Goldeneye Wii: A Review

Cover via Wikipedia

In case you didn’t already know, this is the second time I’m writing this review. I previously completed this review a while ago on my school laptop, which then decided to die on me (most likely due to the pure awesomeness of the review).

Goldeneye Wii would easily be the game I’ve spent the most time playing on Wii for a long time. It was kind of an impulse buy by me, due to my lack of FPS experience and generally avoiding the genre (due to pure ignorance I’d say), but the game came with a golden classic controller pro, so I got it. I haven’t played the original on the N64 (due to me not having an N64 at all), and my only experience of it being on a PC emulator, and it was impossible to aim using the mouse keys, so I pretty much cheated my way through that (due to being impossible to aim, don’t judge me -.-).

Single Player

Quite obviously this game is based off the N64 game which is, in turn, based off the movie. However, this isn’t a remake, like Ocarnia of Time on the 3DS, it’s a re-imagining of the movie. Same basic plot, but the characters have new looks and voice actors (Pierce Brosnan has been booted out for Daniel Craig). On the Daniel Criag note, the game feels a lot more like his style. The melee moves have kick and it’s less gadget-intensive than other Bond games/movies. Your only piece of technology is a smartphone which is used to hack doors, mounted guns and take pictures of things. General spy things like that.

The game starts off (after the tutorial) in the ever-familiar Dam level, with the also ever-familiar flyover of the Guard tower and the bridge. You start off with Trevelyan and fight along his side for most of the first two levels. This level first introduces you to sniping in the game, which is a breeze. The scope doesn’t sway. Ever. However, throughout the campaign you’ll rarely find a sniper rifle with a decent amount of ammo.

The game offers you two different ways to play. The first is to run around spraying ammo everywhere, with no clue about stealth. The game fights back by sending more enemy reinforcements if you fire an unsuppressed weapon or be seen (or do something stupid, like blowing something up). Sometimes there’s nothing else you can do throughout the level (like the Barcelona level) as there’s no space for stealth. The other option is to be stealthy, crawling your way through the area snapping necks and picking off the weak (like a guard trying to get a drink out of a broken drink machine). This method is my personal favourite, but I you get caught while doing it you’ll just have to fire from the hip to survive. The tank level is back, and better than ever. It’s never looked so good rampaging along the streets of St. Petersburg.

The story takes you to all new locations, like Spain and Africa in order to stop your “friend” from hitting London with an EMP fired from a satellite . You’ll face Onatopp and Trevelyan in in-game cinematics, having to use on-screen prompts to fight and defend. It really involves you in the fights.

The game also has the rare but still brilliant throwbacks to the original (like the guard tower and the bridge, and the poor Russian taking a dump).

Overall, the campaign is decent. It doesn’t live up to the brilliance of what the original was. The original was, in fact original. The Wii-make doesn’t feel original. Besides the stealth, the game plays a lot like Call of Duty. From the crosshairs that tighten or loosen depending on your movement to the slow-motion breaches to even that little cross that comes up when you injure someone in Multiplayer.

Graphics wise, the game is uninspiring. Looking out a window in Archives reveals bland buildings. While some levels do look great, like Outpost and parts of Jungle, it won’t impress all of the time. The music is great- the typical James-Bond type music. When you’re found by an enemy, the music freezes. If they aren’t killed in a set amount of type (depends on the difficulty), the music changes to more upbeat music and reinforcements are sent in.

However, it’s still the best FPS game on the Wii (depends on how Conduit 2 is).

Multiplayer

Probably the biggest triumph of this game would be it’s multiplayer. Split screen multiplayer on Goldeneye on N64 was great, and it is too on this game. There’s a set of preset loadouts (primary weapon, pistol and 3 gadgets), and you get to choose your character (Oddjob would be my favourite due to being able to throw his hat instead of grenades). The game modes and modifiers are as crazy as ever (Headshots only, melee only, midget characters, paintball and DK mode), just like the original.

The online multiplayer of this game is its crowning glory. With 56 levels and hours of gameplay, it really is immense.

I’ll go into detail about all of the guns, game modes and maps later on, for now the review.

Some points about the game compared to Call of Duty

• Only mild camping. Game modes like heroes really encourage it and some maps are horrible camping wise (yuck, docks). Even if people do camp (which is only lower levels mainly) their weapons are unsilenced and they’re easy to find and kill. The silencer is unlocked at level 20 so there are not many silenced campers around.

• Noob tubers. The grenade launcher as an add-on to Assault Rifles is unlocked at level 56 (or thereabouts), however there is a custom loadout with a noob tube attached, however the only way to get more ammo for it is to die or walk over someone else who is also using that same gun (or hack). So if there’s a whole bunch of people noob tubing in a match they egg each other on and give each other ammo, but if there’s only one or two people doing it in a match it isn’t too bad (but still mildly annoying). Unfortunately the grenades fired from a noob tube explode instantly, no matter the distance. So shooting the ground is just as effective as shooting from a distance (besides you suiciding on it), unlike Call of Duty where it has to travel a certain distance before exploding on impact.

• Hackers. I’ve only come across a few hackers in my time playing. You’ll have the people using infinite ammo for guns, noob tubes and proximity mines which take a while to notice that something’s up, which is only mildly annoying. Then you’ll have the blatant cheaters turning any gun into a machine gun (noob tube, pistols, sniper rifles etc). You’ll want to quit if they join your game and it will be really easy to spot. Then you have the host hackers in which everyone gets the effects of the hack. This can be pretty fun sometimes because hackers don’t have an advantage over you.

• Weapon balance. I’d ay this is the biggest problem in the game. While the default loadouts are actually really good, the top tier guns will whoop your arse. If you’ve played against a max level you would know they’re really annoying. The equivalent of the AA12 in Goldeneye (all the guns have different names in this game to their real names) has a massive damage and range increase, with the added expense of a horribly small amount of ammunition and lots of recoil, they’re still annoying as HELL. Another problem is proximity mines. Think claymores, but can be stuck to surfaces, harder to see and impossible to know whose mines belong to whichever side. The mines are an instant kill unless you combine Bio Booster and Reactive Armour (which is a stupid idea unless you’re sniping or sometimes rocking a shotgun). They also get 3 mines per life. And because the game puts you into teams depending on level and if you’re friends with other people, playing a game with 4 members of the [SD] clan (for example)  and are all max level who are all rocking auto shotties and throwing proxy mines like those little girls at weddings throw flowers down the aisle, its really annoying and  very rage-inducing (because the game decides to give you a bunch of level 10s on your team, you’re going to lose very badly.

• Lag. Many game developers have come to believe that the Wii cannot handle online play. They’re wrong. The multiplayer on Goldeneye runs very smoothly (depends on your connection). My connection now is extremely fast and I only get the slightest bit of lag. The lag does take a bit to get used to, and you’ll find many of your shots take a split second to register, which results in you dying whilst behind cover, for example, as the last few shots just register. Many times you’ll make an extremely close call, and sigh when you’ve made it out of their line of fire and get just through a door as the hit register and you end up dead. Many times you’ll find people running at each other, shooting and both dying due to the lag. You do get used to it eventually, and I find my results are always slightly better when hosting and there is zero lag.

There’s 56 levels in the multiplayer and after level 20 or so you’ll find it takes a lot more experience to level up. The game is pretty stingy handing out xp to you, with 5 xp for a kill and 10 xp for a headshot. You don’t get any for an assist (after you’ve finished the proficiency in tag team, which takes about 35 kills before it’s complete) and only minimal for streaks, blocking streaks and dominating people. The game has a series of proficiencies with a number of levels with xp awarded at the end of each level. You get the easy ones like killing people with grenades and melee attack, killing higher levels and headshots. There are harder ones like shooting a deployed mine to kill an enemy and killing an enemy while under the effects of a flashbang. There’s also proficiencies for weapons.

The general nature of the online multiplayer makes it very addicting. I haven’t bought another Wii game in months because of it.

My Rating

Music: 9.5

Gameplay: 10

Creativity: 8.5

Graphics: 8.5

Other: 10

Total: 46.5/50

My First Negative Review: Ridge Racer 3D

First off, I have a Goldeneye Wii review complete, but my stupid laptop died and it is now gone. I’ll probably get around to doing a multiplayer one but I doubt I’ll have the courage to make another one again.

Alright, I now have 3 games on my 3DS. I’ll get Ocarnia of Time when I can be bothered, as I never had a N64 and never got around to playing it. I subscribe to the Official Nintendo Magazine Australia, and by their review of Ridge Racer, I decided I wanted a 3D racing game, so I bought it. I’ve never played previous Ridge Racer games, so if this is the way the whole series is, take it as my criticism of the series instead. From first glance, the game is good. The graphics are a good example of what the 3DS can do, the 3D effect is only mildly annoying (because when I play racing games I tilt the handheld a little bit to the direction I’m heading in, which causes you to get a double image). The game’s music, again is great. There’s a wide range of tracks you can choose from, and while techno is not quite my forte, I still like it. This seems to be repeating itself. The racing tracks, again are good. Besides being windy and too narrow, the tracks are wide (the irony was NOT intended) and varied. You’ll have beautiful cliff coastlines, tropical beaches, massive cities, snowy mountains and so on.

Right about now you’ll be reading the title and wondering what the hell I’m on.

Here’s the negative part. You’ll start racing, and then there’s this commentary on. A woman saying things like “Whoa” (when you hit something), “This is getting intense” (when you hit a car) and “You’re in xth place, (x-1)th place is just around the corner” (when you’re on your final lap). The commentary changes and there are many more events the woman wants to comment on. However, when she say’s it’s getting intense and you’ve only just nipped the person next to you, or when she’s reminding you what place you’re in when it’s clearly on the HUD and your opponent is right beside you, and telling you you’ve used nitrous when you clearly are aware of it because you’ve fucking just hit the button yourself it’s really REALLY ANNOYING. Here you are, rocking out to the awesome soundtrack and there’s some stupid lady adding her input constantly. You can’t turn it off, either. While it’s good to know that you’re on the final corner because the zoomed-in map on the touch screen doesn’t show the finish line for some stupid reason, or reminding you that your nitrous tanks are full. And yeah, the complements on my driving are nice for about 10 minutes, and then that’s about it. So I have to resort to muting the game and missing the sweet music.

It gets worse. It’s pretty obvious from first playing the game that the turning circle of the cars is horrible, so you have to drift. That’s good, and what the developers intended to do. When you drift, it builds up your nitrous bar, which is customisable (I.E. auto filling up, available to use as soon as you getting it and to the amount you specify instead of filling up tanks and then using up that tank). Again, nothing wrong with that. The game lets you use a a button that automatically puts your car into drift for newbies (and me) or you can do it manually. Again, that’s good. The game is split up into four categories of cars, which increase in power as you advance through the categories. Again! Good, it lets you get a feel for the game before throwing you into some crazy muscle car. The cars can have custom paint jobs and have different advantages and disadvantages (which is hard to find out due to know stat bar) and different top speeds and drift type.

The review seems to be going positive. What a pity, it’s not going to be any more.

You’ll start off seeing only one car on the track. The car in 1st place starts a half to a third around the track in front of you. You’ll get in the car in front of your’s streamline, catch up to it, and then duke it out until the AI decides to give up, and falls back. You don’t go faster than them, you can’t intelligently manover around them, you just duke it out, and then the AI drops back. Move up to the next car. Stay in the streamline. Duke it out. Repeat.

You’ll be doing this incredibly boring repetition until category 2 (I wouldn’t know beyond there, I rage quit at this stage). It’s fun for about an hour, but with the gran prix races only introducing a casual reverse track or a new track every 2 or three gran prixes it gets boring. Fast. Category 3 is the same, only slightly faster. And then sometimes you’ll get to a point where you’re duking it out with another car, and all of a sudden your car is flung backwards, and you drop about 4 places. That glitch has happened SO many times it’s not funny, forcing you to repeat the sometimes 4-5 minutes long tracks and the streamline, fight streamline, fight repeating dance for another 5 minutes.

It makes me rage so hard. Such a good game besides the two previous negatives, which completely ruin it. It’s not a game you can play for 4 hours straight and just can’t put down, instead you’ll feel brave and tackle it for 10 minutes at a time until you inevitably rage quit. I’ve heard category 1 is different and way better, but sorry, I’m not sitting through hours of repetitive gameplay and tracks, annoying glitches and commentary until I get to the “interesting” part. It’s not interesting gaming, and you rage quit not over being incredibly hard but instead incredibly hard AND annoying AND repetitive AND repetitive AND repetitive AND repetitive.

My Rating

Music: 9

Gameplay: 2

Creativity: 3

Graphics: 8

Other: 1

Total: 23/50

My Impulse Purchase of the Month: Nintendogs+Cats (review)

Gallery Pictures:

1. Thats my dog, Ace, trying his hand (paw?) at being an Elvis impersonator, at the mountain park.
2. More mountain park.
3. If you touch the screen here, they lick your hand. It’s really cute.
4. All of the competitions have gotten a graphics overhaul, and you don’t go down a rank if you lose.
5. A cat playing. It’s not mine, I’m at the cafe.
6. Dogs fighting over a disc at the beach park.
7. My cat in a high place.
8. AR card usage. Depending on the card, the dog changes hat.
9. Running around in the cafe.
10. Catching a boomerang (I tried to time if so you had the dog jumping, but it didn’t work).

This is a first- a review with pictures taken from my own game! Wow!

Nintendogs was the tied second game I bought for my 3DS. Why did I buy it? No idea. But I did (equal second with Ridge Racer, more on that in a later post.

If you have never played nitendogs (the original), and you own a DS, you should have a long hard look in the mirror. Sure, its a slightly childish game. But its charm and general awesomeness makes it a brilliant game. Nintendogs was released, like any launch title, purely to show off the system’s abilities. Nintendogs+cats is clearly made for the same reason.

So, how could Nintendo improve on such a great game (besides make it 3D). They added cats, fixed a few things, added new items, updated graphics, changed a competition… And that’s about it. It’s really quite sad that there aren’t more differences to the original.

The dogs side of it is pretty much the same. Competitions? Check. Walks? Check. Tricks? Check. The obedience trial and disc competitions are back with few changes (AR card functionality and sand/bonus areas respectively) and the other competition that I can’t possibly remember its name has been replaced with lure coursing. Now, I liked the old competition, and I like lure coursing too. Maybe they should have dumped the ever-annoying obedience trial for lure coursing. The concept behind lure coursing is your puppy chases a lure around a course. Eventually crossovers and hurdles are added in, mixing it up.

Walks have been messed with slightly. The view is more first person (from the side on in the original). You don’t choose a path before going on a walk, instead, you come across signposts on the walk to take you to different areas. There are 4 in total (mountains, town, seaside and default). And, like the original, you come across other owners (who add in their unrequited opinions) and gifts and rubbish on the road. There’s also a gym, two parks, a cafe and other secret shops that only open at certain times. I don’t like the new way. I’ve had many times where I’m going to the mountain signpost so I can visit the park and train for the disc competition, and there’s a gift right behind the signpost. So, you’re face with a decision. It’s happened so many times now that I get really annoyed.

Tricks, besides a few new ones (unless I missed them in the original), are the same. You direct your dog to do something, repeat the command 3 times, and it gets saved. Some tricks require you to wave a treat in the air to get the dog to its required learning position.

Now, the other new addition. Cats. Lets look at what cats can do. No competitions. No walks. No tricks. All they do is laze around like… Well, cats in real life. They love shiny things, as well as high places. Oh, and annoying all other creatures. And that’s just all about it for cats. You can awe at their cuteness and complain at their lack of use. It makes it quite a waste to save up so much in-game money to get a useless ball of hair.

Obvious bias about hating cats aside, nintendogs+cats is the same game with a few new additions. It doesn’t really show off the 3DS’ abilities either. A touch screen is hardly a new addition to Nintendo handhelds, as is a microphone. It has streetpass (unused so far), picks up our face, and uses the outer cameras. But the 3DS is more than just cameras. It has a gyro sensor, which is so far unused.

The addition of 3D is the main change in this game. You remember how, in the original, pets come and are all over the screen The 3D effect really makes this feel real. You get licked all over the face. You get a gift. You throw a disc. All these things that seem so novel become much more real.

All I can say is this. Thanks to 3D, many simulation games are going to become a lot better (I’m hoping to purchase the new Pilotwings at some point too).

Tl;dr version: Decent game, too similar, dogs>cats

My Rating

Music: 6

Gameplay: 8

Creativity: 5

Graphics: 10

Other: 7

Total: 36/50

My 3DS- Thoughts

Gallery Pictures:

1. Use of the AR cards
2. Metroid is on my table. XD
3. Mario is in my hand.
4. My Code for my Mii. Scan it to add me to your Miis
5. My Mii
6. That’s face raiders, one of the bosses.
7. More AR card awesomeness

Pokemon Black- Midgame Thoughts

Yeah, I’m sorry. I said I would post every week, but that became a very long week.

So, on March the 10th, like the good Pokemon fan I am, I went down and bought Pokemon Black. I chose Black because you get Black City over White Forest, for some reason I chose a city over a bunch of trees.

From the start, it is pretty obvious this game is different. The camera is slightly lower than Diamond and Pearl, and even lower than Ruby and Sapphire.

The starters are probably the weirdest so far. The fire Pokemon is a pig, as many of you already would know (it gets weirder as it evolves). And the grass one is a snake… thingy that also get weirder as it evolves. The water one is an otter, that gets more awesome as it evolves.

In these games, the Pokemon’s individual personality comes out with animated sprites. I know that it doesn’t seem like a large achievement to have moving sprites, but it looks really cool. Suddenly a cute little puppy just standing there (Lillipup), turns into this energetic bundle of fur, jumping around like crazy. I can’t wait to finish the story so I can see what the previous versions’ Pokemon look like.

The story… It’s slightly weirder than usual. The evil team is like PETA, but without all the naked celebrities. There are no boss like things that you can actually battle. There are 7 Sage things, but you can’t battle them. There are 3 ninja dudes, but you can’t battle them either, so you’re stuck with grunts and their leader, N. It just seems weird most of the time.

The difficulty seems significantly lower. I haven’t once had a problem with N, your two friends or any Gym Leaders. The first Gym battle is type dependent, but a nice person gives you a Pokemon that counters the Gym Leader’s Pokemon- and you don’t even have to train it. From then onwards its smooth sailing. The Gyms themselves are pretty cool, and are rather fun.

The region map is large enough, and densely populated. The 5 bridges that are in the region (3 of which I have passed over) look awesome. The camera when passing over the main bridge to Castelia City (and Castelia City itself) look amazing.

The addition of darker grass in which double battles with wild Pokemon happen, and the movements that show either a hidden item or a rare (ish) Pokemon are also a neat addition. That said, the encounter rate is far too high, many times I’ve had 3 or 4 Pokemon come out in as many steps.

The seasons I can’t say much about, seeing as it’s been the same season for the whole time I’ve had the game. That said, I look forward to seeing part of the region in snow in Winter. The weather also changes slightly. Raining areas don’t constantly rain (again, doesn’t seem like a big thing) and a legendary Pokemon whips up insanely strong storms and makes trouble (which looks pretty cool).

The music, as always, is awesome. The battle music isn’t annoying, and the routes and cities have fitting music. You’ll walk past someone playing an instrument in a city and the music will change to suit. It’s a nice touch.

Game Freak have messed with the age-old formula ever so slightly, but it’s enough to be noticeable. HMs are hardly used. Cut and Strength have only been used twice, and I’m up to Victory Road. You aren’t even told which Hms you can use after beating a Gym Leader. TMs can be used infinite times, and you don’t get a fishing rod or a chance to grow berries until post game.

Elite Four, here I come.

 

Goldeneye Wii- Awesomeness on a Wii near you

Image via Wikipedia

Goldeneye. The N64 game that is often considered to be THE BEST FPS ever to be released. Captivating gameplay and an awesome multiplayer.

Goldeneye wii, in my eyes, is a very good game. You’ll have all the CoD noobs going “Graphics suck, wii is shit, multiplayer is too laggy, controls suck”. You know what I have to say to that? STFU!

Sure, the graphics aren’t brilliant. Sure, there is some slight lag while playing on-line. Who cares? It’s fun! Isn’t that the whole point of playing video games? To have fun?

I can agree with many of the anti-wii xbox 360-religiously playing CoD/Halo people have. The wii doesn’t have the best controls, and motion controls can often be over used and very annoying. I just find the wii to be more fun! I don’t have to pay to play online, either.  Suck it, live players.

My $0.02

Related Articles

• The Mods And Modes Of GoldenEye 007 [Video] (kotaku.com)

Mario Galaxy 2: A Review

Image by Elger van der Wel via Flickr

Ah, Mario. One of the best platforming games since the NES was released. Its simplicity and little storyline was brilliant, as well as the music and gameplay. Years later, Mario Galaxy followed along that same formula, but being creative with a revamped physics engine.

Galaxy 2 is, obviously, a sequel to the first one, but the plot follows along in a parallel universe in which you head to Peach’s Castle at the star festival, like the first one, but different things happen. A giant Bowser appears and runs of with Peach. No big surprises in the storyline as yet. So then you blast off into space just like you did 500 thousand times in the first one, and off the game goes.

So the gameplay is similar to the first one, with you jumping from planet to planet to finally reach the Power Star. 70 stars will finish the game. Getting the first star requires you to beat the boss, and then you are taken to a world map of sorts.

How is Galaxy 2 different to the first one?

I’m glad you asked. Galaxy 2 contains many new levels (Galaxies), and the plot is different.

Oh, and I forgot to mention Yoshi.

It also includes new power-ups and music.

So you have the awesomeness of Galaxy 1, and added Yoshi. Brilliant.

Power Ups- Old and New

New Power-ups

Cloud Flower: Shaking the remote places a cloud below you (max 3), and lets you stand on other clouds without falling through. Great fun and really opens up some levels. Not to mention good at saving your bacon when you fall of the edge.

Rock Flower: Shaking the remote lets you bash through all kinds of things, rolling along causing chaos. It has the perfect balance between control and insanity.

Drill Mario: Lets you drill through dirt and go to the other side. Really good for the 2d platforming levels.

Yoshi Power-ups

Blimp Yoshi: Fills up like a balloon and then blows the air out, pushing you upwards. Not the best power-up, but still good fun.

Dash Yoshi: Great fun. Yoshi runs along at a great speed, allowing you to run straight up walls and over water.

Light Yoshi (I think that is the name of the power-up :S): Yoshi is a moving light bulb and reveals hidden paths. It runs out though.

Old Power-Ups Returning

Bee Mario: Hold A to fly. Personally I think back-flips are better, but flying is still fun.

Fire Mario: Wait… You don’t know what this is? Get out. Now.

Boo Mario: Boo Mario can float and go through some walls. A blast, and a real pity it is only in one level.

Spring Mario: Yuck. Thankfully it is only in one level this time.

My Rating

Music: 10

Gameplay: 9

Creativity: 10

Graphics: 8

Other: 9

Total: 47/50