In 1995, the James Bond franchise was revived after a 6 year long hiatus after the release of Licence to Kill, which was the lowest-grossing 007 film after adjusting for inflation. However, Pierce Brosnan played a new kind of Bond. This James Bond was more charming than ever, more deadly than ever, and matches, if not surpasses the acting of Sean Connery from the original James Bond days. This new film, GoldenEye, was released and enjoyed positive reviews and a great box office run. In 1997, a video game adaptation for the Nintendo 64 was made, titled GoldenEye 007. Though the expectations were low (since it was a video game adaptation), it surpassed expectations greatly and became one of the most influential FPS games ever.

And then in 2010, they made a remake of the game. Initially an exclusive for the Nintendo Wii, it was also called GoldenEye 007, though there were many changes to fit into the modern James Bond style. Now, the modern Bond, Daniel Craig, provides the likeness and voice of this James Bond, and characters like Natalya Simonova and Xenia Onnatop have had design overhauls. Due to the change of setting, it tries to fit into the timeline of Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008). But explaining all this will take some time, so I'll explain it later.

Now, in 2011, GoldenEye 007 was re-released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, titled GoldenEye 007: Reloaded. It sported HD graphics (as the Wii was not capable of HD graphics), but not much else, so this is essentially a review of both GoldenEye 007 and Reloaded, since they're basically the same game, with Reloaded having improved graphics. From what I've seen, these HD graphics are a good improvement over the Wii graphics, but on their own, they fail to impress in comparison to the competition like Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, and more.

The sound is also admittedly a bit bland. Despite the nice bits of the James Bond Theme played in certain parts, and the nice "I Remember" song in the Nightclub level, the soundtrack isn't really all that memorable. Heck, I forget if there even was an official soundtrack, since the songs are always drowned out by gunfire or something. The gun effects are average and sound like from just any other game.

With remakes come flaws. The reload speed in this game is VERY annoying. It takes a very long time to reload your guns, especially shotguns, and this ultimately leads to your downfall if you're being flanked badly. The challenge factor in this game is also annoying and at time, even seems a bit unfair. Still, the game's still very fun when it's not frustrating, even if the length of the campaign mode is roughly 6-7 hours. However, even after you finish the campaign, you may want to go back just because it's that fun. I know I did. And even then, there's more to do. There's the MI6 Ops mode, where you try to complete a certain objective/challenge, such as defending consoles, using stealth to kill every hostile on the map, and more. However, the kicker in the FPS genre is always the online experience.

However, I don't think it's all that impressive if nobody's ever on to play it. There are a lot of modes you can participate in, but it seems that the only mode people play is Team Conflict/Deathmatch, which as you can expect, gets boring after a while. I don't know if it's just the PS3 version that nobody plays, but you can't enjoy multiplayer if you can't play with other players.

To talk about the story would be talking about the modern version of the GoldenEye movie. In the beginning of the movie, James Bond and his friend, Alec Trevelyan (also known as Agent 006) infiltrate a weapons facility in Russia. However, things take a bad turn when 006 is caught and killed, forcing you to flee by yourself after downloading the data you need for your objective. In the movie, it cuts to 9 years later after the flashy intro sequence, while in the video game, the next level takes place shortly after. The movie/N64 video game took place in the mid-80s to '90s, but now in this reimagining, it is now in modern day, after the events of the Cold War. There aren't any drastic changes to the plot, though there are changes nonetheless. The peaceful little lounge in Monte Carlo where Bond and Onatopp meet is replaced by a thriving nightclub in Barcelona, Spain, and then some.

Overall, GoldenEye 007: Reloaded isn't a terrible game, but it's not very noteworthy either in my opinion. However, that doesn't mean it's not as fun, addicting, and time-consuming as the original game. However, I feel it'll just be forgotten (if it hasn't been forgotten already), and will be overshadowed by its predecessor from the Nintendo 64 ages.