Nelson Schneider's Game Review of GoldenEye 007

Mediocrity Returns
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/22/11

I have never been a fan of FPSes. However, the original “GoldenEye 007” (“GoldenEye 64”) introduced me to some new FPS gameplay ideas that could have been great with a bit more polish. Having played both of the immediate successors to “GoldenEye 64” (“Agent Under Fire” and “Nightfire”) it seemed that Electronic Arts was capable of polishing the rough ideas implemented by Rare. Now that the Bond license has changed hands yet again, this time to Activision, I was left wondering if the new “GoldenEye 007” (“GoldenEye Wii”) was finally going to provide the ultimate Bond and FPS videogame experience I was looking for.

Presentation
Thanks to two generations of hardware between this game and “GoldenEye 64,” the presentation has improved immensely. Unfortunately, the Wii isn’t exactly the go-to platform for superior graphics. The polygonal graphics look good but not great. The environments stand out as particularly good, with some, like the night club, using perspective and lighting tricks to make the crowds of bystanders look denser than the Wii would normally be capable of. Also, despite a few minor jaggies, the main characters who are important to the story look quite good; the character model for Bond looks exactly like Daniel Craig. Animation in the game’s cutscenes is also quite impressive, as the third-person cutscenes blend seamlessly with the first-person action. I was also very pleased to actually be able to see Bond’s feet at various points in the action. Unimportant characters, however, look noticeably cheap, with occasional low resolution textures and more than occasional animation deformities.

The sound in the game is, overall, very solid. “GoldenEye Wii” features full voiceacting by a very professional cast, including Daniel Craig and Judy Dench. I didn’t recognize any of the other voices as belonging to particularly noteworthy stars, but nailing those two is very important for authenticity and immersion in a licensed game. The other sound effects are adequate, but nothing special. The soundtrack is also adequate in comparison with the recent Bond films, but is far too subdued to appeal to fans of older Bond outings.

Aside from the highly-improved character models and addition of voiceacting, the main improvement in “GoldenEye Wii” is the inclusion of animated mission briefs instead of static text. Each of these briefs is pre-rendered and features a computer display which details the key points of the mission at hand.

Story
“GoldenEye Wii” is not based on the movie of the same name. Instead, it is a ‘reimagining’ of “GoldenEye 64.” While it is difficult to transform a movie script into a compelling videogame narrative, “GoldenEye Wii” suffers even more than necessary, as it attempts to capture the original ‘GoldenEye’ plot without actually invoking the original movie, but instead by scraping superficial concepts of modern Bond off of the two films in which Daniel Craig played the title role.

I won’t mince words, here: I hate Daniel Craig as James Bond. While Craig is a fine actor, he is best suited to darker roles. Whenever I seem him on-screen, I don’t think of James Bond, I think of a drunken hooligan stumbling out of an Irish pub after a soccer game. Craig’s Bond is not cool or suave. He doesn’t spout snappy one-liners or use crazy gadgets. He’s simply not James Bond. Instead, he’s a surly, brooding anti-hero who just happens to have the backing of the British government. The genuine James Bond hides his skill and internal turmoil behind a veil of flippancy that allows him to blow-off any threat and bed any woman. Craig is not genuine.

Despite Craig’s non-traditional portrayal of Bond, the ‘GoldenEye’ story is barely modified to suit Bond’s new personality. The narrative still flows through the same plot locations with similar objectives. The only noticeable changes are that the ultimate villain’s motive is based on anger at the bankers who caused the global recession in 2008, several supporting characters are much darker and more representative of real-world criminals, and Q is entirely missing-in-action. Instead of relying on Q-Branch’s nifty spy gadgets, Craig’s Bond simply has a magical cell phone that does everything (and by ‘everything,’ I mean unlocks doors and hacks sentry turrets).

As a result of this middling effort put into updating ‘GoldenEye’ for a new actor and a new audience, the overall narrative is fairly incoherent. Despite the fact that M and Bond’s handler communicate with him between each mission, the reasons for Bond’s visits to the game’s locations are frequently unclear. It’s like the game still expects players in 2011 to have the ‘GoldenEye’ movie fresh in their minds to fill-in the gaps, even though the movie was in theaters in 1995.

Gameplay
Like “GoldenEye 64,” “GoldenEye Wii” must be judged separately based on its single-player and multi-player experiences. While “GoldenEye 64” had a solid (by 1997 FPS standards) single-player mode and a rough-around-the-edges-yet-insanely-popular multi-player mode, “GoldenEye Wii” reverses that situation.

The horrible controls of the original game are gone, replaced by an incredibly customizable control scheme that supports the Wiimote+Nunchuck as a pseudo-Keyboard+Mouse, the Gamecube controller, and the Classic Controller Pro (it also supports the original Classic Controller, but the odd positioning of the Z shoulder buttons makes it difficult to use). I use, and quite enjoy, the Wiimote+Nunchuck, but also tried the other configurations. All of them are very good and serviceable with a few small flaws. The first, and most egregious, flaw is that there is no way to invert aiming on the Classic Controller Pro. The option that says it turns on inverse aiming controls only does so for the Gamecube controller. The other flaw is that, while it is possible to tweak and fiddle with aim controls as much as one desires, it is NOT possible to remap buttons in a custom configuration. Fortunately, this flaw is not a problem, as the default layout is almost (but not quite) perfect. I found using the Wiimote for aiming to be surprisingly responsive and incredibly accurate… except when it wasn’t. In other places, the controls take a step backward over titles like “Agent Under Fire.” Bond can’t jump in “GoldenEye Wii,” but he can ‘vault’ over low obstacles and climb up onto low edges. Peeking out from behind cover has become more important than ever before, as “GoldenEye Wii” has taken a few cues from the popular ‘cover-based’ shooters of the modern era (many people like to compare this game to “Call of Duty”). While I am pleased that Bond can now move slowly while aiming, the fact that he pops-up from behind cover while aiming is not good, as it makes him an easier target. The cover peeking maneuver from “GoldenEye 64” has also been rendered useless, as it rarely allows Bond to peek far enough for his gun barrel to clear the object in front of him. The nicest new feature from modern FPSes that “GoldenEye Wii” adopts is regenerating health. Bond no longer needs to seek out flak jackets to boost his durability, he must simply avoid being further injured in order to shrug-off previous injuries.

Like “GoldenEye 64,” the single-player story mode features a relatively small number of missions. There are actually fewer, at 14, than the original game! However, each of these missions is unnecessarily long, lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour-and-a-half (with the exception of one level that only lasts 5 minutes). There are reasonably-spaced checkpoints that allow the player to restart should they screw something up or get Bond killed. However, the type of gameplay I expect from a James Bond themed FPS has been almost entirely removed. Being stealthy is almost impossible, as enemies have bionic hearing and can see through walls. Even worse, upon bungling a stealth maneuver, Bond is immediately beset by a dozen enemies that appear out of nowhere, frequently behind him. I consider this to be one of the biggest flaws in FPS gameplay, and was pleased when “GoldenEye 64” didn’t fall into this trap… yet here we are 14 years later, doing the same old crap. I guess everything that’s old is new again! The single-player mode feels even more tacked-on in “GoldenEye Wii” than the N64 game, as there are no unlockables tied to it. While there are 4 difficulty modes for single-player, I was only compelled to play through the easiest difficulty, which was still frustrating in places, simply because there was no reason to play the others. All of the offline goodies are unlocked by default, which is nice. But that also means the single-player gameplay must be absolutely amazing in order to make people want to replay it. It’s not.

Thanks to the modern obsession with online multi-player, “GoldenEye Wii’s” multi-player is further fractured into split-screen and online. While it would have made sense for these two modes to be identical (like Nintendo’s “Super Smash Bros. Brawl”), they aren’t. In split-screen, everything is unlocked from the get-go. The whole roster of characters (including a few classic Bond characters to make up for the lack of fanservice in other parts of the game) is available as are all of the static weapon load-outs. In online mode, characters are assigned randomly instead of chosen, and weapons must be unlocked by gaining Experience, which can only be earned in online matches. Weapon load-outs are a huge improvement over “GoldenEye 64,” as each player starts with two weapons (typically a long gun and a pistol), plus a couple grenades (which are not available in story mode!) and other options instead of starting unarmed and completely vulnerable. However, the downside of everyone starting with weapons is that there are no random weapons littering the floors in multi-player, only those dropped by slain players. Online weapon load-outs are fully customizable, which is far superior to the pre-made load-outs in split-screen, but the reliance on Experience to unlock these weapons means that players who have been playing longer (and thus have more practice) have an even greater advantage over new players who will be stuck using the worst weapons until they unlock better ones through tedious Experience grinding. Even worse for new players is the fact that split-screen has removed the option of adding computer-controlled ‘Bots to spar with that was introduced in “Agent Under Fire.”

Overall
“GoldenEye Wii” improves over “GoldenEye 64” in a few key areas. Unfortunately, due to a few dumb decisions in gameplay design and the inclusion of Daniel Craig, this game still can’t top “Agent Under Fire” in the contest for ‘best Bond videogame experience.’ Instead, “GoldenEye Wii” falls back into mediocrity with its predecessor. At least it’s consistent!

Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 2/5
Gameplay: 2/5 Single Player; 3/5 Multi-Player
Overall (not an average): 2.5/5