Proximity mine battles or Man With the Golden Gun - for many classic gamers, these phrases can only correspond to one game, a game many have dubbed the greatest first person shooter of all time: Goldeneye 007 for the N64. During its time, this game set a very high standard for first person shooters that many developers have strived to reach, but have failed to meet.
At the Nintendo press conference, it was announced that this classic game would finally be making a return for the Wii. The applause and cheers echoed throughout the concert hall. Like many, I was extremely excited, but quickly became skeptical. Remembering that there have been many 007 games on various platforms since Goldeneye, I wasn’t very optimistic, especially because Rare, the original developer of Goldeneye, was not developing this new version. Yet, Nintendo was promising the return of a classic.
Getting to the show floor, I made a bee-line to the Goldeneye stand. The demo showcased the multiplayer aspect of the game, an obvious draw for many gamers considering the lack of multiplayer shooters available on the Wii platform. Excited to get a taste of game play, I finally got a controller in my hand and played a 1-on-1 multiplayer match. The match began and any remaining optimism left in my mind vanished. The only thing the original Goldeneye had in common with this newer version were the characters. Like every other Bond game, it missed the mark.
Game play strayed away from the classic N64 controls, and leaned more towards the newer generation of first person shooters. The health meter that we all loved so dearly has been replaced and substituted with a red fuzzy outline that covers the screen more and more as you receive damage. One redeeming quality was that, like the original, you can hold all the guns you come across. Overall, game play lacks the sheer authenticity that the original Goldeneye so easily captured.
Unfortunately, the demo only allowed for limited exploration of the multiplayer mode. Additionally, it did not provide a preview of single player mode. Maybe with more play time, this game could have the potential to be a decent first person shooter, but those opinions will have to wait until a full version is released.
Goldeneye 007 for the Wii is slated to be released this holiday season.
well, atleast someone can be brutally honest, and not just sugar-coat it. I dont want Goldeneye to be brought into the new gen of FPS's, if i wanted that, there are PLENTY of games to get my fix of that. The only reason Goldeneye stuck out back in the day was because it was one of the very few FPS's in 3D, and seeing how every game nowadays is a FPS, its gonna be hard for this "remake' to stand out. But, we'll see
owned
why do they all have to be the same shooter in different forms? this is all activisions fault.
@Anonymous #1
That's about what we try to do at PixlBit. We like something, we say we like it. We don't like it, we say so. If we can't tell, we let you know we can't tell. We'll even get into arguments about our opinions of stuff pretty openly. You should definitely stick around if you like actual opinion.
The ability to walk off ledges... you sure you played the original Goldeneye? there were about 3 or 4 places total you could walk down. Sounds to me that nostalgia is really getting the upper hand here.
Guess I'll be playing Conduit 2 instead.
This one seems like a huge disappointment, based solely on the fact that it isn't a faithful recreation of the original.
"considering the lack of multiplayer games available on the Wii platform."
I sincerely hope that either there is something missing from this comment, or it was sarcasm.
I believe Phil meant shooters with that statement. I adjusted his article to reflect that.
After reading that I now need to sign up as this seems like my type of site.
"The ability to walk off ledges... you sure you played the original Goldeneye? there were about 3 or 4 places total you could walk down. Sounds to me that nostalgia is really getting the upper hand here."
Got to agree, on top of that the complaints about control just seem silly the old controls were cumbersome by todays standards, some things have to and need to change. The same game would appear seriously dated. Ill be happy if they take the best of the advances from today and mix it with those things that made goldeneye so great in the past. Ill reserve judgment for the game until its released.
Am I the only person who noticed that he didn't talk about the gameplay at all after saying it was flawed? It seems his criticisms were 1) Different controls than N64, and 2) different health bar. Do you really want to use the C-buttons to aim up, down, and sideways? And what does a health bar have to do with gameplay? Tell us how the game plays, please.
I would like to add in my input to this article and elaborate on Phil's outtake. The gameplay from what was in the Demo was mediocre at best. To start, if you are playing Oddjob, prepare to lose. He uses his hat instead of grenades and they are unlimited. They are one hit kills and almost impossible to avoid. This is a huge flaw and compares to what we all remember as the golden gun. Throwing grenades as any other character in the game takes much longer and is much harder to execute. This is something that definitely needs to be fixed.
There is no auto aim like in the original Goldeneye making it sometimes hard to directly shoot at someone. Yes this adds complexity to the game, but the good part about Goldeneye was the fun simplicity it attained. As far as gameplay goes, it seemed to be very smooth, but it sure did not feel like I was playing Goldeneye. It actually felt like I was playing a generic new age shooter with nothing special about it. Being a huge Goldeneye fan, I was surely disappointed. The demo only allowed for multiplayer action and did not really give me a full idea on how the game will actually play out.
From what I was able to discover from the demo was that this game does not deserve the Goldeneye title. This game played much like every new age Bond game and was not nearly the game it could have been.
Thanks Rob, I honestly couldn't have said it better myself. This new game seemed to be very generic, there were plenty of flaws in game play, and it simply wasn't as fun as the original. Placing a classic title on a new game, as in this instance, should warrant a much more faithful "recreation" (and I use the term recreation loosely as this is NOT a recreation of the original).
And I just want to clarify that the demo on the E3 floor was only of multi-player matches in which the settings were already preselected. Originally, my goal was to give you guys a quick overview of my gaming experience due to the limited scope provided by the demo. Here at Pixlbit, we try to keep our readers in the loop as much as possible on what is going on in the gaming world. Once we obtain a full copy of the game, we will be able speak more to the one player mode as well as to the full extent of multi-player gameplay.
Check out the new outtakes added into the article for a more descriptive outlook on the game.
How many DiMolas are there?
There's one in Russia, Germany, Paris, London, Madrid, New York, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City, Rio, Miami, Cuba, Havana... they are invincible!
Four DiMolas. Three brothers, and Nick's wife.
Also a dog. He's not on the site.
Are you sure? Then, who's Chris?
C'mon, now, Sammy would do better at New Super Mario Bros. Wii than Chris did!
Jason = Buckin' Berry. Who could have respect for Buckin' Berry. No one. As for Sammy: no human could possibly surpass Sammy, so I'd agree with you there.
Also, are you 1) nicknaming Sam as Sammy and 2) calling her a dog? You're not very nice, Jason.
