Ah, Goldeneye. The N64 classic that remains to this day as one of the top console FPS ever. It was just so fun. It didn’t play like a simulator going for semi-realism like modern FPS, it really felt like a video game. It was completely unrealistic, featured fun missions, exploding chairs and one of the best local multiplayer for any FPS (well, I will say that I prefer Perfect Dark in that regard, but Goldeneye is more memorable nonetheless). Heck, as far as licensed games go, it’s quite staggering seeing that a lot of people associate Goldeneye to the video game rather than the movie. It’s THAT good. Very few licensed games manage to get that sort of status.

When this was announced at E3, I instantly thought “Awesome, a new Goldeneye! Maybe this one isn’t gonna suck like Rogue Agent! They better not screw it up…”. And lo and behold, they screwed it up. Whoops.

So yeah…. read on and see why I didn’t like James Bond’s latest game!

Developer: Eurocom Entertainment Software
Publisher: Activision
Date of Release: November 2nd 2010
Platforms: Nintendo Wii

Genre: FPS
Rated T for Teen

What is good about this game
Story
Goldeneye, just like the movie or the N64 version, has a very nice story. It IS James Bond, so there’s lots of nonsense and completely unrealistic moments, and that’s why we like it. There’s good characters, nice set pieces, good action scenes, good plot twists, and overall James Bond badassness. I’m not gonna really talk about the story, since you really should either see the movie or play the N64 version though.

As to how well it follows the movie, it follows the story pretty much faithfully… from what I remember (I’ve only seen Goldeneye once, not too long after seeing Tomorrow Never Dies in the theaters). The story isn’t as interesting as in the movie, but it does go a bit more in depth than the N64 version from what I remember… I really need to rewatch Goldeneye.

As for the character changes… I prefer Brosnan over Craig, though that’s a matter of preference and I guess there was a good reason to change it. But I have no idea why they changed Natalya… she looked much better before, now she looks like a random NPC, I had no idea it was her until she finally named herself.
The one change I will complain about is the fact that Bond has no gadgets here, just a smartphone… quite random and not interesting.

A step forward in modern FPS gaming
While the game doesn’t do much to interest me, it DOES have one element that I think is a step forward in the crapfest that is modern FPS gaming (in single-player at least)… While most difficulty levels in the game include badly-done regenerating health, the “007 classic” mode does away with the difficulty-reducing gameplay mechanic of auto-regen health and instead gives you a health bar which never fills back up. You can pick up armor to protect your health, but there’s only a few of those and they’re far between. It has something very few modern FPS actually have: challenge.

Sure, there’s some problems with that mode. The game is still clearly designed as… well… Call of Duty, which isn’t really made to have a proper health bar, but I see a definitive improvement in regards to difficulty, since now you actually have to manage health, stay safe as much as possible, and try to be stealthy so that reinforcements won’t come in. Since you have a set amount of health, you’re never safe, and the low amount of armor items just add to the challenge. There are a bunch of checkpoints, BUT when you die you get back to the checkpoint with the amount of  health that you had when you reached the checkpoint, so you can’t die to get your health back. That’s right, a modern game where dying ISN’T a good thing, that’s sort of rare.

While it’s not perfect, and it is only optional, it’s a step forward compared to most other modern FPS.

Things I’m neutral about in this game
The controls
The controls are definitely better than the N64 Goldeneye. There’s no arguing that twin-stick works better than… whatever you call the N64 controls. But the thing is that the controls in the N64 version worked perfect for the game’s gameplay design and limitations of the system. So it’s not really ”better”, it’s just well adapted to its own gameplay style, just as the N64 version was.

What I don’t like about the game (I’ll try to not make this part too long)
Wiimote+Nunchuk controls
If there’s one problem with the controls, it’s the Wiimote+Nunchuk controls. They’re just plain bad. It’s REALLY hard to be precise in this game for some reason, just moving the Wiimote a bit will make the cursor go all over the place. The only time you will get any precision from those controls is to zoom-in, where your movements will become so slow that you can’t really do any twitch reaction. This really sucks because Wiimote+Nunchuk controls work really well for FPS, developers just don’t know HOW to do it. Just look at Metroid Prime 3, it controls better than any twin-stick FPS.

Bottom line is, if you don’t have a Classic Controller Pro and you want this game, get the bundle that comes with a gold Classic Controller Pro, otherwise playing the game is a nightmare. (I haven’t tried the gamecube controller controls, apparently they work well too)

It’s not Goldeneye
That’s easily the biggest problem with the game. They announced it as a new Goldeneye game in the spirit of the original. The announcement really made it seem like they’d make something at the very least similar to the original N64 game. But the first gameplay videos showed that this was completely wrong. They had no intention to actually make something that would make fans of the original happy, but, instead, they just made a Call of Duty war simulator and put in levels based on the Goldeneye film. So a game that should have been a tribute to the classic game to get fans of the original to buy it, ends up being something completely different. The game features very little similarities from the original. The levels are all different, and the experience as a whole is very bland and nowhere near as fun as the original.

While the levels tend to have the same name as levels in the N64 version, they have nothing that’s the same, or just things that are nods to the original. Even in multiplayer, you have a level named “Facility”. You know, that awesome level with great design in the original N64 game? Well, here’s it’s a big square room with boxes and stairs… In the single-player, the Facility level as that one part whre you come from above to kill a guard who is on the toilet… and that’s it, the rest of the level has nothing in common. This goes for every other level in the game.

The local multiplayer is a step down from Goldeneye on N64 as well. There’s fewer modes, the modifiers don’t do much to change that up, you can’t find weapons lying around but instead opting for a lame loadout method of selecting weapons (though you CAN change your loadout during play, it requires stopping to move, holding a button, and selecting the weapon you want), the levels aren’t too great… It’s a definite step down from the original. It’s still possible to have fun with it, but it’s not as video game-y as the original and there’s less variety and it’s just not as fun.

Online
If there’s one thing (and one thing only) that Call of Duty games exceed at, since their single-player is basically shit, it’s multiplayer. I’d argue that it’s the only good thing about the series really. But, in this aspect, Goldeneye sort of fails when it comes to online, despite being another Call of Duty game. Well, it’s not terrible. Finding matches, as of now, is fairly fast, and, if you like Call of Duty gameplay, you should enjoy this. It uses the usual leveling system from Call of Duty games, and you have perks and such, like Proximity Mines. But it’s very unstable, I’ve lost my connection to hosts continually, and got very few full games in. It’s definitely not as polished as MW and beyond.

Another problem… well, as of the writing of this review, the game has already been hacked. People can already get into online games with invincibility, infinite ammo, one-hit-kill with any weapon, and probably some other stuff. The online here will probably become broken/worthless within a few more weeks.

Reloading
Just a quick note on that, but… why does everything on the screen other than your guns blur out like crazy when you reload? The only reason I can think of is to make it more realistic, but…. this is a video game, NOT reality. And it’s a James Bond film, a series that is frequently about being unrealistic. I like to be able to see what I’m doing when I’m playing a game. The enemies are already hard to see, like in Call of Duty, so blurring everything out when you reload just makes things needlessly complicated. It makes it impossible to see where you’re being shot from, and it makes it really hard to get out of the way since you don’t see anything. It gets  really annoying.

Stealth
One element that I actually like is the fact that you can stealth your way through multiple of the missions. Using your silenced P99 (not PP7 anymore?) and staying crouched to minimize the sounds you make, you can try to kill enemies with headshots (no worries, they disappear when they die, so other enemies won’t go on alert if they find a corpse) and try to stay out of their view. If you’re found out, reinforcements come in and you have to fight a bunch of enemies before being able to advance. This WOULD be really interesting if it was properly done.

The problem here is that the gunplay is flawed. Perfect headshots sometimes don’t register, or register as hits to elsewhere on the body. Missing that headshot will make enemies go on alert unless you kill the target fast enough, and even then reinforcements might still come. The other problem is that you CANNOT sneak through certain sections. I tried some rooms using multiple routes, but 2-3 enemies having conversations and not looking at you (while you’re not doing any noise) WILL see or hear you. You COULD try to  headshot the 2-3 enemies while they’re talking, but you have to do it FAST, which is tough since twin-stick controls offer very little speed or precision. The enemy AI is all sorts of broken really. When you’re trying to sneak around, they can see/hear you in ways that shouldn’t be possible, and, in gunfights, they’re pretty much completely useless, moreso than on the N64.

Missions
The mission structure in the game follows a similar idea to the N64 version. The lowest difficulty usually just requires you to get to the end of the level. The other difficulties requiregoing through more side-missions, finding certain things, taking pictures, hacking… actually, most of the side-missions are “take pictures” and “hack computers” using your smartphone. There’s no gadgets here, or laser watch, which it lame. But it’s a lot more annoying here than in the N64 version. If you finish a mission on one of the harder difficulty levels but miss a side-mission, you have 2 options: continuing the game at the lowest difficulty level or replaying the mission. That wouldn’t be such a big problem… but the missions are LOOONG and BOOORING. Each mission takes above 20 minutes, which makes replaying them a chore. The actual missions aren’t really interesting… go to one boring firefight, walk around to see if there’ s a mission objective nearby (an icon pops up to tell you you’re close, rather than you actually having to search), rinse and repeat. It’s very linear and mind-numbingly easy.

Another note on difficulty levels: 007 classic is the only mode that is actually harder than the others, Operative, Agent and 007 only add side-missions, the enemies are no tougher. Not very interesting really, you might as well play 007 or 007 classic on your first playthrough.

Auto-aim
I don’t mind the fact that there’s auto-aim, it’s fairly useful since twin-stick controls offer very little precision. What I do mind is that it doesn’t always work. Just a minor complaint really, but when I’m aiming towards an enemy I want to lock-on tousing the aim button, I want my auto-aim to lock-on to that enemy, not an explosive that’s somewhat close to him, or another enemy, or nothing (that happens a lot). Most of the time the auto-aim will either not work even if it should, or aim at something you don’t want it to. Sort of annoying.

The Wii can’t really handle it
That’s a pretty big problem. The game suffers from frequent slowdown, really low-resolution textures, and graphical tricks that are just… lame. I think the best example is the nightclub level. In the first room, you’ll find the same female NPC model 4 times. When you actually get to the dance floor, since the Wii couldn’t handle multiple dancing 3D models, instead you have really badly-done animated gifs with HUGE jaggies on them. It’s REALLY bad. The loading times aren’t too bad, but that doesn’t matter when the game can’t handle more than a few enemies shooting at you at once. Heck, sometime it slows down when there’s nothing going on.

Add those problem to online and you have a very laggy online game as well.

Overall
I have no idea why this game has been getting such high ratings. It’s just a cheap version of Call of Duty (albeit with actual level design this time around) with the James Bond license slapped on top. Not counting CoD clones, we’d had 6 Call of Duty games this generation (though one is a port of the first game)… did we really need to get a new Goldeneye game that’s actually just another Call of Duty game?

I have no idea how this managed to go wrong. It should have been EASY to make a Goldeneye game that appeals not only to fans of the N64 classic, but also to newer gamers. Remake the N64 game, polish up to graphics to current-gen standards, fix up the gameplay a bit, implement more modern controls while keeping the overall feel of the original, touch up the AI, make the levels a bit longer, add a few levels, add more gadgets, more objectives, more multiplayer modes (while keeping the original multiplayer levels INTACT, and keeping weapons litered across the levels instead of the loadout crap), make the online not suck… It would have featured nostalgic levels, better gameplay, would have felt more like a James Bond game, and, with the new controls and graphics, would have made it interesting to newcomers as well. It was an easy project really, and instead they screwed it up by going the even easier way out and doing a CoD clone. This is just weak. Just a cash-in to hopefully make fans of the original cough up the money based on the name only.

As it stands, it can’t appeal to fans of the original since it’s 100% different, and it can’t really appeal to modern gamers since they can get better elsewhere. It’s a low-quality game, and it’s not even close to standing up to its 13 year-old predecessor… other than graphically.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- 007 Classic mode is a step forward in modern FPS gameplay (strange how you have to take a few steps back to take a step forward)
- Better controls

Cons
- It’s not Goldeneye
- It’s Call of Duty (we don’t need more than one CoD a year)
- No gadgets
- Stealth doesn’t work since the AI is broken (in more ways than one)
- Features tons of slowdown and bad graphical tricks since the Wii can’t handle the game very well
- Missions are long and boring
- Side-missions are boring
- Online broken by hackers/slowdown

The Save Factor
There’s no Save Factor on this one, I have no idea what to say. I might get it eventually if the package with the gold Classic Controller Pro gets discounted, just because of the controller.

jobocan Console, Games, Review, wii