The battle of the ages! Yeah, so these games have been out for a while, but the retro gamer in me says that a title must be so old before I'm willing to consider it. Hehe.. in all seriousness, I've had Black Ops for a while and have enjoyed its online mode, and recently got around to getting The Conduit and Goldeneye because the price drop allowed me to do so with little expense. And now, I want to ramble about them.
Storytelling/Single-Player Campaign:
Oh, kids these days! The lot of you probably don't even know who Pierce Brosnan is any more than I know who Sean Connery is! Goldeneye follows the exploits of James Bond, the Hero of British Secret Agents, on his quest to save England from the dark lord Alec Trevelyan. It was an awesome movie, and a pretty fine N64 game. This Wii game is the same (albeit with updated technology and a few twists for variety), although Pierce Brosnan has been replaced by some gentleman named Daniel Craig. So, kids, tell me: Who the hell is this guy standing where Pierce Brosnan should be? Well.. whoever he is, he sneaks around killing Russians and uses stealth to avoid battles.
The Conduit isn't based on a movie, but it's got Kevin friggin' Sorbo (from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) doing voice-acting. With all due respect to Mr. Brosnan, Hercules would annihilate James Bond. Bond would start shooting his PK7 (or P99 in this Wii version) and Herc would just keep coming. He has the power of a god, and a sidekick that's a pretty good fighter by human standards. Unfortunately, Kevin Sorbo isn't Herc in this specific instance. He's a member of the resistance against a shadow government called The Trust, which is trying to take over the world via alien invasion or something. His character is named Prometheus, which is probably a subtle nod to Mr. Sorbo's eternal association with Greek mythology. The narration by this good actor really makes the single player campaign feel like a gem (much as Daniel Craig's voice-acting does in Goldeneye).
Black Ops' story is told through a series of flashbacks. Alex Mason did some stuff in the 60s and he wants you to hear about it. Well, he doesn't want you to hear about it, but the dude torturing him does. He tried to kill Castro, but failed and got sent to a Russian prison. But he broke out, then JFK wanted him to kill more commies. There's a shocking plot twist at the end which is quite surprising, but Black Ops' storyline isn't exactly up there with either the The Conduit or Goldeneye. I'd say Goldeneye is the best in terms of story, followed by The Conduit, then Black Ops is significantly behind.
When it comes to actually playing the single-player campaigns, I'd say Goldeneye is the best... if you play it right. Every difficulty mode except 007 Classic makes for a shameless Call of Duty clone, which the world could do without. On 007 Classic Mode, you pretty much have to play this game like you're a secret agent. Blasting through like Mason or Reznov will get you killed.. much as it would in real life if you tried to gun down an entire army. You have to watch your health and even your ammo to an extent. When coupled with the fact that this mode makes you accomplish all the objectives, the experience feels truly awesome.
The Conduit has some elements that aren't exactly miles away from what I've described in Goldeneye. You use your All Seeing Eye device to accomplish objectives and find secret areas. None of that is really all that great. The best thing about The Conduit is that it reminds me of another game: Gauntlet. It's not enough to kill the bad guys; you need to kill the objects that are spawning bad guys. Killing spawn spots is awesome to the max, yo! I also like the fact that the health regeneration isn't as overt as it is in CoD.
Black Ops has an annoying single player campaign. You could shoot six thousand NVA soldiers in some places and they'll just keep spawning. The developers want you to use your skills to advance and take position from the enemy, but that sucks! (on Veteran anyway. It's too easy to do on the lower difficulties, and it's nearly impossible on Veteran.) Like in Goldeneye and The Conduit, there are objectives, but those objectives primarily consist of getting to the end of the level.
Graphics:
Black Ops Wii really impresses me by just how good it looks. It's not in the same ballpark with the other platforms' versions, but the fact remains that not many Wii games that look as good as this one does. It's a pleasure to look at, and Goldeneye actually looks sort of bad when compared to it. The Conduit doesn't really strike me as real per se, and I certainly hope that's not what they were going for. It looks like a comic book world, to me, and the graphics are very easy on the eyes. I'd rather look at The Conduit than either of those other two.
Online/Multiplayer Modes:
I haven't played The Conduit's online mode yet, so I can't speak about it just yet. I'm sure it's pretty ok. Haha.
Fuck you, Activision! Why do I have to go to a PS3 owning friend's house to play Black Ops map packs? And why doesn't this game have a local multiplayer? Because Wii sucks, you say? Ah, right. I forgot about that. Outside of those two little things, Black Ops' online mode is awesome. There is so much depth to the combat, and there are any number of ways to play this game.
Goldeneye has a local multiplayer, which I'm sure means a lot to anyone who plays these sorts of games with friends. (My brother seems to like this game, but doesn't really want to play the multiplayer with me.. likely because he knows I'd destroy him. heh). However, there are problems. The framerate can get pretty low at points, particularly on the Outpost level. Secondly,I haven't counted them, but I'd wager that Goldeneye has fewer customization options than Black Ops. Finally, it takes entirely too long to level up in Goldeneye (which lets you get access to better weapons that the level 56 people are using to obliterate you).
In summation, I think Goldeneye has a better single-player and Black Ops has a better multiplayer. The Conduit is also good, mostly because of spawn destruction and the fact that Kevin Sorbo is god. Thank you for your time. :)
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