Creating a faithful rendition of a title that is regarded in the gaming industry as one of the greatest of all-time is no easy task. Goldeneye is a classic, however as developers and publishers are starting to realize, nostalgia isn’t always the key factor in creating a good upgrade or remake. Does Goldeneye 007 Reloaded stay true to form, or fail to create an experience as memorable as the original?

Games created 10 or even 15 years ago will always seem more pure and perfect then we actually remember them. When Goldeneye first released it was an impressive demonstration of technology. Like Perfect Dark, it had some fantastic production values, cutting edge animation, and helped spur the birth of local competitive multiplayer. It’s not like that was the only game that moved local multiplayer forward, but rather just a piece of the larger puzzle.

Goldeneye 007: Reloaded is an interesting beast. It doesn’t lean heavily on all of the key factors that made the original Goldeneye a success; in fact it throws most it out of the window. It’s less of a remake and more of a re-imagining, except without the big budget it deserves. Goldeneye 007: Reloaded has essentially stripped most of the original, and replaced it with modern shooter conventions. If its one thing Call of Duty has done it has made developers petrified of creating experiences similar to those that you and I enjoyed as kids. James Bond, doesn’t need to level-up, he’s already stacked with more than enough skills. Goldeneye 007: Reloaded doesn’t exactly suffer from “COD Syndrome”, but it certainly blurs the line. It’s difficult to describe what exactly Reloaded is trying to accomplish.

On one side it throws slight nods to fans of the series, yet at the same token completely rewrites the story, and adds questionable elements to the multiplayer. It’s nice to see some of the same set-pieces from the original; however they’ve been changed too much in favor of generic action and mechanics that are plaguing the modern day shooter market. What were once pivotal elements of each level are now nothing more than a slight nod to the fans. I really do feel sorry for Eurocom. It was either make a completely faithful experience, or try and reinvent the franchise. Eurocom attempted to try and do both, and the end result is a mixed bag.

The graphics fit perfectly with this trend. The character models are pretty good, but the environments are severely lacking in most areas. At times the textures can appear blurry, and the lighting doesn’t really do much to improve the already mediocre textures. On the bright side certain things like rain look pretty good at times. The audio design is pretty good overall, and one of the most consistent aspects of the experience. The voice acting in particular is well done. For instance Daniel Craig has replaced Pierce Brosnan and has offered his voice talent as well. Judi Dench also reprises her role as M. Aside from the graphics the presentation is pretty good. The menus are slick and responsive and the opening sequence is just plain awesome.

One of the biggest aspects of Goldeneye is the multiplayer and sadly this is where the game totally face-plants. Every game mode that I tried to ended up with terrible latency issues. There were times when I could see squeeze some enjoyment out of it, however this was a rare occurrence. This is a huge shame because there’s a ton of game-modes along with some of the classics which include Golden Gun and Escalation. Even without the lag there are still some balancing issues, which include a ridiculously over-powered shotgun. The melee and stealth which is a big part of the single-player are woefully inconsistent. Sneaking up to another player will not automatically net a 1-hit kill and the latency makes it even more difficult to pull it off.

Goldeneye 007: Reloaded is a fairly competent FPS, but lacks a lot of the gameplay mechanics that made the original so much fun. While it’s certainly not a definite remake of the classic, fans of the series will no-doubt see some of the nods, and will perhaps enjoy what Reloaded has to offer. With all the extremely polished titles that have already released it’s hard to recommend Reloaded, even if it’s a solid experience.