GoldenEye: Source

A Lot Of you guys out there with your fingers on the mod scene's pulse will know about GoldenEye: Source. But you might be surprised to learn it's still going and is stronger than ever. Granted, server numbers are light, but what places there were to play it were usually nearly all full. There have been plenty of changes in recent times to warrant you taking another look at this total conversion for Half-Life 2.

First of all, there are more maps than ever. All the official GoldenEye maps are included, plus a selection of new versions. If you shudder at the thought of having to play the updated versions of maps like Complex, you'll be happy to hear there are classic ones available instead.

As well as the maps, all the weapons are authentically recreated, with Scaramanga's Golden Gun present and rendered in glorious polygon blocks for extra authenticity. Game mods are faithful, with a lot of servers opting for the Licence to Kill one-shot mode. This, at least from the games we've seen, hasn't been met with universal praise, with some lamenting the lack of servers dedicated to the vanilla game.

Character models are still being included, so some favourites from the N64 original are missing, but the biggest names are all available: Bond, Baron Samedi, Oddjob, Jaws, Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane's Russian gangster), May Day, and others are there to be slaughtered in battle, though thankfully using the mouse to aim has eliminated the annoying advantage Oddjob had in the N64 original. So there's no need for him to be banned for being too short this time out.

Other than a few niggles with crawlspaces and the like, this version is vastly superior to those released a few years ago. All credit has to go to the team who've persevered with the project, especially as one of their leading lights sadly passed away some time ago. A lot of teams would have given up, but they've soldiered on, dedicating recent progress made to him.

If you haven't played GoldenEye: Source since it initially appeared on the modding radar, do so now. It's changed a lot and, if judging by the form of the modders behind it, it'll continue to do so.

We've certainly enjoyed our time blasting each other on Facility and Caves, although this time we can't look at the other half of the screen to see what our opponent is doing. Ah well, guess we can't have everything.