Console first-person shooters have come and gone, but the original GoldenEye is still considered one of the most influential FPS designs even a decade and a half after its system debut. The times and standards for the genre have changed and evolved over the last fifteen years, so a straight revival of the original game might feel a bit dated – Activision holds the rights to the James Bond videogame franchise and has been hard at work bringing the familiar brand back for a more contemporary action experience for Wii and DS gamers. I had an opportunity to tinker with the Wii build of the game at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Now, you might feel a little robbed that Daniel Craig is taking over for Pierce Brosnan, and the game's scenario has been almost completely rewritten. According to Activision, GoldenEye 007 is a reimagining of the GoldenEye story, just as Casino Royale shook things up with a much more gritty version of the James Bond character. GoldenEye still retains the basics of GoldenEye's story, but retells it in a way that makes sense with Daniel Craig's interpretation of James Bond.
The Wii game has been developed by Eurocom, fresh after its work on Dead Space Extraction for Electronic Arts and Visceral Games. GoldenEye 007 retains the polished scripted storytelling of Extraction with extremely well acted and animated in-game cutscenes. I was able to experience the single player campaign where the game opens up with Bond meeting up with 006 to infiltrate a Soviet base.
Dead Space Extractions was an on-rails experience, but GoldenEye 007 is a full-fledged first-person shooter where players can go anywhere in the level map. Players can climb up guard towers and hit the high ground or take cover behind structures. Environments are fully destructible, a way to keep the player moving: enemies will whittle protective cover down until it's useless. The missions will have multiple paths that balance covert and stealth with all-out firefights -- if you alert an enemy to your location, you have time to take them down before they alert their pals and make things even more difficult.
It's a contemporary FPS design: no health pick-ups. Instead, you take cover to get your health to regenerate. You'll be able to vault over ledges and banisters, and take down enemies with up-close melee attacks.
The playable version at E3 will focus on the multiplayer, and GoldenEye 007 will have a ton of different options – deathmatch and team deathmatch will be in here, as will the Golden Gun mode where players scramble for the one-shot kill weapon. The version at the show is using four player split screen where each player chooses a classic character including Odd Job and Jaws. While each character can toss grenades, good ol' Odd Job can flick his hat at opponents.
Multiplayer will be enhanced with a full-featured online mode, complete with a full-fledged experience point system;
players will be rewarded with XP for specific tasks in online matches that will offer achievements and unlockables.
The final game will feature an incredible amount of customizable control options. Not only can you play with the standard Wii pointer and nunchuk combination and tweak the sensitivity, you can also plug in a Classic Controller or Classic Controller Pro and play via the dual-analog way. I'm partial to the Wii remote for FPS, but the Classic Controller worked pretty well too.
GoldenEye 007 looks pretty darn excellent, with a solid and smooth framerate and some slick environment effects. The game has full voice acting, as Activision has recruited the assistance of Daniel Craig and Judi Dench to provide voice over for this original script.
While the game is a completely original take on GoldenEye, there are a few nods to the classic Nintendo 64 game. The game starts in a third person camera but swoops in behind Bond just before players take control. The game trailer shows the dive off the dam and a drop-down into a bathroom. But the "Klobb" gun (presumably named after the N64 game's producer Ken Lobb) has been renamed the "klebb", but the official line is that the gun is named after a James Bond villain – and wouldn't you know it, Wikipedia comes through.
GoldenEye 007 still has a ways to go before its November 2010 release, but even now in its early E3 debut the game's looking hot. We'll have more on the game in the coming months, as it's easily one of the more promising third party Wii games at the show.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/109/1097593p1.html
Now, you might feel a little robbed that Daniel Craig is taking over for Pierce Brosnan, and the game's scenario has been almost completely rewritten. According to Activision, GoldenEye 007 is a reimagining of the GoldenEye story, just as Casino Royale shook things up with a much more gritty version of the James Bond character. GoldenEye still retains the basics of GoldenEye's story, but retells it in a way that makes sense with Daniel Craig's interpretation of James Bond.
The Wii game has been developed by Eurocom, fresh after its work on Dead Space Extraction for Electronic Arts and Visceral Games. GoldenEye 007 retains the polished scripted storytelling of Extraction with extremely well acted and animated in-game cutscenes. I was able to experience the single player campaign where the game opens up with Bond meeting up with 006 to infiltrate a Soviet base.
Dead Space Extractions was an on-rails experience, but GoldenEye 007 is a full-fledged first-person shooter where players can go anywhere in the level map. Players can climb up guard towers and hit the high ground or take cover behind structures. Environments are fully destructible, a way to keep the player moving: enemies will whittle protective cover down until it's useless. The missions will have multiple paths that balance covert and stealth with all-out firefights -- if you alert an enemy to your location, you have time to take them down before they alert their pals and make things even more difficult.
It's a contemporary FPS design: no health pick-ups. Instead, you take cover to get your health to regenerate. You'll be able to vault over ledges and banisters, and take down enemies with up-close melee attacks.
The playable version at E3 will focus on the multiplayer, and GoldenEye 007 will have a ton of different options – deathmatch and team deathmatch will be in here, as will the Golden Gun mode where players scramble for the one-shot kill weapon. The version at the show is using four player split screen where each player chooses a classic character including Odd Job and Jaws. While each character can toss grenades, good ol' Odd Job can flick his hat at opponents.
Multiplayer will be enhanced with a full-featured online mode, complete with a full-fledged experience point system;
players will be rewarded with XP for specific tasks in online matches that will offer achievements and unlockables.
The final game will feature an incredible amount of customizable control options. Not only can you play with the standard Wii pointer and nunchuk combination and tweak the sensitivity, you can also plug in a Classic Controller or Classic Controller Pro and play via the dual-analog way. I'm partial to the Wii remote for FPS, but the Classic Controller worked pretty well too.
GoldenEye 007 looks pretty darn excellent, with a solid and smooth framerate and some slick environment effects. The game has full voice acting, as Activision has recruited the assistance of Daniel Craig and Judi Dench to provide voice over for this original script.
While the game is a completely original take on GoldenEye, there are a few nods to the classic Nintendo 64 game. The game starts in a third person camera but swoops in behind Bond just before players take control. The game trailer shows the dive off the dam and a drop-down into a bathroom. But the "Klobb" gun (presumably named after the N64 game's producer Ken Lobb) has been renamed the "klebb", but the official line is that the gun is named after a James Bond villain – and wouldn't you know it, Wikipedia comes through.
GoldenEye 007 still has a ways to go before its November 2010 release, but even now in its early E3 debut the game's looking hot. We'll have more on the game in the coming months, as it's easily one of the more promising third party Wii games at the show.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/109/1097593p1.html
