The Five: Quantum of Solace
The Bond movie with the oddball name gets a tie-in game. But is it just another EA-caliber craptravaganza? CG has the answer.
8/15/2008 2:53 PM | 2 Comments | Page 1 of 1
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
10-Cent Tour: After several disappointing turns at EA, the Bond license moves over to Activision. Can the Big "A" give Bond his
huevos back? Uncle Crispy peered at the game through his dust-coated monocle at a recent press event in NYC...
1. Story-wise, the game covers "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace," so expect all the major plot points from both films to be echoed in the game.
2. The developers polled fans of the earlier Bond games to resolve a design dilemma: Should they create a first-person shooter or a third-person action game? Half of the fans wanted an FPS, and the other half wanted the game to take place in the third-person. The result: a hybrid of the two genres, with the action seamlessly swapping back and forth between first- and third-person.
3. The new cover-combat system has Bond popping out from behind furniture and blind-firing like he recently graduated from the Marcus Fenix School of Fending off Waves of Bad Guys. (That's a
Gears of War reference for anyone out there who's scratching his or her wig right now.)
4. The game is running on the
Call of Duty 4 engine, which means: A. it looks smashingly terrific; Daniel Craig's visage is eerily accurate, and the level of property damage that he can inflict is ridiculously high; and B. if Activision ever decides to license out the
COD 4 engine, the Unreal engine (and Mark "Jabberjaw" Rein) would both be in serious trouble.
5. Cellphones hidden throughout the game's levels provide hints/clues for how to proceed. For example, one cell that was discovered during the demo hinted that there was a problem with a loose air duct nearby. Of course, a few rooms away, while studying the ceilings, said air duct was located, and subsequently entered by Bond.
The Crispy Forecast: Surprisingly sunny. After years of Bond duds -- gee, thanks EA -- Activision looks like it might actually be able to make Bond videogames relevant again.
This "Five" is based on a publisher-driven demo of the game.
