Perhaps You Missed… Quantum of Solace
It may have come out six months ago, but that’s why this tardy review is presented under the “Perhaps You Missed…” banner. It’s better to review a game late than never, and thus a recurring element on Addicted Gamer is born.
Let’s face it – every time a Bond game is released, we hope it’s the next GoldenEye 007. It never is.
With that said, it’s never wise to compare bond games to that title from 1997, though you inevitably do. It was the first thing of its kind made to such a level of quality, in the days before multiplayer had really made a mark. It’d be common now, but what Rare did with that title twelve years ago reigns highly in many gamers’ minds and establishes 007 as a “classic” title that will be forever awesome.
Then, we got Tomorrow Never Dies. Third-person, pretty terrible. Follow that with The World is Not Enough, we went back to first-person, but still received a clunky title that didn’t hold a slightly wet, bent paper match to 007. Five years later (well, back in November), we’re hit with Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace, a moderately alright title that is worth the $10-15 you can now buy it for, but ultimately still sucks in comparison to the ghosts of 12 years past. But like I said, we shouldn’t compare to a title that has been deemed a classic, as it’s difficult to compare modern gaming to what is a combination of past accomplishments and nostalgia.
First off: This review is based on playing the Xbox360 title. In general, it was reviewed relatively the same for PC, PS3 and PS2, but sucks something vicious on the Wii and should be adamantly avoided like a Jason Friedberg parody film.
Quantum of Solace runs off the Call of Duty 4 engine, so it admittedly looks and feels pretty good. Graphically, it’s boss. Graphically – not referring to animations, which we’ll get to later. You play in first-person for most of the game, aside from when in cover, where Mr. Craig, in his studly prowess, crouches like Mike Piazza behind a structure as bullets from a dozen stupid goons miss his rippling back. You can basically use anything as cover, whether it would make for effective cover or not. And you have to, or your burly blonde butt will be headed back to MI6 in a zippered sack. This creates a real look, shoot, look, shoot, look, shoot style of play that can get uber monotonous at times and make you want to put that Walther PPK in your eye, or stop playing to watch Hulk Hogan in “Santa With Muscles.”
A lot of the levels do give you the option of sneaking through them, at least until someone sees you, when everything turns into a standard FPS free-for-all. When crouched, you can silently creep up on people and melee them down, spanking them in the face with an elbow or kicking out the back of their knees. You can also choose to use your silencer or not, silently moving through the level for as long as you can manage. It’s very Bond, and usually pretty hard to do.
When you’re not sneaking or flat out running through a Bon Jovi Blaze of Glory, there are a few other play elements you’ll encounter that aren’t intuitive or interesting. Or challenging. Or fun. For instance, when you walk across a beam or something skinny, you have to balance while walking by keeping a dot in the middle of a line. It’s not difficult. There are also action sequences where you have to hit the right buttons to keep stuff going – you know the type – but they’re way easier than most games, always only consist of one button, and give you much too much time to push them. Then there’s disabling cameras, hacking locks (it’s like playing Simon) and hacking computers (you hold X). They’re stealthy, they’re breaks from the action, but they’re dumb. They might as well have Bond sit down in a tub, let out some fart bubbles, then say “Alright, you did that. Keep going now.”
The AI is plain bad. They only have one set of movement animations that are regurgitated continually throughout the entire game. They attempt to be fancy combatants, rolling out from cover and such, but the morons will roll out of cover right into the middle of an open room so you can pop them in the eye. They’re predictable and trite. It’s not a good combination when the level design is perfectly linear and hackneyed – it’s a combo that makes the game something you’ve already played a billionteen times.
None of this is to say the gunplay isn’t fun, though. It’s just nothing super, and not worth much more than a discount price or a rental. This is especially true because of the length, which is pathetically short. I’ve spent more time with a lot of XBLA games than this feature title, which took somewhere in the realm of 4-5 hours to get through. The multiplayer is fairly enjoyable and will afford some extra play time, but only until you get tired of it thanks to no real upgrades, perks or rewards for continuing to play.
Overall, the game is alright because it’s Call of Duty wearing a Bond hat. It’s not fantastic by any means, but worth the few minutes of your time that it’ll take to play through – then it can hit the shelf, be thrown in the bin, put in the spokes of your bike – whatever it is you prefer to do with your single serve games.
