Almost every fan of action movies gets chills just hearing the three words—”Bond, James Bond”—with the even more recognizable theme song playing in the background. It makes one think of a strong action figure. It makes people think of cutting-edge technology and beautiful, threatening women.
It conjures images of opulent psychopaths attempting to rule the world. It makes me think of extravagant action. And it brings to mind one of the most venerable games in the business: Rare’s GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64. A game that did what many people believed was impossible: create a solid video game based on a film series, but more importantly, create a game that raised the bar for subsequent console first-person shooters.
Numerous Bond-licensed games have tried, but failed, to imitate GoldenEye in the more than 10 years since its release. The ordinary die-hard Bond fan will want to know how Quantum Of Solace compares to other FPS games, regardless of how well the current Bond game does in terms of sales.
James Bond kidnaps Mr. White, a member of the formerly covert criminal/terrorist organisation Quantum, at the beginning of the game. Craig Mitchell, a disloyal MI6 agent, ambushes him and M while they question White, and Bond kills Mitchell as White runs away. Later, Bond captures images of a gathering of the Quantum members, one of them is renowned environmentalist Dominic Greene.
Bond crashes into Bolivia, where Greene is attempting to buy land. Bond had encountered Camille Montes, who is seeking vengeance against General Medrano, who is attempting to destroy the Bolivian republic, by this time. Bond discovers that Medrano murdered Camille’s family, which is why she seeks vengeance. Bond tells Camille about his old love’s death and recounts the events of Casino Royale. Bond and Camille are soon checked into a motel in the Bolivian desert. Greene and Medrano are discussing the land that Greene wants to buy; in return for the land, Greene will bankroll Medrano’s attempt to topple the government.
Bond and Camille interrupt the conference, with Camille killing Medrano and Bond killing Greene. The hotel’s fuel cells are ignited during the struggle, but Bond and Camille manage to flee before it explodes. An MI6 helicopter transports them out of the area. Mr. White and Guy Haines are shown to be looking at MI6 debriefings and updates on 007’s missions in the last scene. The game concludes with Bond standing outside the home, telling M that he’s going in.
Quantum of Solace is nearly exclusively played from a first-person perspective, as you might imagine. One of the rare times you’ll be pulled from Daniel Craig’s point of view is the largest departure from the COD4 gameplay model. Treyarch opted to incorporate a cover system into the conventional first-person shooter gameplay of QoS because they had a celebrity that everyone wanted to look at.
It functions in a similar way to what we’ve seen in games like Gears of War and others. The view angle will flip to a third-person view during the game to emphasize that the player is playing as James Bond. In addition to other scenarios, this third-person view will be used with a cover system and rapid time events. Using quick time events to chase Mollaka during a level that recreates the worksite pursuit from the first Casino Royale film is one example.
Anybody who has read anything about the game by now knows that it is built on the fantastic Call Of Duty 4 game engine, which implies that experienced CoD4 fans will feel right at home with the control scheme. This can only be a good thing, because Bond is thrust right into the action, with no real beginner guide available. Bond, of course, has his own resources, including a commander at MI6 who monitors the action from afar and provides Bond orders via voice coms as the story unfolds. If you’re unfamiliar to the CoD4 engine, or first-person shooters in general, listen to the audio cues that come up, since his advise could save or end the beloved 007.
The first level is fairly ordinary shoot-’em-up fare, with a slew of thugs to dispatch and little more to keep you occupied. Bond is armed with his Walther P99, which comes with an additional silencer. The suppressor becomes more necessary later in the game when stealth becomes more vital, although it’s only there for the ‘cool’ effect in the first level. Bond also has a cellphone, which he uses to obtain a map of the level and check any messages captured from the bad guys.
These are mobile phones that members of the criminal organization have apparently irresponsibly left lying around the levels, and while they are not required for the completion of each mission, they usually provide details on your objectives as well as useful hints such as the location of weapons caches and suggestions on how to get around the various security measures you may meet.
Bond has also received extensive training in hand-to-hand combat. Thankfully, Treyarch didn’t try to make this game into a half-shooter, half-beat-’em-up, and instead made use of Bond’s close-quarters skills with a basic ‘takedown’ option. Simply approaching a bad guy and pressing the right stick starts an interactive cut scene in which Bond grabs the bad guy and one of the face buttons appears on screen. If you press the button inside the time limit, Bond kills the bad person; if you don’t, the bad guy pushes Bond away, and you’re back in the main game.
So… You’ve got a lot of firearms, tough opponents, and beautiful locations… everything you’d want in a superb first-person shooter. Except for the fact that this isn’t just any FPS; it’s a Bond FPS. As you progress through the game, you’ll face a variety of new problems. Door codes must be cracked, computers must be hacked, and stealth sections must be completed. These elements of the game could have hampered the gameplay if implemented incorrectly, but they luckily do not.
Simple push-button puzzles are used to crack the doors and hack the computers. You succeed if you press the appropriate buttons at the right moment. If you don’t – you fail. Failing could mean you have to attempt the code again, or it could mean you’re surrounded by security officers and have a brawl on your hands — either way, it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment in the least.
It doesn’t have the same level of graphical perfection as CoD4, but it’s still a nice game to look at. Even the stealth sequences, which are typically a stumbling block in games that aren’t primarily focused on stealth, fit in smoothly with the rest of the game. Stealth is sometimes included in regular FPS fare, with your handler at MI6 telling you to ‘keep things quiet.’ In this case, it basically means sneaking rather than sprinting, avoiding/disabling cctvs, and attacking the guards with takedowns or suppressed weaponry.
However, if you are heard and guards are alerted in some portions, the level does not finish and you must restart; instead, you have the option to shoot your way out. The death animations are worth mentioning because they’re quite Bond-like, with the iconic ‘down the gun barrel’ perspective followed by blood streaming down the screen.
The screen greys out as your energy drops, and the rifle barrel begins to close in from the corners of the screen, which is a lovely touch. This animation provides a nice visual indicator that your energy is running low, as not everyone will be paying attention to their health in the heat of battle. If you can get into cover, your energy will regenerate after a few seconds, and it will be shown in the early stages of depletion by the Bond silhouette at the bottom left of the screen.
The multiplayer is basic, with plenty of Bond-themed modes to choose from. There’s one in which everyone plays as Organization members with one Bond on the map, another in which two teams each have a Bond VIP to keep alive, and finally, there’s the obligatory Golden Gun mode.
Other, maybe more traditional multiplayer options exist, but the ones that immerse you in the Bond world are the real stars of the show. Multiplayer worked well and was entertaining enough, with the majority of gamers having a good time with it.
So, there are the advantages – what about the disadvantages? If we had to be finicky, there are the interactive cut-scenes – the ‘takedown’ ones aren’t bad, but there are longer interactive cut scenes later in the game where you’re needed to press a long string of buttons, similar to a video game version of Simon Says, and this means you’re concentrating on which button to press next instead of actually watching and enjoying the cut-scene action. Furthermore, these sections are nearly hard to fail, which begs the question: why not just skip the button-pushing entirely?
But that’s only a small concern. More importantly, it appears that a few glitches made it into the final game. People have encountered a few strange incidents while playing this game over the course of its time – once a stage started without any background music, for example, and it had to be reset to restore the audio. Another time, a level started and no evil guys showed up, which indicated that the door which had to open, was not activated, and had to be restarted from the last checkpoint. On a third occasion, the game loaded in French for no apparent reason, and because there is no ‘switch language’ option in-game, it had to be turned off and reloaded.
The most frustrating aspect of the game wasn’t the adversaries, the cover system, or the massive amount of explosive things scattered across the terrain; rather, it was the game’s overwhelming length. I had a good time with the missions for the most part — staggering out to your car to re-energize your heart is cool, and the gunplay is entertaining enough — but it’s all just too damn short. Quantum of Solace can be completed in five to four hours. It’s also organized in such a way that it takes you through the majority of the events of Casino Royale before only briefly mentioning the plot of Quantum of Solace.
Quantum of Solace isn’t quite the game it should be. It isn’t horrible by any means, but it is the basis of a much superior game that we all know and love that pulls it out of the abyss. The action is less exciting, and the universe created around Bond doesn’t add anything to the enjoyment aspect. All of the additions do nothing to elevate the game above comparable first-person shooters, instead it removes you from the world of James Bond.
This is not the game to play if you want to learn the plot of Quantum of Solace before the movie comes out. This isn’t it if you’re seeking for the answer to GoldenEye. Quantum of Solace, on the other hand, is another respectable shooter game that is worth a one time playthrough.
Now, when Project 007 was first presented in November 2020, it truly left us both shaken and stirred. The future game, which will be directed by Hitman developers IO Interactive, will have us assume on the role of Bond in a new, unique plot. While it’s still early, we’ve been getting little hints and updates about Agent 007’s virtual adventure, such as the fact that we’ll be playing as a new Bond who isn’t based on any of the actors who have played the character before in the movie franchise. When it comes to a title, it won’t be Project 007.
“Project 007 (working title) is a brand new James Bond video game to be created and released by IO Interactive,” according to IO’s official website. “With a fully original Bond story, players will step into the shoes of the world’s favorite Secret Agent to achieve their 00 rank in the very first James Bond origin story,” the press release reads. As of this writing, no platforms have been confirmed. It’s unlikely to be a console exclusive, but everything is possible.
It appears that not all assets are being funneled into Project 007. In fact, the company’s Careers page still has openings for numerous crucial professions, for the upcoming James Bond game. Senior positions, such as gameplay director, are still needed since they are “an integral component of designing, presenting, and preserving the vision and overall quality of the game.” Project 007 could be a third-person action game, according to a job posting from IO Interactive.
Individuals with “experience working with third-person action games” were sought for the future Bond game, which will be “wholly original,” according to the ad. So far, nothing definitive has been announced, although it’s possible that we’ll be playing as Bond in third-person. Hakan Abrak, the CEO and co-owner of IO Interactive, spoke with Danish Broadcasting Corporation about the Bond they’ll be representing in Project 007. Rather than being based on any of the previous Bond actors, Abrak claimed that the team has created their own “digital Bond”: “We have been allowed to construct our own virtual Bond, that will not lean on a Bond actor.”
Abrak also claimed in an April interview with IGN that Project 007 will take influence from the whole Bond franchise in order to offer an original story: “Every Bond movie defines a generation, and it’s incredible how they continue to redefine themselves over the years. So we’re not only motivated by one movie or video game. We’re inspired by it all, and it’s just pulling things into us so we can produce an original Bond, an original tale, but it’s all true and identifiable in Bond’s principles.”
We should really not expect Project 007 to be launched until 2023 at the earliest, especially in COVID times, because development is still at an early level (and most of the team’s openings have yet to be addressed), but definitely this news is something worth staying hyped about, considering the importance and the asset, the character of James Bond is in the history of entertainment, and a promising game like this in the works will only further immortalize that status.