GoldenEye, Blood Stone – review

You wait years for a Bond videogame, then two come along at once. Well, one comes back, in the form of GoldenEye , to a warm welcome and it is joined, but not quite matched, by Blood Stone . For those of you who didn't play the original N64 GoldenEye , this is probably the best first-person shooter on the Wii. For those of you who did: yes, it has changed, yes, it is still good, and no, nostalgia isn't what it used to be… It is debatable whether Daniel Craig is a better-looking Bond than Pierce Brosnan, but this GoldenEye (Wii, Activision, cert: 16, out now) is a lot prettier than its forebear, and the voice acting is also much improved. Although the "new" storyline is patent nonsense and many changes are inexplicable at best, the single-player adventure is deeper, longer and more fun. Not that GoldenEye was ever really about single-player; in 1997 it set the benchmark for multiplayer, and that's how this reworking will be judged. Favourably, I suspect, with much of the original split-screen mayhem returning, complete with playable Jaws and Oddjob, with brand-new online multiplayer too. The inclusion of friend codes means it can be a phenomenal mates' night in all over again. Blood Stone (Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Activison, cert: 16, out now), on the other hand, fails to lift itself above its equally inane plot, rumbling between perfectly adequate first-person shooter action and frustrating driving sequences that test the memory far more than the reflexes.