GoldenEye 007 multiplayer hands-on

GoldenEye, I've found his weakness.

I won’t bore you by recounting the history of GoldenEye. You know its legacy, its legendary status amongst console gamers. You know what it was about and why it was a success. You know that since its release, Bond titles like Nightfire have come along and failed to rekindle the spark that Rare lit.

So what happens when Eurocom- who developed Nightfire- and Activision decide to release a new GoldenEye title for the Wii? That’s what we have with GoldenEye 007; a successor to the N64 original in pretty much every meaningful way, keeping the style and approach of Rare’s original whilst updating it with modern sensibilities. We got to test out the multiplayer mode in a four-player split screen deathmatch, with a selection of classic Bond characters on offer.

I opted for Jaws, whilst Pete went for Scaramanga. Also present were Oddjob and Bond, and as we set out into our first deathmatch there was a strong scent of nostalgia and familiarity. In fact, that’s probably underselling it; given the constraints of a tiny quarter-screen in the Wii’s best 576p resolution, GoldenEye 007 looks rather shockingly like its forebear. Of course, the visuals are better than the N64 outing, but the familiar art style makes GoldenEye 007 very reminiscent of its namesake. The office-like environment we’re fighting through is big enough, but not so large that the four characters get lost. We each start with an assault rifle and supply of grenades- with the exception of Oddjob, who gets his trademark razor-brimmed bowler hat- and after a few brief skirmishes a certain blend of tactics begins to dominate- namely, the ‘lob grenade, charge into melee’ combo. The reason is simple enough: melee attacks are instant-kills, whilst the machine guns we’re packing don’t seem to want to inflict any damage at all. We can’t jump or crouch, which is just as well given how fiddly it is to aim using the classic controller pro’s that we’re provided with, and the map consists of a startling amount of dead ends, making it quite easy to camp a particular spot or get trapped with no way out. It’s not long before the match is over, and Pete and I have been bludgeoned by rifles so many times that we’re ready to try some different tactics ourselves.

I resolutely stick to Jaws, despite his huge size and the bright white suit that makes him such a target, and ready those grenades. It works, thanks to the map indicators showing where enemies are and even whether they’re above or beneath you- so it’s very easy to lob grenades up (or down) stairs to catch someone unawares. When that fails, or whilst they’re running from the grenade (if they’ve spotted it), you can just dash into melee and get an instant frag.

A few more rounds, a few different opponents, and it’s hard to shake the impression: Something is broken here. There’s an all-too-evident skew towards melee, and the ridiculous layout of the level reeks of laziness and the kind of faux pars level designers had learned to overcome by Unreal Tournament’s 1999 debut. When firearms don’t work in a shooter, you know there’s something wrong, and even by our third match the amount of rifle fire had died down to an occasional murmur.

An important aspect of any console shooter is how it controls, and whilst GoldenEye 007’s button mapping was sensible and familiar, the classic controller pro’s analogue stick wasn’t really up to the task of handling fine adjustments in aiming. Other options are supported by the game, such as remote and nunchuck and Wii Zapper, but we didn’t get to try those out. Visually the game was passable, and it’s likely that the single player campaign will offer more impressive visuals than those in the split-screen multiplayer, but it certainly doesn’t appear to be pushing the hardware too far. On the plus side, that did make for a stable framerate throughout.

Written by :

James Hall