Bizarre Creations, known for specializing in the genre of racing games, most recently the developers of Blur, an arcade “Mario Kart” style racer with realistic vehicles, has come to bring us a licensed third-person action adventure title. James Bond 007: Blood Stone is the 24th game to be released with a James Bond title. Being a movie licensed game, Activision opted to pay the big bucks to have the real actors of this generation James Bond, featuring the real voices and likenesses of actors Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, and Joss Stone. The presentation of a James Bond movie is portrayed very well done especially with the real actors digitized into the game. Prominent James Bond film writer Bruce Feirstein was chosen to write the story for the game which we can only hope turns into a feature film sometime in the coming years. Blood Stone was created using the same engine for the game The Club, which is also a third-person shooter that heavily uses cover to your advantage.
James Bond 007: Blood stone has the same tone and aura as a Daniel Craig Bond movie which is gritty, get down to business principle that focuses on realism for the most part. This isn’t your GoldenEye-era Bond with all the wacky gadgets to get the mission done (which was ironically released for the Wii the same day as Blood Stone for other systems). 007 has his smartphone, which can: scan items for intel, hack keypads and disable security cameras. Other than that, Bond has to pretty much rely on his two bare hands and his weapons that he carries. This usually consists of a pistol and an assault rifle/SMG. The gameplay is mostly an average shoot ‘em up, where you utilize cover and peek your head out and fire or just blind fire from around the corner. Blood Stone also has satisfying hand-to-hand combat where 007 will disarm an enemy and brutally slam them into the wall or whatever’s around you. It’s a one button press type of deal where you press a button and it automatically does it; not really a fighting aspect to it. After performing a takedown you earn up to three precision shot types which feels directly ripped off from Splinter Cell: Conviction. You mark and execute targets in a quick fashion. The game really shines in the driving portions. Cars feel slick and act realistic. Being developed by Bizarre Creations, famed for the Project Gotham Series, you wouldn’t doubt it. The driving parts usually consist of James Bond chasing the baddies till they crash and then you have a shootout spanning across the level.
The game springs into action exactly how a usual Bond movie would. The opening action sequence has M giving Bond an order to stop a terrorist attack promptly followed by Bond jumping out of the back of an airplane to then skydive onto the deck of a ship. After some third person shooting and stealth takedowns it then proceeds to a driving section of a boat chase. After this stint, you then get the essential mesmerizing James Bond intro sequence accompanied with the theme song.
The campaign will probably take an average gamer around 5-6 hours to complete which is expected from a movie game. Blood Stone’s sound design is top-notch with the real voice actors and the authentic sound of everything else really gives a cinematic experience from a game. The NPC models along with Bond look considerably realistic and move smoothly; the car models are also very authentic. The various locations that it has you trek across the globe are dazzling and make Blood Stone very appealing to the eye. The many different locations allows the game’s levels to have a lot of variety whether it’s in snowy Siberia, and airplane flying through the sky or a Hovercraft in the ocean, nothing in the environments feels redundant.
James Bond Blood Stone does feature a rudimentary multiplayer mode up to 16 players featuring the norms of Team Deathmatch and such. Team Deathmatch is amusing but the objective attack and defend mode can get pretty mind-numbing. The multiplayer aspect to Blood Stone definitely feels like an afterthought to the game. It could have definitely been better implemented aspect of the game if they didn’t rush it to make a release date I’m guessing.
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