Hard to believe that one of the world's most renowned first-person shooters is sharing the same shelf space as the slurry pit of Wii shovelware we're expecting this Christmas. At least with Modern Warfare: Reflex being tarnished by the same brush, our expectations weren't exactly stratospheric to begin with... and why we were pleasantly surprised by the experience.

Infinity Ward's development partner in the Call Of Duty series, Treyarch, has handled the porting of Modern Warfare to the Wii. If you were expecting a different game, you might be disappointed because this is a direct translation to the diminutive Wii hardware. But let's not detract from what the Californian studio has done here: Treyarch has squeezed the entire award-winning Modern Warfare campaign, multiplayer and all onto that anachronism Nintendo passes off as a current-generation console. We forgive you for the disappointment that was Call Of Duty 3 Treyarch, this is a feat of ingenuity and we're impressed.

Reflex is no arse-end of a franchise passing for a Wii port. You're not going to be regaling your Twitter followers about it's muted colours and rather flat textures, but it does look like a respectable first-person shooter from several years ago, which puts it leagues ahead of its competition. More importantly, the core Modern Warfare experience that blew us away in the original has barely suffered at all from the graphical downgrade, with plot, scripted events, incidental music and even AI almost as razor-sharp as it ever was. Your journey uncovering the machinations of Russian and Middle Eastern terrorist groups as both an SAS commando and US Marine is no less a riveting experience for it. But it does get off to, quite literally, a wonky start when conducting the SAS raid on the cargo ship of the first level. Reflex isn't immune from the curse of Wii first-person shooters and walking around corridors of a sinking ship against the clock while using the Wii Remote to turn corners at impossible angles, takes a reserve of patience that even Bhuddist monks and sea anglers would find hard to come by. It's a brief sequence though and any future frustration was quelled by an ingenious feature that kills two birds with one stone – and it's not the Wii Remote Plus.

Squadmate mode is a Wii exclusive that allows another player to jump in at any time and play alongside you. We have to emphasise that this isn't split-screen co-op: the second player uses just a Wii Remote and has a target reticule of their own. Your squad mate is effectively a tandem support unit that uses your ammo and has no Nunchuk, rendering them completely subject to your movements. Where they prove especially useful is in situations when you're turning a corner to be confronted by the enemy, as a squad mate can point and shoot in a fraction of the time you can align yourself and drag your reticule back from the edge of the screen. It's not an elegant solution, but it works.

Reflex isn't a gimped port, this is a full-blooded version of the 2007 game, multiplayer and all. If nothing else, Treyarch has proved that you don't have to dumb a game down to convert it to Wii and now that the bar's been set, any hand-me-down from the Wii's bigger brothers is going to have some big shoes to fill.