Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

 

Bond.  James Bond.  Spanning several generations, seven actors, fourteen directors, twenty two movies, and taking in over eleven BILLION dollars at the box office, Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007 is a force to be reckoned with.  With 2006’s Casino Royale taking in more than any Bond movie prior, and Daniel Craig being universally hailed as a fantastic new lead for the series, the anticipation for Quantum of Solace is palpable.  Activision’s recent acquisition of the Bond license put them in a position to bring us a Bond title in conjunction with the new movie, and I’ve had the opportunity to get up close and personal with Quantum of Solace – is the title Sean Connery awesome, or a George Lazenby forgettable? 

Granted access to the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare engine by the folks at Infinity Ward, Treyarch was able to immediately go to work in the VoCap booths to bring some of the talent from the movie to life in their game.  Daniel Craig lent his voice and likeness as James Bond to the game, as did Dame Judi Dench as M, Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Green, and Olga Kurylenko as the new Bond girl, Camille.  The capture work is rock solid and the in-game likeness is uncanny.  Craig’s chiseled features and short-cropped hair coupled with his trademark suit bring Bond to life in the game.  You’ll get to see plenty of his furrowed brow and icy demeanor through the in-engine cutscenes.  M, Dominic, and Camille get far less screen time, of course, but their likeness is equally well done. 

Since Quantum of Solace covers the events of the movie by the same name, as well as some key moments from Casino Royale, so you’ll see some familiar locations in addition to a few new ones.  Many of the levels take place when our characters were off-screen in the movies, so Treyarch was free to expand on the areas drastically.  An example of this would be a scene were Bond works his way through the various parts of the Casino Royale in Montenegro.  Carefully working through the low-level thugs that are watching Le Chiffre, Bond makes his way through a fountain-filled courtyard, hotel exteriors, and several other areas in the Casino, culminating with Bond’s stairwell knife-fight and eventual poisoning.  This expanded area and plot points tie in nicely with the existing canon set forth by the movie. 

Similar to Call of Duty 4, each stage has a briefing for Bond to watch while the level loads in the background.  Sometimes these are punctuated by additional in-engine cutscenes that help further set up the scenario.  It helps with the immersion and adds to the overall Bond ambiance. 

The game GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 was widely regarded as one of the best Bond games ever made.  The other Bond titles had far less success (GoldenEye sold over 8 million copies) but if there was one critical flaw in all of those games, it was one thing – the voice work.  It’s hard to invest yourself in a new Bond character like Daniel Craig, only to have somebody other than him do the voice work.  Thankfully, as I mentioned above, Daniel Craig, Dame Judi Dench, Mathieu Amalric, Olga Kurylenko all loan their voice to the game, according to a recent announcement from Activision.  Beyond that, it seems that several clips from the movie have been pulled and used in the game, including some lines from Le Chiffre and Vesper.  Again, these are dove-tailed into the expanded gameplay set forth by the game, and they meld in perfectly. 

The sound effects and music in the game are rock solid.  The trademark music from the Bond series makes an appearance, and you’ll see that and the gun-barrel death sequences a few times throughout the course of the game.  I’m not sure if Treyarch pulled some of the gun effects from Call of Duty 4 or not, but they are certainly on equal footing in terms of quality.

There was only really one hitch in the sound for Quantum of Solace – an infrequent bug where music or sound effects don’t play when they should.  There have been a few times when I’ve pulled the trigger on a rifle and didn’t hear the sound report.  Similarly, my wife commented that she found it odd that there was no music in the level I was playing.  I restarted the level and suddenly there was music to accompany my mayhem.  The version I’m playing is near final, so this issue may not appear in the final game.

If you are familiar with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, you know exactly what to expect here.  The controls are almost exactly the same between the two games, due to the shared engine.  The left trigger pulls in for precise aim, and the right trigger pulls…well…the trigger.  The bumpers cycle your weapons and throw grenades (though they are far less frequent than in Call of Duty, of course).  The face buttons handle crouching, jumping, reloading, and general interaction, but there is a new control system that has been added to the engine. 

By hitting the A button you can now enter cover.  Using a cover system very similar to Gears of War, you can lock your shoulder against nearby objects and walls.  This allows Bond to peek out from cover, dispatch his enemies, and then pull back to safety.  If you’ve played Gears of War or Rainbow Six: Vegas, you know what I’m talking about here. 

Like in Call of Duty 4, there is a light auto-aim function that makes the target somewhat 'sticky', but it is so slight that you'll likely not even notice it.  It allows more novice players to score more hits on their targets without making it overly easy.  This doesn’t seem to apply to sniper rifles, so you’ll have to aim those yourself.  You can also turn this option off completely or adjust the sensitivity in the controls if you are inclined.

There is one area that rears its ugly head once again - independent control of the sound.  Often times the fantastic music or sound effects drowns out the great voice work.  Unfortunately there is only one big slider button to adjust things, so you are simply stuck with it.  Since the vast majority of game developers manage to turn the music up to 11 and keep the voices at 3, this is an unfortunate oversight.  The fact that I dug the controls for this in Call of Duty 3, as well as Call of Duty 4 from last year and the problem continues to persist makes it that much worse.

James Bond is never quite the controlled “half spy, half monk” that M would like him to be.  Quantum of Solace takes this to heart and gives Bond full reign to gun down tons of thugs in his quest to uncover the ruthless group behind Le Chiffre and the mysterious Mr. White.  One of the things that fans of the Bond series liked about Casino Royale versus other Bond movies is that there was far less reliance on high tech gadgetry, and more focus on good old fashioned spy work.  No invisible cars, no suitcase helicopters, no grappling suspenders, no glass-shattering sonic rings, and certainly no wetsuit with a damned rubber duck on top.  All of these gadgets make Bond a well funded super-spy, but it is his ingenuity that earns Bond his stripes.  It is in this one area where I think Quantum of Solace falls short.

Every mission in Quantum of Solace, much like the Call of Duty series, is a highly scripted, perfectly paced, meticulously controlled series of scenarios.  Bond accomplishes one objective, and then another, and then another, using stealth or gunplay, and then the mission ends.  There area a few exceptions to this (recreating the chase scene with Mollaka, the bomber / awesome free-runner featured in the beginning of Casino Royale being one of them), but for the most part that is how most missions will play out.  Again, it is Bond’s close combat skills and ability to improvise weapons out of nearby objects.  A fire extinguisher, a rope, a bathroom sink, doors, railings, and nailguns make up a very short list of items that can be used as a weapon in a pinch.  While Bond can close distance with an enemy and use a quicktime event to dispatch him, but it never quite feels like Bond in the same way that titles like The Bourne Conspiracy did.  The hand to hand combat feels somewhat like an ‘auto-kill’.  In the beginning levels it isn’t particularly necessary, but in latter missions it’ll become more frequently used as you are ambushed or flanked. 

Besides the reliance on firearms, Quantum of Solace is a well handled shooter.  The mechanics from Call of Duty 4 are apparent here, and it works well within the framework that Treyarch has laid on it.  You’ll have some new tricks to work with including jumping between moving trains, balancing on overhead piping, and picking electronic door locks by hitting the appropriate direction with proper timing.  Your cell phone plays a big part in data collection and hacking cameras, but that sequence is as simple as holding down the A button for the appropriate amount of time.  At any time you can access your cell phone, allowing you to tap into the cameras you’ve hacked.  It can help plan out your approach to make sure you don’t get spotted, but I can’t say that I used it very often.  It also ties into the collection element in the game, but we’ll get to that later.

As someone who owns every Bond movie and has watched them several times, perhaps I simply expected more out of Commander James Bond.  The run and gun gameplay is very similar to many other shooters – I guess we are just lucky that it is fun.  The atmosphere and fantastic graphics combine to help immerse the player into the world of our favorite MI-6 agent. 

You can complete Quantum of Solace in roughly 5 hours of gameplay, so we have to turn to multiplayer to extend the life of the title.  There are three multiplayer modes that lends 12 player System Link and online multiplayer support to the title. Bond Versus mode has one player as Bond and the rest as members of the Organization.  Bond has to eliminate the members of the Organization, and disarm explosives that they are guarding.  The whole thing rotates and someone else is chosen to play as Bond when the round ends, and the player with the most points at the end wins.  The second game mode is called Bond Evasion.  Once again, one player plays as Bond and the rest of the players are split between MI-6 and the Organization.  Bond is the V.I.P. and the MI-6 players are there to defend him.  Just like V.I.P. mode in GTA4, if Bond escapes then good prevails.  Once again, Bond is randomly chosen at the start of each round.  Golden Gun mode gives one player the fabled Golden Gun (this legendary Bond prop has recently gone missing in real life, by the way – give it back, ya bastards!) which acts as a one shot kill weapon.  Players try to pry the weapon away from that player, and at the end of the round, the player with the most kills with the weapon wins. 

Much like in Call of Duty 4, you’ll start off with a basic set of weapons.  As you earn points in the multiplayer matches, you can unlock new gear that you can customize.  Adding silencers, scopes, and various other gadgets to your weapons adds to their effectiveness, or can change the way that they are used.  It is very similar to the perk system in Call of Duty 4, so again, you know what you are getting.

Outside of these unique modes there is also Conflict, Classic, Team Conflict, and Territory Control.  For those playing the home game you’ll recognize these as Deathmatch, Arcade Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Domination, respectively.

I mentioned that you can download data to your cell phone.  You’ll get this by collecting six hidden (not well hidden, they are bright blue and ring when you get near them) phones scattered throughout the area.  These phones give you back story on your objectives, often granting access to information on where troops will be or where unfriendly cameras have been placed.

The multiplayer in Call of Duty 4 was fairly huge, and this feels like an extension of that, but with Call of Duty 4 still going strong and Call of Duty: World at War on the horizon, I wonder if folks will latch on to this similar multiplayer experience in between.

We are just a few weeks away from the movie release for Quantum of Solace, and I couldn’t be more excited.  While the game may not completely capture our wildest dreams about playing Commander Bond, it does do a great job of capturing the atmosphere.  The multiplayer aspects of the game feel familiar, and the game feels a bit on the short side, but the ability to experience some of the expanded moments of the upcoming movie, as well as Casino Royale is compelling. 

Gaming Trend Score

85

1. Graphics: 95
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 85
5. Value/Replay: 70
6. OVERALL:85