Quantum of Solace: Hands On

By Angus Deacon

NZGamer was fortunate enough to attend Activate ’08 – a three day over-view of Activision / Blizzard’s gaming titles set for launch leading up to Xmas. This is what we saw...

Horrible visions flood the minds of many gamers when the concept of “blockbuster movie to video game” is mentioned. Expecting that a game based off a movie is going to be crap has the same kind of likeliness of Matthew Mcconaughey taking his shirt off in the first 10 minutes of his latest crap film.

At the presentation you could almost feel the dread from the audience, all ready to put their greatest fears to good use when they started up the newest game in the Bond series. Quantum of Solace is the up-coming blockbuster sequel to Casino Royale – the rebirth of the James Bond franchise and still staring the rugged as guts Daniel Craig as the lead title role. Having a more ruthless 007 opened a lot of doors to a possible game spin-off and fans will be glad to hear that this title looks set to deliver the experience well on your console.

Developer’s Treyarch have used the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare engine as the base for the game, resulting in clever AI, visually stunning environments and massive gun-fire battles through both inside and outside locales. But Treyarch have specifically engineered elements of their engine to suit the Bond title as well. Although the core gameplay is a first-person shooter, the game relies heavily on a cover system due to Bond’s relatively realistic health requirements. Obviously you can’t have 007 brushing off bullets with his teeth, so at many times in the game finding cover or hiding behind walls will be a necessity. Similar to Gears of War, Bond can take cover behind objects with the press of a button and during this time the camera angle switches to third-person. From this view-point, you can still target enemies, quickly move to better cover or even blind fire to suppress enemies temporarily. The switch in the camera angle is seamless and adds an excellent cinematic value to the game at the same time. Players can also expect a wealth of clever camera techniques to help tell the story – including a 24 inspired scene where you get multiple shots of the same scene as seen by different characters.

The Bond movies and books have always contained a mix of stealth, espionage and action and the game Quantum of Solace is no exception. Whether you wish to scamper around shooting wildly at anything that moves, or take the slow and spy-like approach is entirely up to you. Running around all guns blazing is likely to attract more enemies and possibly get you killed quickly and painfully. Being stealthy may present fewer enemies, but a poor decision can often lead you to a quick demise as well. Players will soon learn to follow their own instincts as to what method they should employ and the end result is looking to be a great gaming experience.

Despite the epic success of Casino Royale, there was no game attached to it and many gamers missed out on the chance to be 007 in the numerous action-packed sequences from the movie. The developers realised this and Quantum of Solace includes some of the classic scenes from the previous movie as well, including the casino/hotel scene, as well as the thrilling airport scene.

Although the preview was slightly buggy and limited toward what aspects of the game we were able to play - Quantum of Solace still looks set to break the trend of terrible movie to game titles. Thankfully – a 007 game worth playing since the N64 classic GoldenEye.

For more from Activate '08, visit our Activate '08: Full Coverage Feature.

 del.icio.us  StumbleUpon  Facebook  Reddit

ReplyPosted by tim705 on 17 September 2008, 09:18PM

Might have to buy this.

 

ReplyPosted by Ruptunex on 18 September 2008, 02:22PM

They're apparently gonna do a bond game a year from now onwards.

 

ReplyPosted by Grunt of God on 18 September 2008, 05:40PM

Sounds...Bondish?

 

ReplyPosted by alienhominid on 18 September 2008, 08:42PM

looks like it may be quite good. im really looking foward to he movie

 

ReplyPosted by ImBillPardy on 22 September 2008, 11:09PM

Everything Or Nothing ftw!

 

ReplyPosted by BlackRetina on 23 September 2008, 03:23PM

Definitely sounds like it's at least worth a rent. Bond games typically get stale though.

 

ReplyPosted by primeelfkilla on 24 September 2008, 11:54AM

I hope this is gonna be as good or better than the james bond 007 game that was released for the nintendo 64 I spent many hours with my brother and a group of freinds going from house to house each week having a multiplayer night on the n64