GoldenEye 007 Reloaded

When I first saw Activision planned to release a HD remake of the Wii remake of the N64 classic GoldenEye 007 the week before behemoth FPS Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, I thought it must be mad. As one of the forerunners of the multiplayer console FPS, GoldenEye 007 still attracts enourmous interest from FPS fans and Bond fanatics alike, so its remake would - I would have thought - been a massive release for the studio. After its, it's clear Activision has pumped plenty of cash into the project - recasting Pierce Brosnan's Bond with current actor Daniel Craig, even hiring him and the legendary Judi Dench to lend their voices to the game, retelling the story to suit Craig's James Bond and even buying in an excellent reimagining of the theme tune sung by former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger. And then the game begins, and suddenly the reasons for its fairly hush-hush HD 'Reloaded' release become apparent: It's really not very good. Basically an upscaled version of the Wii version, GoldenEye 007 Reloaded does precious little to differentiate itself from the gamut of other console FPS titles around; on the Wii, where competition was limited, the achievements of the game might have seemed a little more impressive On The Xbox 360 and PS3, the game feels like the cheap HD port it is; albeit one released as a full-price retail game. Well, at least we can't accuse Activision of trying to undersell it, eh?

 

Between some clumsily directed cutscenes that pack all the drama of a PS2-era budget release (even the cinematic jump from the top of the dam in the intro level lacks punch), you get to run, gun, duck and shoot your way through levels that have all the graphical splendour of their Wii counterparts but running in a higher resolution: in short, they don't look that great. As a budget HD re-release they might have cut it, but as a levels in a full-price retail game they appear rough at best. We wouldn't mind so much if the level design was up to par, or if the enemies had a shred of artificial intellect, or if the sound effects and animations carried any weight to them, or if the stages were in any way interesting at all. Alas no: the levels are mostly straight linear runs through drab military environments, and whilst you can chose to sneak your way through the levels or just go in guns blazing the paths for each are painfully obvious; there's none of Deus Ex: Human Revolution's subtlety or finesse on display here. The onyl saving graces are the secondary objectives, which are hinted at by a flashing Smartphone symbol (oh how technology has moved on since 1995!) and which often require some digging to find, sometimes requiring the kind of back-tracking and dedication to exploration that classic shooters were famous for.

 

Bond's opponents are universally moronic; they'll occasionally duck behind a nearby wall, but most of the time they're content to either stand in the open until you shoot them or blindly follow preset patrol points until you forcibly interrupt them. There's an obligatory half-hearted cover system, which basically means you can crouch behind an object and when you hold the aim button Bond will peer over it to shoot enemies, but it doesn't really work very well due to the lack of spatial awareness the game gives you. Plus the unerring accuracy of your otherwise imbecilic foes and your regenerating health serves as a strong deterrent for playing the game as anything other than a cover-based shooter, at least on the standard 'Agent' difficulty. Not that the game proves especially difficult anyway, however.

 

Also deterring you from enjoying the game as a run-and-gun shooter is the complete lack of impact behind the sound effects and animations in the game. Bond's footsteps are barely more than a clack-clack sound, whilst the weapon sound effects appear to have been sampled from a SNES; an assault rifle barely manages a sound equivalent to polite chatter whilst grenades pack more punch if you shout 'boom' yourself as they explode. Hit animations are awkward and clumsy; generally the enemy will just tumble to the floor in one of only five or six standard ways, whilst melee attacks curiously lack any audible hit effect whatsoever and don't apparently need to physically connect with an enemy for them to fall down dead. I haven't actually played a shooter where I've felt this disconnected from the action for a long, long time. Neither should you expect much from the new game mode, Mi6 Ops, which gives you a series of uninspired single player challenges to accomplish.

 

Even played stealthily Goldeneye Reloaded doesn't improve, as your enemies will stick so rigorously to their preset actions they could give Tenchu's guards a run for their money in their dedication to their duty. I watched one poor chap argue with a vending machine for almost five minutes before I eventually killed him on compassionate grounds, and even then the stealth kill animation was a bit naff. 

 

Perhaps some redemption can be found in GoldenEye 007 Reloaded's multiplayer offerings, then? Er, sadly not, as it happens. Given that the shooting mechanics of the single player game aren't that great anyway, shoehorning them into a multi player mode where you suddenly have to experience their mediocrity with a bunch of other people was never going to make things any better, and some astonishingly bland level design across a smattering of uninspired deathmatch-alike game modes doesn't help. Yes, you can experience it split-screen with a bunch of friends. But I'd much rather play something with much better design than force this on them. Tiddlywinks, for example.

 

Even the promised revamped visuals don't count for much. There are a few moments where the stages look momentarily decent, but they don't last; the PS2-quality visuals simply don't stand up to the HD treatment, and whilst Eurocom has added better lighting and a few more atmospheric effects which improve the backgrounds, the character models still look and feel distinctly last-gen, and animate like it to. Sound effects aren't any better; but the musical score (by veteran Bond composer David Arnold) is an excellent fit, and 007 stalwarts Daniel Craig and Judi Dench provide predictably good dialogue for their characters.