Another James Bond movie, another James Bond game. Like the confidence we show that each new day brings the sun with it, so to does the gaming world with their latest Bond release Quantum of Solace. Based on the recent Bond movie of the same name, this title developed by Treyarch (same people that made Call of Duty: World at War) and published by Activision (same people that published Call of Duty World at War) was released shortly after the movie’s theatrical debut on November 4th, 2008 and was released for Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PS3 and PC. Much like the movie, this title is also considered the first real sequel for a Bond as it takes into account both Casino Royale and Solace. This one however is the first Bond game to feature actor Daniel Craig’s likeness.

Going into this game I had a few mixed feelings. First and foremost, I am a big Bond fan, that being said, I was very disappointed with the movie this game was based on, there were just too many things in it that irked me the wrong way, but this is a game review, I’ll leave the movie critiquing to the professionals. Secondly, from what I gathered from trailers and from the past experience I’ve had with Treyarch, I was expecting something of a mix between Call of Duty, Gears of War, and the N64 Bond classic, Goldeneye. Unfortunately, after playing this game for a couple of hours, I quickly realized it was not a mix of the three, not even one of the three was truly represented. I’m still not sure what about the game I’m not a huge fan of, if you look at each aspect individually it sounds like Quantum should have been a stellar game in theory, but in practice it just seems like something’s off.

The game play is much like any other Bond in the past as it includes gadgets, guns, girls, and … cars (if there was a way to say car starting with a G, I would have done it, trust me). The gadgets are a nice way of keeping objectives and maps in order (phones, watches etc), the guns are a blast (pun intended) and everything is great, but the game’s pace just seems to irritate me, run, sneak shootout, run sneak shootout, shootout shootout shootout, run, cut scene, next mission. I’m not sure my stamina levels for when I run, I don’t know if I’m spotted while sneaking and I can’t tell the difference between different hand guns I have in my possession. Some mechanics in the game are pretty cool, like when you run for cover you come out of first person view and into third exactly like Gears of War where you ‘snap’ to cover. This doesn’t work as well as it did in Gears however, as it is hard to ‘snap’ it’s hard to unsnap, you snap when you don’t want to, can’t when you do, and can’t get off when you need to. A cool aspect though when you do ‘snap’ is that if you stay there for too long, the goons trying to kill you will attempt to flank from your exposed sides. The mechanics and the setup of the game are amazing, but for some reason it’s just missing that fun factor. It could be because enemies just keep coming up to a certain point every time, it could be because the stealth missions don’t really do Bond justice, or that every room that has bad guys has an exploding tank nearby for you to shoot. It’s not all bad though, there are some really cool scenes in the game and some parts that just make you feel bad ass, and while most movie games ruin the movies or bore you by playing through something you’ve already watched, Quantum (the game) takes you through the movie from different perspectives, and even has few flashback levels from Casino Royale, a nice surprise I didn’t expect.

Graphically, Bond is a mixed bag. All the main characters have the likeness of their actors plastered onto a model, and the faces look pretty similar, however, the models themselves are boxy and robotic, the animations (for the most part) look like a really poorly animated PS2 game and sometimes models will just drop to the ground without a single frame between them standing and lying down. Explosions, muzzle flashes, and other animations (not connected to models) are all fluid and detailed, but the biggest graphical achievement (to me at least) was the environment. The level of detail and quality that went into these levels both in story and multiplayer are set up amazingly with such precision that IF the snapping mechanism worked as it was supposed to, the levels would be a dream to just maneuver through for fun, let alone shooting other people.

The sound coming from Quantum fits the same bill, some things rocked, some things… not so much. The voice acting and direction of bullet fire and explosions are dead on for the most part, Bond’s voice seems a little off at times and random bad guys calling for backup the same way over and over again can get a little annoying. With a proper surround sound system though, you will know where the bullets are flying from at all times and be able to track down nearby cell phones for more information quicker. Speaking of which, there are a bunch of cell phones lying around the entire game with maybe, five phones per level. I understand these evil organizations are wealthy, but they could really save some money if they just carried their cell phones with them instead of dropping them after receiving a text message or voice recording!

Moving onto what every Bond game now aspires to best Goldeneye at, the multiplayer mode. As this borrows a lot from the Call of Duty series, the multiplayer modes have a lot in common, but are still changed up enough to make it ‘Bond-like’. To begin, you have a bunch of slots to customize your agent much like you could in Call of Duty, the difference this time is that you earn credits from playing online, then you use these credits to buy weapons, perks (called gadgets in this one) grenades and add-ons, which you then use to customize to your liking. Now, there are some really cool weapons out there, and when you kill someone that has a nice weapon, you have the ability to pick it up and use it until you die yourself (or you run out of ammo). The multiplayer uses the same mechanics and graphics as the campaign, so it has all the benefits and drawbacks I mentioned above, but the new issue is that with these small maps (the ones I played all seemed too small), and the fact that a few shots will kill you, there is WAY too much dying and respawning, there’s no disadvantage if you get killed aside from a few seconds to ponder why you got killed in the first place. There is a good selection of modes to play as well. Over all this feels like a torn apart dumb down version of Call of Duty multiplayer but for some reason, while I did not enjoy playing online, there were a good few hours where I couldn’t put it down in hopes of earning enough credits to get proximity mine abilities.

All in all, Quantum of Solace had some really cool parts to it, some really lame parts to it, some really awesome graphics, some really horrible graphics, some pretty cool weapons, a cool concept in terms of mechanics that just didn’t work right, and different perspectives from the movie. The game has a lot of production value, great menus and loading scenes and some replay value in terms of multiplayer action. That being said, the game is lacking too much in some departments and is just not fun to play.

Graphics: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 3.0/5
Sound: 4/5
Replay Value: 4/5






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