Game #1163: GoldenEye 007(Wii)

 Bond, Call of Bond.

 Back in the 90s, every new FPS that released on the N64 had to compete with GoldenEye, and as someone who didn't really like said game... I hated it, as publications always sided with GoldenEye, even though Turok 2 felt way superior at the time. In hindsight, Turok hasn't aged very well, if you ask me, but I've yet to give GoldenEye another go. Regardless, instead of going back to the classic, I decided to try out Activision's remake, GoldenEye 007 on the Wii. And let me get this out of the way, this is more than a remake, this is more like a complete overhaul, as this game is more Call of Duty than GoldenEye. 

 Well, for starters, the game offers a ton of control options. I went for the Gamecube controller(Well, I was too lazy to disconnect it from my Wii, and the game takes it as the default over the Wiimote) and it was relatively fine. It had a few quirks, such as melee being performed by holding down Z and pressing B, and not the other way around, which I found out the hard way. There are some slight stealth elements, if you're into that, but the game plays like Call of Duty. Aiming down iron-sights, the ability to snap-aim  onto enemies as well as regenerating health. For purists of the original, this is pretty much sacrilege. As for me, I decided to play this game pretty much like Call of Duty, going guns blazing laying down every enemy that came my way. It was fun.

 And for a game about a spy... there's certainly a ton of bombastic action to go around. Lots of explosions, shootouts, even a bike segment! And it helps that the game looks fantastic, leaving most Wii games in the dust. It's a shame the Wii never got more games like this one.

 The final nail in the coffin, for those hoping for a faithful remake, is that not only was Pierce Brosnan replaced by Daniel Craig, but pretty much the only level that somewhat resembles a level from the original is the first one. The rest of the game is pretty much entirely original. And, I get it, fans of the original will probably feel super irked by that, but me, as someone who didn't care about the original... I liked the new stages, the new gameplay and the new script.

 Every stage has a few side-objectives to complete on every difficulty but the easiest. But here's the catch... while the game is always pushing you forward, it doesn't really highlight side objectives in the map, so it's up to you to go off the rails and explore and try to find them.  The game is a bit nasty about this, as stages have numerous auto-save checkpoints, and its possible to get locked out of a side-objective. Miss a side objective? No worries, you can still complete stage... but for the remainder of the game you'll be demoted to the easiest difficulty setting, unless you replay the stage and complete the necessary objectives. I won't lie, I wasn't sure how side objectives worked and I finished the first stage without fulfilling the side objectives... and I didn't really care to. I just played the game as a linear shooter and had fun with it.

 It's not a good remake, far far from it, but I liked the game for what it is. As long as you don't mind that the game isn't really faithful to the character and the source material, I think the game works great as an arcade-like shooter.

 7.5