GoldenEye: Rogue Agent DS Hands-On Even after getting a sneak peek at how well the Nintendo DS can pull of first-person shooters in Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt, it's surprising how untouched this genre is on the new handheld. Electronic Arts aims to bring the first official FPS game to the Nintendo DS with a portable conversion of last year's GoldenEye: Rogue Agent action title for a release this summer. EA brought by the most current version of the portable version so we can get a little playtime in and see just how well the design's pulled off on the Nintendo DS hardware. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent attempts to be as much of the console game as possible. The storyline and situations have been brought over to the Nintendo DS, but scaled back a bit to fit the much more restrictive memory and space limitations of the system and its cartridge format. So, while we're not going to get the huge big budget presentation of voice acting and elaborate cutscenes from the Xbox, PS2, and GameCube games, the Nintendo DS version will have those elements in a smaller form to fit the DS system's restrictions. The James Bond-style opening sequence, for example, has been sandwiched into the cartridge in a more real-time animated version using manipulated sprites, backgrounds, and 3D elements. The action of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent takes place entirely on the upper screen in a smooth 3D engine that looks to go from a fluid 30 to 60 frames per second depending on the complexity of the area the player's currently wandering into. Though the environments are, for obvious reasons, lower polygon geometry and lower resolution than the console versions, they're well represented on the Nintendo DS system's LCD screen and provide a lot of cover during the action. GoldenEye is entirely a first-person shooter design, and the Nintendo DS developers utilize the touch screen for tight control. Though players can choose to go with the D-pad to move through the environments, this game really shines in its use of the touch panel and thumb strap combination to pull off much more precise horizontal and vertical targeting and movement. The developers have put in a lot of options to tweak the control for personal preference, including "invert look" and "movement sensitivity" control so players can really make the game feel like a PC first-person shooter. One of the "hooks" in GoldenEye is the design's double weapon option where players can fire weapons independently in both hands. This control is pulled off rather well using the Nintendo DS's touch screen; by standing on a particular, discarded weapon, players tap on the lower right or lower left of the screen to hold the weapon in the right or left hand, respectively. Firing the left weapon's performed on the L trigger of the DS, and the right weapon, the R trigger. This is the reason why "stylus" control doesn't work for the DS version, since using the touchpen would make it difficult, if impossible, to hit one of the shoulder buttons. In this case, if you really want to use the stylus, the developers included an option to "link" the two weapons together to one shoulder button. The game still has a bit to go in development to make its June release date, and the development team is currently balancing a few issues in the game. We noticed, for example, that enemy behavior responded oddly to specific situations, like stopping in place when they should have been avoiding getting shot. The game's audio is the biggest "in development" culprit; sound effects are fine, but the extremely simplistic engine handling the in-game soundtrack really needs a boost in quality. But even in its early form, we managed to kick around a few rounds in multiplayer mode. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent features wireless network play that only requires one copy of the game for as many as eight players locally. The limitation is that there's only one map available in single cart mode, but it at least gives a great taste test for the full-on multiplayer support that's available when everybody in the network has his or her own copy of the game. This multiplayer melee ran at full speed, though the balancing got a little unfair when someone picked up one or both of the uber-powerful rail guns available in the arena. We've managed to snag several minutes of footage from the work-in-progress version of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, which you can check out by hitting the media link below. We'll have more on the game as it continues into development for its mid-June release. |
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