last moments screaming for his life while the sea drill grinds him up. In the game he is capable of shooting back at Bond and puts up a fight.
- This happens to Action Girl Wai Lin, of all people; in the movie she's played by the impressive Michelle Yeoh who gets to kick plenty of ass, but in the game she gets to battle an army helicopter!
- A.K.A.-47: The Walther PPK and P99 in this game are known as the PK7 and PK9.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: For Marketplace, you get to play as Wai Lin instead of Bond for just this level.
- Artificial Stupidity: This glitch can help you a lot during the second boss battle against Satoshi Isagura; you confront him in a small bunker with large pillars in the middle, and Satoshi's secondary attack consists of him hurling poisonous gasbombs at you. You can actually trick him into throwing those bombs while standing too close to one of the pillars, where the bombs then hilariously blows up right in his face and damage him instead.
- Ascended Extra: There is a brief mention of a Japanese bio-terrorist named Satoshi Isagura in the beginning of the movie, being responsible for a nerve gas attack in Tokyo. In the game, he commits a second attack in Yokohama, and James Bond has to infiltrate his lair in Hokkaido and take him down.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: Armor serves as a second life bar. Bond does not grunt in pain if shot with it on.
- Bottomless Magazines: Your default PK7.
- Chase Scene:
- At the end of Outpost and the start of Ski Ridge, you are on skis trying to evade the Russian military and some terrorists.
- Convoy has you pursue and destroy the titular convoy in the 750iL.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The snipers you encounter in Outpost are not only much quicker than you when it comes to aiming but they can also fire their sniper rifles at the same speed as an assault rifle with the increased damage the rifle inflicts.
- Continuing is Painful: Lives are more like a finite resource in that there are only ten you can get in the whole game and any you lose cannot be replenished without restarting the level and not losing them.
- Cutscene Incompetence: During the Saigon office infiltration, after battling and defeating more than twenty mooks, Bond enters an office... where he gets knocked out from behind by a stray mook. In an unskippable cutscene.
- Demoted to Extra: Stamper in the video game doesn't even have any lines, and only debuts halfway through the final level as a boss. You simply defeat him and move on, he doesn't even come back for a Post-Final Boss confrontation unlike in the movie.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Stamper in the movie gets blown up, while Carver gets chewed by his own sea drill. In the game you simply gun them down.
- Flunky Boss: Dr. Kaufman, the military commander in Saigon, and Carver himself.
- Ground by Gears: The death animations of some enemies in Pressing Engagement has them fall into an active printing press below them when shot.
- Mythology Gag: In the end of the first level, as Bond makes a flip off a snowy cliff after a lengthy ski chase, he then proceeds to eject a Union Jack parachute as a quick getaway. Much like the opening scene of The Spy Who Loved Me.
- Only Six Faces: The nameless mooks you fight throughout the game. They ALL use the same character model, recycled again and again, the only difference being clothing or weapons used.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Bond delivers "I think your story's over, Elliot." to a dying Carver.
- Psycho Knife Nut: Dr. Kaufman, surprisingly. In the movie he's mentioned as being a expert in torture using knives; the game took this statement and runs with it, turning him into a knife-chucking badass.
- Railing Kill: In the first level, there are Russian soldiers stationed on top of towers which will fire at you from a distance. Shoot them down from ground level (preferably with the Sniper rifle) and they will fall over two hundred metres to their deaths.
- Replay Mode: You can rewatch all the briefings and FMV cinematics in the options menu.
- Scoring Points: At the end of every level, you will be scored based on your performance. Outpost and Ski Ridge have a style counter you can raise based on how many tricks you do during ski jumps.
- Sentry Gun: These will provide quite a lot of problems in the Saigon level.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Paris Carver doesn't die in the video game, in fact it is essential in the Hotel Atlantic level to get her out alive.
- Due to being Adapted Out and his role being reduced to The Ghost, Henry Gupta's fate is ambiguous in the game.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Loads and loads of it, including propane tanks, gas canisters, oil drums...
- Tap on the Head: A mook knocks out Bond via this method when Carver invites him over to a tour of his Hamburg facility.
- Timed Mission:
- Arms Bazaar has you locate the keys to the MiG and to pilot it out before the Tomahawk's missile hits the bazaar and detonates the MiG's nuclear warheads.
- Convoy features a chase sequence where you must destroy Gupta's convoy before they escape to the end of the map.
- Stealth Boat ends with Carver activating the boat's self-destruct sequence. You have to abort the launch sequence for his nuclear missile and escape.
- Title Drop: Elliot Carver's last words: "Tomorrow Never Dies!"
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: If you played the game without watching the movie, you're going to have a hard time trying to locate the secret decoder in the Hamburg printing plant level. It's located behind a hidden panel which can be revealed by pushing a shelf, just like in the movie.
- Two Shots from Behind the Bar: Mook bartenders in the Hotel Atlantic level. One of them tries to hold you at gunpoint with a pistol, and three others will join the fray. They also count as Unique Enemies though, showing up only in the bar area and nowhere else in the level.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: A move you and every other enemy can do in the game. Mostly just makes it easier for you to get shot while it upsetting your auto-aim when mooks and bosses do it.
- A Winner Is You: If you beat the game on Agent, you just get a screen telling you good job and that you can now watch all the FMVs (except for the ending montage you missed out on) while also telling you to try again on 007.
- Zero-Effort Boss: If you save at least 4 rounds in the Grenade Launcher for Elliot Carver, the Final Boss becomes a laughable piece of cake as Carver can be taken down in less than 5 seconds.note
