Activision shows off Call of Duty: Black Ops and Goldeneye for Wii

E3 2010: We try to cut through the hype surrounding Call of Duty: Black Ops to find the actual game, and discover Goldeneye for Wii might actually be good!

Activision didn't have any kind of fancy presence at E3 this year. At a show where you can walk by real live Space Marines, Playboy bunnies and platoons of North Korean soldiers, Activision's presence was downright lowkey.

On the flipside, when you're pre-E3 'event' is a live show at LA's Staples Center, with acts like Chris Cornell, Jane's Addiction, Eminem, DJ Deadmau5 and more, you really don't need much more glamour.

So, instead, Activision had a series of private rooms above the show floor where you could catch up with latest and greatest. Like a certain new Call of Duty game...

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Black Ops was all over the show before the doors even opened on the Tuesday. It featured heavily as part of Microsoft's Xbox press conference, and the trailer was given the full pyrotechnics treatment at Activision's monday night concert. Imagine every gunshot and explosion being matched by a live squib or firepot, and you get the idea.

And if you were close to those firepots, like we were, you'll also have minor flashburns.

At least we got to saw more of the game than the chopper level (which we learned was called Payback) we saw at Microsoft's event. In addition to that, we saw a level called WMD, which does the classic 'switching characters' thing we've come to expect from CoD games. You start out as an observer aboard a Blackhawk stealth jet, and you're controlling a squad of spec ops typse on the ground. After a few minutes of gun-camera-style footage, you switch to the team, and get down to pointy brass tacks.

Those tacks, incedentally, just happen to be on the tips of nasty bolts fired from a really sexy mechanically assisted compound crossbow. It's awesome for quiet kills, and later part of the level even comes equipped with explosive bolts. Very Rambo.

Close up, the game doesn't look quite so polished, but this is early days yet. Your squad AI is as woeful as we've come to expect, for instance, but on the upside there are some neat new mechanics to play with, like the rappelling system that requires you to jump and release with well-timed trigger pulls. Graphically, while the game's looking good on console (with impressively deformable snowy terrain), again no one was willing to talk PC.

The WMD level does end on a high, so to speak. As you flee the base you've just infiltrated, you must base jump from an alarming height. You can control your descent, but as you fall your goggles ice up. We're hoping this one turns out to be living up to the not inconsiderable hype, but at the moment, despite some nice new touches, this game's going to live and die on the strength of its storyline and multiplayer experience - two things we've still not seen much of.

Goldeneye for Wii
If you're a gamer worth your salt, you know Goldeneye as a true classic - the game that proved FPS could work on a console, and with a wonderful take on the classic Bond film starring Pierce Brosnan. And, if you're a modern gamer worth your salt, we think this might be the single most surprising game of the entire show.

While this is technically a remake, it's also a reboot. Eurocom, the team behind the game, is aiming to match the gritter look and feel of Daniel Craig's latest incarnation, and to that end they've employed both Craig and Judi Dench to voice the game. What's more, the style of the game's UI and in-game interfaces matches the touch UI seen Quantum of Solace. Of course, can the gameplay on the Wii match that?

Honestly... yes. This really does look like one of the best shooters the Wii has seen yet. Combat is much grittier than the original, with subdual takedowns and the option to play stealthily or upfront and personally paramount in the game's design. There are multiple paths through each environment, and enemy AI will react accordingly.

Even multiplayer, which we got to play a bit of, looks like fun, with classic Goldeneye game modes and characters to play. And yes, Odd Job gets his insta-killing hat.

Of course, our personal opinion is still that games like this just don't seem a good fit for the Wii. There's a really good hardcore shooter in Goldeneye, so we'd much rather see PC or even fully cross-platform effort to bring the game up to date. That said, this could well be one of those games that tips people over into buying a Wii if they haven't already. It's looking that good.