As some of you know, I have been playing GoldenEye 007: Reloaded on PS3. I'm now about halfway through the campaign (decent size game!). I'll just get it over with now; it's not earth-shatteringly revolutionary like the N64 classic is. It's an all-round solid shooter, with great poroduction-values, and the shooting feels great. There's a sense of 'fun' in the shooting that I'll get into. In this game, it's really fun to gun people down!
Now, I've been playing on 007 Classic difficulty, which emulates the N64 original settings of no health-regeneration and sparodic, hidden body armour. There might be two, maybe three in each level. All added objectives. I wanted the give the game the best chance I could give it. No regenerating health on it's own is quite a big difference, in addition to the hardest difficulty (AI are crack shots).
On a few levels, I was too careless in the early stages, and laboured on through the rest of the level with a spec of health, living off my body armour. Having to be extremely stealthy, eliminating cameras, shooting guards silently in the head. Just about scraping past the finish line alive. Had I been as careful in the early stages, the home stretch would have been way easier.
I digress. The point is, that reminded me of the N64 game. It's a good feeling to have eked your way through a level on three bar because of a careless mistake early on. That tension, then sense of relief as you complete that level. The AI on 007 Classic will kick your ass if you're not careful, as well.
What doesn't remind me of the N64 classic are the levels, and the mechanics. It's not all bad news, either. Gone are the N64 GoldenEye controls, in come COD copy-pasta mechanics. Sounds grim, I know, but it's actually not. Although it controls the same, I've actually heard it doesn't run on any COD engine/variant at all, but a proprietary one from Eurocom. Easy mistake. Controls the same, runs at 60fps.
It's not actually the same as COD to play , though. All those skills will be useful (007 even as the 'snap-on aim' from going out of and into RDS). The game itself is slower, though. Not much, but it's palpable. The shooting feels oddly different from COD. Again, not bad. Different. I have to say, this game has some of the most fun shooting in-game! People falling over railings all the time, destructible environments (cover gets worn down). It's a blast.
The other difference is levels. They're not completely linear lines filled with cutscene markers like COD is, but we're not really talking the playground-esque trappings of the N64 classic, either. There, you were given (a sometimes huge) area, told to complete x amount of objectives, and sometimes one or two no-nos ('Minimise scientist casualties' etc). It was up to you what route you took through the level and what order you did everything in.
Here, it's more mini, interconnected areas. You might start on the top floor of an office complex. You might head for the objective (waypoint marker.. joy), or you might explore an often surprisingly large amount of optional rooms, etc. These searches often yield Janus symbols (shoot them for some reason), weapon crates, and if you're lucky.. blessed body armour.
There's usually some bullshit thing that happens when you go from one major area to the next which makes it impossible for you to go to the previous area of the same level. So you better make sure you search everything your side of the waypoint marker if you want to complete all those objectives! You might lose one to a self-locking door. Cunt. Then there's the radar, which shows you where all the bad guys are.
That's probably all the bad things. The area thing is just a result of how games are more cinematic, now. The radar isn't bad, either, I guess. It promotes stealthy gameplay. This game actually reminds me of Black on PS2, believe it or not! Same general sense of 'awesome' and similar structuring of levels. As I said before, the shooting is very fun!
This game rewards you for being a good marksman more than most. Now, a quick kill with a silenced weapon doesn't alert anyone to your presence, unless they were in close proximity to the recently-deceased. Headshots are a one-hit kill even on 007 Classic difficulty. The controls are smooth, and shooting the guns feels great.
The best part about the shooting is the fucking Bond audio cues that the game rewards you with for being badass! A headshot gives the player a gratifying 'crack' sound. A headshot from your silenced PP9 gives that same sound, and an addition Bond music cue. Two guys near talking to each other. You headshot one in said fashion, get said audio treat, you quickly (and silently) kill the other one quick enough before he alerts anyone, you get another badass bit of music!
In other words, it feels great to be Bond in this game, even if it doesn't feel like the N64 game it has stolen the identity of. The game lets you know that you're living up to the Bond persona when you pull off nice shots. It's not things the game is telling you to do, either. Eurocom build good shooters. In fact, this isn't even their first Bond FPS. Their first was on the N64! Anyway, that I compare it to Black isn't an insult. Black was a totally badass game.
So if you liked Black, wouldn't mind a very similar thing with current-gen graphics and James Bond accoutrements.. get this game! Even if not, consider it if you fancy shooting some stuff. It's like playing COD, bit a little slower with slightly 'heavier' guns. The enemies often die in comedy ways, and cheesy movie set-pieces, explosions everywhere at times, etc. All with Bond characters, music and stuff.
It's pretty awesome. Just don't expect it to be the N64 game. If you imagined a Black 2, canned and reskinned as Bond.. you wouldn't be far off!
Edit: The other bad thing is the load times. They're not horrendous , but they aren't nice and snappy. In COD when you die, you're generally back in the saddle in moments. In this, it might have to load for ten or fitteen seconds. A problem if you're stuck on one bit.