Goldeneye 007 Game Review

I See the Light!!!

For those who don't know, Goldeneye 007 was originally a game for the N64, and apparantly it was so popular that they decided to remake it like 15 years laters.  My only memory of the original was when I was a little kid and was playing over at my friends' house.  I just remember being killed over and over again and not being able to aim at all with the C-buttons.  Now that they've remade it, I got the chance to give the game another go.  Let me first mention that this game could be split into three different parts:  single player, splitscreen multiplayer, and online multiplayer
     Let's start with the single player campaign.  You play as James Bond (big surprise) as you try to stop a satellite weapon called the Goldeneye from going off and raining damage below, all the while sneaking around, shooting enemies, and playing around with your smartphone.  With very few exceptions all of the levels are extremely polished, with some great set pieces and cinematic cutscenes.  There's also quite a bit of variety in the level design; the game has you do everything from scale a snowy summit to drive a tank of awesometacular destruction!  There are even some boss battles thrown into the mix.  The game controls very much like a Call of Duty game, where there are buttons for sprinting and aiming down the sights of your weapon.
     The splitscreen multiplayer is also great.  There are 10 maps to fight on, around 30 characters to play as, and a dozen modifiers to play around with.  The modifiers include paintball mode, invisibility, and the funniest: melee only, where everybody has gigantic hands. 
     While the online portion of the game is still a lot of fun, it's by far the weakest area of the Goldeneye experience.  Half of the time the game lags, and a couple times it even froze, forcing me to unplug my Wii and restart the whole thing.  That said, when it does work it can be lots of fun, with a bunch of game modes not found in splitscreen, such as Black Box (where one team has to capture a briefcase while the other has to destroy it), Hero Mode (where each team has a hero with special weapons and perks), and Goldeneye (where the teams fight for control over the Goldeneye satellite by capturing computer consoles).  Just like Call of Duty you gain XP and level up to unlock new weapons, modes, and perks.
Conclusion:  The single player is definately the strongest point of the game, but that doesn't mean that multiplayer isn't just as much fun, both on and offline.  In the end Goldeneye 007 is the best first person shooter on the Wii, letting players feel like they are the greatest spy ever, James Bond.
Rating:  9/10 "Awesome"
Favorite Moment:  My favorite level is where you get to drive a tank around, creating chaos on the highway.  Everything about this level, from the controls to the enemies to the weapons, was made with the destructive power of the tank in mind, and it was a great diversion from the standard run and gun sequences.

skip to 1:30 to get to the gameplay