James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace

Throughout my 18 years of living on this planet, I have played many Bond games. My first was Goldeneye on my friend's N64: Good game, but never managed to enthrall me. Then, I came across Tomorrow Never Dies; a substandard TPS that had a frustrating moment that followed or preceded every fun moment (a mixed bag). Nightfire was the next Bond game I've played; fully functional, but incredibly boring. Once I finally got a PS2, I bought Everything or Nothing and From Russia With Love; these two games tried so many different things that they ended up lacking cohesion in the gameplay. Now I've gotten my hands on Quantum of Solace, and must report that this is easily the best Bond game ever made.

Pros:
1. Translated the action scenes in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace quite well.
2. Graphics that are good looking (but not cutting edge).
3. No driving sequences (at least, for me, that is a positive).
4. Fluid cover system.
5. Seamless fusion of FPS and TPS.

Cons:
1. Short (I beat it in about 5-6 hours).
2. Requires a Games for Windows account in order to save.
3. A little bit repetitive.

Many reviewers panned this game as a "Gears of War rip-off". This game has nothing to do with GoW. I like to compare this game with the Rainbow Six: Vegas series and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (except without the squad members).

I give this game a 9.3 not because it is revolutionary, but because it is the kind of game I like and does everything reasonably well (I'm just a sucker for games with cover systems, since the cover system tends to create an extra dimension of gameplay).

If you enjoyed RSV, RSV2, and/or BIA:HH, I suggest you buy this one. If not, wait until it reaches the bargain bin.

Well since this is a game to go along with a movie you pretty much expect the worst with the track record of movie spinoff games, but this one is actually pretty fun with the variety of mini-games and both FPS and Third Person modes as well as the cover system and exciting scenarios around the world in true Bond style. I can't say the graphics are latest generation on average because they are not, the textures are bland and the cutscenes are pretty 2006ish, perhaps even Far Cry 1 level. I have everything on high in 1680x1050.

This was supposedly based on the COD4 engine but I don't see where that really makes a difference or compares in gameplay to COD4. The voices seem like the real actors too, not sure if they are though. The weapons are nicely done but the sound is somewhat generic but can be great at times like the opera house level and the typical flamboyant Bond movie music. The difficulty is also too easy on the lower settings or just right if you are a casual player not expecting more than 7-8 hours of total play through once.

The strong point for me is the interactive mini-games like the hand to hand battles that involve clicking on a moving target in the limited time to either land a punch or get taken to the cleaners by your opponent. Also when you are running along a ledge/tightrope/crane you have to keep your character from falling by using the direction buttons moving him both forward and to the left/right to chase the quickly getting away bad guy and not falling off. The scenes are exciting with explosive finishes and involved gunfights as well as stealth in some areas trying to dodge cameras and enemies that far outnumber you.

Another great aspect is the third person cover system like in Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas and Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway. You have to make good use of cover as you are outnumbered and outgunned a lot of the time but with the exception that you need to keep moving at a fairly steady pace or the final baddy will get away so there is a sense of urgency to it like there was in COD4 adding to the excitement. The enemies will try to outflank you if you just sit there as well. There are also times you will be using a sniper rifle that is a nice change of modes.

All in all this is a fun game to play which is more important to me than having top of the line graphics, kinda like GTASA or playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory that are fun enough to overcome their being older titles with old graphics. If you want to play a 007 game this one is great though not worth the retail price, wait till it drops to $35 or less as it's not one of those excellent in every way games like Gears 2, Bioshock or Crysis that is worth paying full price for.

Warning to Windows 7 64-bit users: You must install Internet Explorer 9 in order to run this program beyond Chapter 1. My son's computer meets all of the system requirements and we had all of the latest hardware drivers, so we spent a great deal of time troubleshooting this problem. We tried installing this on four different computers (all Win7, 64-bit) and had a similar results: The game started fine, but then blacked-out the screen and stopped responding after Chapter 1 or partway through Chapter 2. I began to think it was an incompatibility with 64-bit Win 7, but others didn't have the same problem. Activision's forum only said that the screen black-out was just a "long delay," but we waited for hours at times and a quick check of Task Manager showed the program was not responding. Finally, we installed the optional IE 9 upgrade and it worked. Whew!

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