Publisher: Activision
Developer: Eurocom
MSRP: $49.99
by: Katrina "Shadokat Regn" Pawlowski
To many gamers, Goldeneye was a staple of Nintendo64 gaming in their youth. In recent years there has been a general outcry to bring back this classic in some form for gamers to re-experience. Nintendo came around with a re-envisioned version of the Goldeneye game for a new generation. A lot has changed, including the Bond character (transforming from Pierce Brosnan to Daniel Craig due to some legal issues), the level design, the writing, and the music.
As a gamer who enjoyed many hours of the Goldeneye ‘64, the changes were obvious - but not all of them are bad. Instead of the single stick shooting style of the Nintendo “claw” controller, you have a variety of tools at your disposal including the Gamecube controller, Wii-Zapper, or wii remote. All of these forms give you a much more controlled approach to the first person shooter style. In addition, you’re given a lot of stealth options (like sneaking through vents, or close quarter combat stealth kills on enemies) that were not available in the days of yore.
Changing the level design makes sense to create a lot more opportunities to sneak and utilize the environment during shoot-outs. Hiding behind barrels or walls, crouching to stay out of sight but still being able to aim over obstacles is a huge improvement in gameplay.
One of the things that did bother me was the reordering of events; such as discovering the Tiger helicopter in the first level, or knowing that General Ourumov is an uber-badguy from the first briefing took a lot of the suspense and discovery out of the story. Even from a first timer point of view I can imagine this was an odd progression through a double agents story.
Gameplay online I’ve heard works very well, but if your Wii is allergic to the Wi-fi connection for seemingly no reason, you can’t really discover that for yourself. I blame the Wii, not the game.
Overall I’d say the changes in gameplay were for the best, but the removal of the quirky Goldeneye music and addition of “realistic” environments kill a bit of the charm that was Goldeneye64. Gamers as a whole should enjoy this title quite a bit, but nostalgics: don’t be fooled into thinking you’ll be transported back to the “good ole’ days” by this - it’s great, but it’s different.
Score: 