Quantum of Solace Review

Written by: Steve Martin Posted: 12th January 2009

Share:

Digg It

The names Bond!

Quantum of Solace Details:

	Action
	PC/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360
	Treyarch
	Activision

12+

Out Now

So, inevitably, we have the game of the film for Quantum of Solace, the latest James Bond adventure and first which is not based on an Ian Fleming novel, instead its based on one of his short stories. There’s definitely a metaphor in that statement that can be used towards this game, probably the “short story” part. It is quite a short game, as FPS often are, however, consider this, this is not actually just based on the Quantum of Solace, to help bulk the game out you also have half the levels based on sequences from the last Bond film, Casino Royale. It is a bit of a shock when halfway through playing, you suddenly have a flashback sequence and find yourself chasing the bomber through the shanty town, and up the scaffolding and jumping from cranes and the like.

Anyway, the single player mode uses locations from both films to create your FPS Bond experience. A new twist is the ability to cover behind any object in the vicinity, where you will be put into a third person view and you can then either fire blindly over the top or aim more precisely using the aiming trigger. This system works for the majority of the time, although occasionally Bond gets stuck on scenery, or won’t try and corner around it as you would like him to. Enemy AI is average, they will try and flank you, and lob grenades and will use cover as well, but they still seem to occasionally have suicidal tendencies and run straight at you with their smoking guns!

Bond has the new fangled technology that every FPS has these days, the ability to heal himself if he keeps out of harms way, this is where covering is most useful as well as to take out snipers or the explosive barrels/crates/canisters and electrical boxes that litter all the levels in useful places. As well as the typical shoot-everything-that-moves gameplay, there are a few stealth based missions requiring you to use your silent takedown moves, sneaking up behind an enemy and silently dishing out an instant kill. There are also cameras that need disabling along the way. You can also do these levels guns blazing if you prefer but the enemy does send a rather tough hit squad once you have alerted the terrorists to your presence. I preferred these missions, as there is more of a sense of achievement and dare I say it, it is more spy-like then the tedious shooting sections. There are a handful of close-combat fights that you will have to complete by the use of context sensitive button presses, but these are relatively simple and are few and far between.

The single player mode as mentioned before is a little lightweight and can be finished in a matter of hours, and the only real replay value is the harder difficulties and trying to complete levels in specific ways to earn all the trophies or achievements.

The real replayability comes from the online multiplayer setup, which although isn’t going to challenge COD, is actually rather good fun. There are a number of different modes to play ranging from the usual death match, and team based play, to the more unique Bond evasion modes, where a single player takes the role of Bond and everyone else in the Organisation must stop Bond. Playing online earns you credits where you can buy new weapons and gadgets to use in online games. Gadgets give you better abilities such as improved accuracy or extra health. You can customise your weapon selection for online play too, selecting a primary and secondary weapons from the cache you have amassed using your credits, you can also select your grenade type and which 2 gadgets to equip. The weapon selection is quite varied from shotguns to rifles, pistols to flash grenades and most are good fun and powerful, even the trusty PP9 is quite a nifty little number, most come with attachments such as a silencer or scope.

Visually, the majority of the game is average at best, with smooth character animation with a fairly decent frame rate. The locations range from bland sewers and gorges, to more rounded levels such as the Madagascar shanty town and the Casino Royale in Montenegro. The main concerns I had was with the quality and number of the cut scenes. Some parts of the game where you expected an action cut scene such as when the plane crashes in QoS, and the poker game in Casino Royale are dealt with using an MI6 computer screen, which contains basic animation and some audio snippets, it’s a bit of a disappointment from a franchise which is famous for action sequences. To make it worse the cut scenes you do get to see appear to stutter, and avoid showing any facial movements. There are two instances where the cut scenes were impressive and these were close ups on M and Bond, and were very short, why this quality was not used for the other cut scenes is very strange and annoying!

The games sound is, thankfully better than the sights with some nice realistic gun noises and explosives and some pretty good voice acting from the stars of the films.

Overall, you’re left with an underwhelming feeling, which was very much the same feeling I had after seeing the film! It’s perfectly playable, maybe even enjoyable in some parts, but the majority of the time you have to deal with mediocrity. The problem is the bar for Bond games is much higher, thanks to its mass appeal and another game made about 10 years ago which was simply a revelation. Maybe I expected too much, and that’s why it feels disappointing, but if you can ignore its shortcomings then it’s a solid FPS experience.