007: EVERYTHING or NOTHING, Publisher: Electronic Arts, Format: PS2, GameCube, Xbox, Price varies. On sale now: THE DIFFERENCES between movies and games are now so subtle that it's sometimes hard to tell the difference.

A game like Metal Gear Solid has more entertainment value in its first couple of minutes than shabby (and expensive) dross like The Core, Waterworld or Pearl Harbour.

Maybe that's why Electronic Arts is advertising 007: Everything or Nothing as: "The only Bond movie you'll see this year" blurring the division between cinema and interactive entertainment even more.

Heck, the all-star cast wouldn't disgrace the cast list of any Bond film.

Among the talent lending their voices to the game are Pierce Brosnan, Dame Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, John Cleese, Heidi Klum and Richard "Jaws" Kiel. Singer Mya performs the game's theme tune and appears as an NSA agent.

In another marketing coup, Electronic Arts has managed to secure the actors' permission to use their likenesses, so Bond now resembles Brosnan rather than a clean-cut non-entity.

It starts just like a Bond movie, too. Seconds after the MGM lion has roared, Brosnan walks on as the famous gun barrel follows him across screen and John Barry's 007 theme pounds away in the background.

The pre-credits sequence, a pre-requisite for every Bond movie since From Russia With Love, also acts as the training level.

Bond has to prevent a terrorist buying a nuclear briefcase somewhere in Eastern Europe. In doing so, he has to take on a small army of terrorists, a couple of tanks and a Harrier jump jet (does this sound like the pre-credits sequence of Tomorrow Never Dies to you?) - giving players plenty of opportunity to use the "take cover" mode and perfect their aim.

Adding to the interactive movie feel, the original script has been penned by Bruce Feirstein, a veteran screenwriter for the 007 film series.

Dafoe is Nikolai Diavolo - an ex-KGB agent and former employee of megalomaniac Max Zorin (remember him from A View To A Kill?) who plans to use nano-technology to take over the world (don't they all?).

To give the game a more cinematic feel, EA has taken the decision to make Everything or Nothing a third person action-adventure a la Metal Gear.

The emphasis is on stealth, sneaking about and only firing when fired upon. Pressing the L1 button locks Bond's weapon on to the nearest bad guy. You can fine-tune the target reticule with the gamepad's analog stick. Miss first time and enemies will take cover, sticking their heads out from time to time so they can draw a bead on your character.

When Bond is hiding, pressing a button makes him duck out of cover and fire off a couple of shots before diving back behind whatever he happens to be using to protect himself.

As you'd expect, 007 is a crack shot and even novices will gain satisfaction from the high percentage of perfect kills they can achieve.

At close quarters Bond will fall back on some good old-fashioned fisticuffs to do his talking. He also has a device for climbing the sides of buildings.

No Bond movie would be complete without a decent car chase and Everything or Nothing is no exception. Most of the driving missions set Bond a goal and leave it to you as to how he gets there. There's a showroom full of equipment to choose from, including a motorcycle fitted with assorted gadgetry.

Fans will revel in the new "Bond moment" Easter eggs that reward exploration and quick-thinking with a classic piece of 007. Find them all and you get a gold rating at the end of your latest mission.

You can even play the game with a mate, co-operating with each other to nail the baddies. The PlayStation 2 version also includes an on-line play element. Other consoles get a multi-player split-screen game.

Of course, for many gamers nothing will ever top Goldeneye for great Bond action on a console. Rare's first person shoot 'em up remains terrific fun almost a decade after it was conceived for the N64, but time has moved on.

By eschewing the first person perspective for this game, EA has neatly avoided tedious comparisons. Everything or Nothing is a fantastic adventure in its own right and the nearest thing yet to capturing the true spirit of the Bond movies.

This isn't the first EA Bond game. It is, however, comfortably the best 128-bit Bond adventure to date.