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GoldenEye Wii/DS - more screens, tons of details
The following comments come from Wii producer Graham Hagmaier…
“One of the big keys [for developer Eurocom] in regard to game design is player choice. [The game] has multiple routes through areas, so you can take the stealthier route and kind of use close-quarter combat — such as takedowns. Or you can go in guns-a-blazing — American style, as I like to call it — and just firefight and take out enemies.”
- St. Petersburg level starts with Bond, in a tank, chasing an automobile
- Daniel Craig provides voiceover during this scene to catch the player up to speed
- soon into the level, a helicopter blows a bridge up, and you’re left without a tank
- the tank goes wild and destroys much of the city
- Bond has missiles fired at him from enemy helicopters as you travel through the level
- you will eventually get your tank back
- Tank controls (classic controller): move forward with the left control stick, right analog stick for aiming (with missiles and a submachine gun)
- “[Activision] thinks that Classic Controller Pro is a great new controller, and [Activision] is doing a Collector’s Edition with the gold controller. As such, the Classic Controller Pro is just one of those things it has been pushing to get people comfortable with that control scheme.”
- Jungle level has Bond escaping from a crashed plane
- Bond will sneak up on an enemy and smash his head into a rock
- “The smartphone can do multiple functions: it can hack computers, hack locks, and it also can do facial scanning. So you can use it in a crowd to find an objective… It also can be a communication device, obviously a phone, and you can hold the Wii Remote up to your ear to answer it.”
The following information comes from Ted Newman, creative director at n-Space…
“[GoldenEye 007 DS] is basically a companion title, so it follows the same story points and same plot beats as the Wii version. All of the levels, though, are built from scratch with the DS in mind — the gameplay, the weapon choices. There are going to be some similarities [to the Wii version], but [GoldenEye 007 DS] has its own entity.”
- snow level where stealth is a better option than running and gunning
- blow up a snowmobile to take out enemies
- stylus control or button control
- “I personally am such a fan of the stylus that I wasn’t sure how I would feel about [button controls]. But you really can do a good job [with buttons], just running through the levels and playing as you would with the stylus.”
- button mode has aim assist
- “Basically, whenever you beat a single-player level, it opens up a time trial. Thus, you go back to try to beat a level in a certain time to gain experience, which you then use to spend on different cheats.”
- more than 70 awards for online play
- mod system as well
- “For example, [one modification] has all the players moving constantly and not able to stop. Another modification] has a bonus [for the player], like you’ll gain armor when you kill an enemy. These modifications really change up the modes that we have and just add that much more replay to the multiplayer experience.”
- “I really do feel like this is what a James Bond game should be — it’s the right mix of action; it’s the right mix of stealth. The mantra [the development team] kept using throughout the project was that [the game] is the thinking man’s first-person shooter.”