Goldeneye 007

I am the stereotypical Nintendo Wii casual gamer. I put my hands up - I'm not entirely green, but I don't know a great deal about video games. More experienced gamers might think that is very apparent from my review, but there must be lots of Wii owners like me out there: we play Super Mario Kart / Galaxy with the kids and a bit of Wii fit when we're feeling guilty - and that's about it. As a big James Bond fan, I thought that it was high time I reclaimed the Wii for a bit of grown up fun. This game is a reworking of the classic, genre defining Goldeneye game originally seen on the N64 - that's why it's Goldeneye and not a more recent Bond film. This time around Daniel Craig has stepped in as Bond (something to do with licensing agreements) but everything else (as far as the film is concerned) is as it should be.

The first thing that struck me about this game were the production values: A proper James Bond soundtrack provided by David Arnold. The voice talents of Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench. Even the titular Goldeneye song has been re-recorded by Mrs Lewis Hamilton, Nicole Scherzinger. These production values continue as you play the game - When you enter a night club the song playing is Samantha James - Right Now which is a Hed Kandi classic. And what follows is an incredibly atmospheric slow motion shoot-out to Billie Holiday's The Man I Love - "One day he'll come along, the man I love..."

I'm playing the game with the Nunchuck and Wii-mote. I tried a Wii-Zapper (the gun) but didn't think it really added anything and went back to the standard setup. You point the Wii-mote around the screen to look and target your enemies and use the joystick on the Nunchuck to move around. I struggled to begin with (I've never played a game like this before), but as I practised a bit and refined the controls (there are almost infinite controller options) it became easier and easier. By the end of my first afternoon I was creeping down corridors, taking out CCTV cameras and unsuspecting enemies with my silenced PPK like a true double-zero. This is by far the most satisfying and engrossing aspect of the game. You can enter a scene guns blazing with your AK47 and get besieged by the enemy, or you can creep about and clear a room without anyone else even knowing you were there. There are tons of different guns to pick up along the way and you can even sneak up on a badguy and shake the Wii-mote or the Nunchuck to silence him-to-hand. There's an impressive amount of detail too. Walls become bullet sprayed. You can shoot locks on doors. You can remove air-conditioning vents and crawl down conduits. Even traffic cones and other inanimate objects bounce about and fall apart as you empty more and more bullets into them. Everything is shown from the first person perspective to the point that when you're a passenger in a truck that flips over, your vision goes blurry and you see your hands infront of you, pawing your way out of the wreckage.

There will be lots of experienced gamers out there that know their stuff and they will be able to tell you how this game compares to either the original game on the N64 or other First Person Shooters on the Wii and other platforms. I really respect that, but I'm afraid it's not me. All I can tell you is that as a relatively inexperienced gamer with no preconceived ideas of how this game should look or play, I absolutely loved it. I found Goldeneye Wii to be a thoroughly engrossing and extremely enjoyable game - that looks and sounds great and gives you a real sense of the James Bond franchise. As a footnote, the game is rated 16 but although there is a lot of killing, it's not graphically depicted - people go down with a yelp or a scream, but their bodies then dissapear without a trace of blood being shown.

Goldeneye for Wii is a brilliant game and a must have for any Wii owners who want a decent shooter.

Yes, the N64 original was a great game but the Wii version is just as good and now with the added bonus of online play. I have owned the game for a while now and before writing this review, I dug out my old N64 and played the original to ensure my rose tinted glasses were sufficiently removed.

Goldeneye Wii is a remake to a certain extent in that the story is pretty similar and the gameplay (which made the original so good) is excellent, but this new version has been made in the mold of the new Bond played by Daniel Craig and you vistit mostly different locations. You can use the Wii remote & Nunchuck, Wii Classic Controller or a Gamecube Controller and modify the controls almost endlessly which is a great feature. The graphics are pretty good, the levels are fun (although one or two more would have been great) and the online play is very good. The only issue I have found with the online play is there is an occasional time lag/jerkiness (although this could be my internet connection) and sometimes you are kicked out of games when the host player quits. The offline multiplayer is also great fun, just like the N64 version.

Overal, the game is a great success and a very much needed addition to the limited amount of good adult games available on Wii.

I thought the game was brilliant. My mum bought it for me and from the first day I got it I loved it. Missions are very good and action packed and they are hard but if you like challenges this is the game for you. but If your mum is a bit cautious then you will have to check with her before she says yes [infomation for mums and dads] the game has no blood or bad language. Ok that's all from me, have a great time playing the game. P.S I think that it should have been a 12