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Sports Legends features reviews from our panel of experts, including our editors as well as editors from our sister sites. We rate games on a scale of A+ through F. Anything we score in the A+ through A- range is considered excellent, B+ through B- is good, C+ through C- is average, D+ through D- is bad, and F is terrible. At long last, here is our exclusive James Bond 007 Quantum of Solace The Game Xbox 360 review. (Also On: DS,PC,PS2,PS3,Wii)
What would a modern version of the Nintendo 64's classic GoldenEye look like? Quantum of Solace attempts to answer that question.
THE BOTTOM LINE:Quantum of Solace is a solid shooter tasked with walking in the shadows of some heavy holiday hitters. Gears of War 2, Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3, and Resistance 2 should be top picks on your holiday gift list before looking at Quantum of Solace. With a short single-player campaign and barebones Call of Duty 4-style multiplayer, this game is definite rental material. Try it before you buy it.
Every James Bond game post-GoldenEye 007 vies for the same accolades as that fondly remembered Nintendo 64 shooter. Trouble is, none of the Bond games released since that benchmark title quite lived up to it. The main issue: timing. GoldenEye was the initial first-person shooter that really worked on consoles. Sure, Halo: Combat Evolved arguably perfected it, but GoldenEye laid the groundwork back in the burgeoning 3D console era. With Quantum of Solace, developer Treyarch captures much of the original GoldenEye's spirit and adds some modern dressings. Still, time hasn't treated the formula very well, and a few tacked-on modern shooter staples don't take Solace too far.
Solace encompasses the events of 2006's big-screen Casino Royale and the new Quantum of Solace. Depending on your mood, you can either be a suave badass who sneaks past guards and security cameras...or a suave badass who sprays hot lead into everything. When firefights inevitably break out, you must rely heavily on Solace's appended third-person cover system (with a handy dash-to feature that lets you zip to safety midsprint or push forward while you're already behind cover). It's handy for outflanking the flankers, but it's unresponsive in tight spots. Solace's smart, aggressive enemies love to pin you down, too -- they'll quickly push you back into a corner, flushing you out with well-placed grenade tosses.
Most stages start you off infiltrating various locations from the two movies -- from an opera stadium to a hillside base hidden in the desert. Each level's tightly woven into concise segments, subdivided into stealth, action, chase, and button-pressing quick-time events. The chase sequences make nice diversions, but they aren't open-ended enough to allow for much dynamic gameplay -- you're forced along the same path as a fleeing villain, with a few jumps and skirmishes sprinkled in to force you behind cover. But depending on what you're aiming at, popping out of cover can shift your reticule, forcing you to miss your target. And it doesn't help that the first- to third-person transitions (when taking cover) are disorienting and clunky.
It's also disorienting to play a Bond title that lacks the character's trademark gadgets. Outside of the aforementioned quick-time events, guns are your only tools (which is in keeping with the new Bond flicks, so I can't get too broken up about it). Online, however, Bond's gadgets come into play in the form of upgrades, synonymous with Call of Duty 4's "perks" system. Weapons, custom loadouts, and level-ups are also reminiscent of that game's multiplayer -- and though Solace runs on the same engine, don't expect the same visceral gunplay. The maps and modes pull inspiration from GoldenEye: Classic mode starts players off with meager pistols and forces them to seek weapon spawns throughout the map, while Golden Gun mode's all about one-hit kills. It's nice to revisit these modes, but they quickly turn stale. The new Bond Versus and Evasion modes find one player stepping into Bond's shoes while the others either protect or hunt him. Sadly, because spawn and objective points are easily campable, these modes don't make for much lasting fun.
Nor does the entire game, really. Now, I take my time with games, regardless of how much fun I'm having -- I savor the experience. I stare at the horizons and atmospheric effects; I listen to the subtle environmental sounds of chirping birds, sloshing waves, and computer blips. And even after relishing these time-wasters in Solace, I still completed it in one sitting. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as the game's paced like a Universal Studio theme park ride; levels split into branching paths and feature tightly controlled environments designed to convey a focused, high-intensity vibe. When these scenarios work, you're running through the cover of a greenhouse as it's torn apart by a looming helicopter, all while dropping various black-tie-clad foes. But when they don't work, it's bad. Giant explosions detonated in my face too often, concealing a quick palette-swap that turns a once-static room into a fiery inferno. And too many times, I watched Bond's hand brace for impact as he plummeted through the floor and into the room below. It's fine a few times...but when I started expecting it, the effect began to wear thin.
So what does a relevant Bond game look like? A lot like Solace...but a tad longer, and with something more than me-too multiplayer. Keep the theatrics -- just tone 'em down a little: Bond's always been more about subtlety, with Bruckheimer moments reserved for the appropriate times. In Solace, it's the rule, not the exception. If the game weren't already tied to two movies, the developers could've just slapped a GoldenEye 2 label on the box. Even so, GoldenEye's heyday is long gone, and Solace relies too much on nostalgia and imitation to be anything close to the next shooter milestone.
PROS:Beautiful visuals, wide assortment of weapons
CONS:
Confusing story, hit-or-miss multiplayer
4 Comments:
Nothing like GoldenEye on N64...who remember?
I read an article about the preview, where Tom Cruise got laughed at when his preview of his movie came on. In the movie Cruise wears an eye patch. http://www.observer.com/2008/o2/quantum-solace-offers-peek-2009-watch-out-tom-cruise
looks fun, still probably not as much as GoldenEye
Ya, but looks can be deceiving. It's run on the Call of Duty engine so it looks good, but the developers didn't optimize it for a 007 game, which they should have. This game had so much potential, but failed in the end due to its *short* campaign and after-thought multiplayer. This game should only be bought for diehard 007 fanboys; if you're like the millions of other people out there who like to watch 007 instead of playing it, this game is a rental...tops.
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