007: Quantum of Solace Game Review

The name is Bond, James Bond. 007: Quantum of Solace follows the story of James Bond through both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace movies. The player assumes the current Bond, Daniel Craig- so grab your Walther PPK (in this game P99) and go save the world.

The Good:

- Built on the Call of Duty 4 engine. With a very similar control scheme and playability, Quantum of Solace draws on the potential of the CoD4 engine and puts it to fairly good use.
- Cover system. Great liberties were taken with the cover system implemented, which allow for the player to use to blind or target fire from. What's very enjoyable about it was the ability to point-and-go, which allowed you to run from cover to cover with ease. In some cases this cover system actually allowed an even more fluid movement from spot to spot while pushing forward than Gears of War's cover system- which says a lot.
- Close quarter combat. QoS allows players, instead of the Call of Duty 4 stick your knife in the guy's chest and move on tactic, to take them down. Which was, in my opinion, much more enjoyable (although much more time consuming in comparison) to do. These takedowns are accomplished on demand, and players usually have to press a corresponding button presented onscreen to succeed. Upon success, players will be able to see 007 perform one of a few CQC moves and take down the enemy for good. Not gory or anything, just a takedown. Granted, this is not particularly glamorous gameplay wise, but following Gears 2, having the option to perform something similar to an execution is welcome. Personally, I think more games would be more enjoyable if they had similar offerings, and to a certain extent, I expect I will see more of it (at least I hope so). Just be careful as you are doing this, because if there are other enemies shooting at you, you will still take damage. If you're like me and like to play games on hard or very difficult modes (Agent, or 007 respectively in QoS), you will die relatively quickly if exposed. While these CQC takedowns are more or less glorified quicktime events, there are some longer quicktime events where Bond must fight other enemies and press corresponding buttons during the fight much like a very simplified version of Indigo Prophecy.
- Enemy AI is somewhat decent. More scripted than AI, I suspect, but enemies in QoS attempt to flank you and flush you out as much as possible. They also take advantage of the cover fire system.
- Music. An engaging score by Christopher Lennertz, who draws heavily from the James Bond universe including the 007 theme which was remixed in new ways (along with other original music) to allow players to enjoy the "Bond" experience.

The Bad:

- Short single player gameplay. Even with the combined sequences from Casino Royale and Quantum of solace, including added gunfight sequences not included in the movies, the game is comparably shorter than most shooters out there.
- Cover system woes. Sometimes you just get "stuck." The game has a sticky cover system, which is good and bad. You can move around corners on demand while remaining in cover, but getting out when you really need to can take more time than you anticipated. Beyond that, when vaulting over objects, if not done at a right time to trigger the event, leads to you just jumping up and down. That's mostly a nuisance, because when you're doing your Bond thing and chasing some bitch down, you don't really want to feel like a retard and jump up and down in front of low barrier.
- Gadgets, what gadgets? The James Bond we know gets a lot of fun tools from MI-6, including the Aston Martin DBS V12, but we in no way get to interact with most of them. We actually don't get to see most of them for the most part. The extent of it is we get to push a button to hack surveillance terminals or using the directional pad to push corresponding arrows opening doors.

Overall:

Treyarch, among other companies were responsible for Quantum of Solace. And speaking as only someone who played it on the 360 through the single player campaign, I have to say I'm fairly satisfied with the result. There are no major faux pas committed throughout the game, I found no complaints on the voice acting, and the gameplay itself was fairly enjoyable. Overall, this is the first Bond game I've had myself having fun playing since Goldeneye. While this is not really a buy type of game for me, those who enjoy the multiplayer may want to consider it.

- Jack