More than a decade ago, Goldeneye 007 on the N64 changed the face of first-person shooters. It is sometimes referred to as the father of modern fps multiplayer. It’s up to four player split-screen death-matches were addictively entertaining and revolutionary at the time, as was it’s challenging main campaign. Numerous James Bond titles over the years have tried and failed to recapture the magic so to speak of Goldeneye such as Nightfire and Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. The closest to the original any have come is Goldeneye 007: Reloaded, originally on the Wii and now HD updated for the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Rather than Reloaded being an outright HD port of the original N64 Goldeneye, it is a complete re-imagining with an altered story, updated controls, and an original cast featuring Daniel Craig in place of Pierce Brosnan. Sadly, very little is seen of Bond save for a few extremely brief cutscenes prior to each level, though the character models are quite good. Goldeneye 007: Reloaded is so different in fact as to separate itself almost entirely from the original game. The intuitive and satisfying gameplay of the original as well as the level design and general feel of the game is radically changed. It actually plays similar to a Call Of Duty title, one of the very series the original Goldeneye inspired.
Multiplayer is what really made the N64′s Goldeneye famous however. This has also been similarly altered in order to attempt to compete with the likes of modern multiplayer games of today by including level gaining and the standard online capability. One of the few things left intact is the ability to participate in some old fashioned local four player death-matches with the use of split screens. This is thankful due to the game’s notoriously inactive servers.
Goldeneye 007: Reloaded falls short of recapturing the glory of Goldeneye as well as becoming competition for games such as Call Of Duty and Battlefield, dooming it to mediocrity. Reloaded may be somewhat forgettable, but it’s still a fairly decent licensed game though. Goldeneye 007: Reloaded is recommended for only the biggest of Bond fans.