GoldenEye 007

GoldenEye 007 is not a remake of the legendary Nintendo 64 game, but a new take on the same movie premise rewritten for the present day, with James Bond taking the form of Daniel Craig. Missions begin at a dam in North Ossetia and lead through Barcelona and Saint Petersburg all the way to a finale at a giant satellite dish, so fans of the original title will recognize plenty of situations, albeit in a different guise. The tone has changed: the game is tougher, more realistic, and closer to modern military shooters, but it gives far more room to stealthy approaches than its predecessor did.

The player can choose to solve a mission quietly, disabling cameras, using a silencer, and sneaking past guards, or to grab a submachine gun and blast through it head-on. Bond's watch serves as a universal tool for hacking, photographing documents, and scanning the surroundings, and using it gives the missions their rhythm. The controls offered exceptionally broad customization: aiming could be done with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, the Wii Zapper attachment, or a classic controller, and sensitivity could be finely tuned, so both fans of motion controls and players used to analog sticks found something to suit them.

A crucial part of the game is its multiplayer. Up to four people on one screen have access to a range of modes, rules, and modifiers that directly reference the tradition of the original title, and online play was added on top of that. Technically, it was one of the best-looking shooters on Wii in 2010, with well-lit interiors and smooth performance. The music works with the famous Bond motifs, and the atmosphere of a spy thriller is captured convincingly. Reviewers received the game very well and agreed it was the best Bond video game in many years. Today it's one of the strongest arguments for not underestimating the Wii as a shooter platform. A later release of a revised version on then-newer consoles showed just how solid the foundation was, but the original Wii version remains the most interesting precisely because of the motion-aiming controller.