Quantum of Solace

""Take a deep breath, you only got one shot, make it count." Unfortunately, Treyarch misses the mark with Quantum of Solace"

I've am an alumnus of previous Bond games, from Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough. Unfortunately (or fortunately), those days are long gone and I never really got to play Goldeneye enough to make it the standard. What this means for Quantum of Solace is that I won't be comparing this game to any of its predecessors, for better or for worse. Looking at it from a clean slate, how does Quantum of Solace hold up on its own?

Quantum of Solace utilizes the venerable and acclaimed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare engine. While it might seem hypocritical to start comparing Quantum of Solace to Call of Duty 4, when I just mentioned how I won't be comparing this game to previous Bond games, but I find that it is inevitable to do so considering its use of the latter's engine.

Enough preamble, it's time for the review. As one might have already expected, the game utilizes the story of the recent Quantum of Solace movie, as well as 2006's Casino Royale, both starring Daniel Craig. Both are easily my favourite Bond movies of recent time. The game itself only gives you a slight taste of the actual story and intrigue found in the movies, giving you a bare-bones representation of the major occurrences in the two stories. It's not meant to take the place of watching the movies themselves, but as an accompaniment. Without having watched the movies, one cannot truly understand the complexity of the recent Bond narratives. With that said, even by drawing on two full movies, the game is painfully short. On the hardest difficulty, it would take about 5-7 hours of play to complete. Testing the easiest difficulties, one can finish the game in 2 hours.

The presentation in general, while nothing too stellar, is without a doubt one of Treyarch's best use of the Call of Duty 4 engine. The character models of the more important people in the movies, such as Bond, M, Vesper, and Camille look very similar to their real-life counterparts. However, they are used so sparingly that it's hard to stay in awe of the models. As expected, you'll see Bond a lot, either during the pre-mission cut-scenes, when he's in cover, or when you see some of the many quick-time events that litter this game. It's not all good with these character models or other character models in particular. The movements look stiff and the lip-syncing is off.

Outside of these character models, the graphics are a little on the weak side. The designs of the stages are not particularly inspiring and are not even good representations of the locations found in the movies. There were only one or two moments in the game where I could honestly relate the location to the location in the movies. The textures get the job done, but could be improved immensely. From a technical standpoint, the game does pretty well, with minimal frame-rate drops and I didn't notice any real graphical bugs.

The voice-acting is pretty good. All the major characters are voiced by their real-life counterparts so there's a sense of authenticity. The sound effects are varied, for the most part, with guns having their own unique sounds and explosions sounding well done. There is a bit of repetition in the generic voices but it's not enough to tear one's ears out. The music was well written and the iconic bond theme is present in the game as well. I've also got to give it points for not using the horrible Quantum of Solace theme song “Another Way to Die” performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys.

The game plays like a very watered-down version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The buttons and most of the mechanics are similar to that of Infinity Ward's game. There is one major difference though. The game utilizes a cover system that is not in any of the Call of Duty games. Depending on what difficulty you are playing on, you'll be either using it a lot, or almost not at all. Generally, it's used well in the game and it works. You can either pop-out or aim at an enemy or blind-fire for the kill. I have some complaints with it though. Getting out of the cover system can be cumbersome and at times, you'll be pulled out of cover unintentionally. You also cannot leap over the obstacle you are using for cover until you are out of cover, which sometimes causes some frustration on the gamer's part.

It plays like a traditional first-person shooter, but its transitions between some of its third-person elements can take one out of the experience. More to the point of some of the third-person elements of the game, Quantum of Solace utilizes some quick-time events that require the press of a button for a specific task. These occur when you use an melee attack where Bond instantly kills an opponent. Then there are other events that occur when the developers are trying to re-create some of the action scenes in the movies. These quick-time events will not take away from the experience, but I rather just watch the scenes than having to “interact” with the game.

The overall game design is more frustrating than challenging. The AI varies widely. In the easiest difficulty, the AI puts up no fight at all and seems to reload quite frequently. In the hardest, the AI has almost requires almost no reloading, and can pick you off with relative ease. They use cover accordingly, but they will run around continually making them easier to kill them while they try to find a better shot on you. The part I find most frustrating in the design is the lack of content. Instead of trying to pad the game with content, the developers have decided to make the game longer by having multiple large firefights per level. Once you kill 15 enemies in one area, you'll have to kill another 15 at the next. It becomes really annoying when you have to continually clear an area because you get killed (which will happen a lot in 007 difficulty) by the hundreds of generic soldiers. Just to give an example of this, I had my 50 headshots trophy in the first part of the second level.

There are multiplayer modes which at leads add to the shortened campaign. It's got the usual modes like Free-for-all, etc. There are a few modes that use Bond as a character but overall it's just a method of padding the game. None of them are particularly memorable or use the Bond licence to any real degree. It's a good enough distraction but it doesn't have any real legs.

I really, really wanted to like this game more. As a fan of the movies, the overall experience in this game is disappointing. While it's one of the better attempts at a movie-based game, it still falls short of a good video game in general. The game design is questionable but the presentation remains the brightest spot in what is seemingly a troubled game. However, nothing is particularly memorable and the presence of Daniel Craig does not save it from falling into obscurity. Fans of the movies might find an enjoyable game, regardless of its flaws so I would still recommend a rental if you are one such person.

Praises:
- Recognizable character models
- Good sound effects
- Many multiplayer modes

Criticisms:
- Bad game design
- Short single player campaign
- Not a memorable game

Story: 6/10
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Replayability: 7/10

Overall (not an average): 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/08

Game Release: Quantum of Solace (US, 11/04/08)