When Casino Royale was first released in 2006, it was hailed as being one of the best James Bond films ever.  To be honest, the critics were right.  Casino Royale was packed with intrigue, action, suspense and the use of Daniel Craig as the new James Bond seemed to create one of the best action movies of all time.  With the success of the film, it was almost a complete surprise that a video game tie in was not attempted.  Other than the game version of “From Russia With Love”, almost every James Bond game used Pierce Brosnan as the likeness for the MI6 Agent with the License to Kill.

It was only natural that a sequel was in the works to one of the most critically acclaimed James Bond films of all time.  This time, Activision handed the rights to create a video game based on the movie to Treyarch, creators of Spiderman 2 and Call of Duty: World at War.  However, we quickly learned that this game would not just cover the events of the new film, Quantum of Solace, but it would also cover the events of the previous film, Casino Royale.

This past weekend, Best Buy had a major sale on video games and Quantum of Solace was one of the games on sale.  So, I bought this game for a mere $10, which also came with a pretty decent “007” T-Shirt.  So, the question remains: Was this movie up to Sean Connery standards, or does it falls off the map to Timothy Dalton standards?

This review is For Your Eyes Only.  Hit the jump for A View To A Kill…or the full review, whichever comes first.

As previously stated, this game makes it a point to follow the events of both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.  The game begins, oddly, at the ending of Casino Royale and slowly works its way into the events Quantum of Solace.  Being that Quantum of Solace is one of the few James Bond movies to actually act as a direct sequel, it works fairly well.  Once you’ve made it through a third of the game, you will go back to the events of Casino Royale, until the final mission which takes place at the end of Quantum of Solace.

The film Quantum of Solace is somewhat disjointed at times.  This, however, is nothing in comparison to the level of disjointedness that the video game has.  Rather than follow the movies, the game tends to have its own ideas about how the plot should happen.  While the game uses the general plot of the film, it will often times add in gun battles or sniper sequences that never occurred in the films.  For example, near the end of Quantum of Solace, there is a hand-to-hand combat sequence between James Bond and the film’s antagonist.  When I watched the film, I figured that the game would boil this down to a quick-time event.  Instead, I fought one of the fastest gun fights I’ve ever had to play in any game.  It was so strange how a perfectly good hand to hand combat scene was cut to a mindless shooting gallery.

Another strange option is the very pacing of the game.  While both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace have many action scenes, Quantum of Solace seemed to have more in the way of pure action sequences.  So, it seems odd that a majority of this game deals with the events of Casino Royale.  A great deal of the fight scenes in the game simply don’t occur, but the game breaks the continuity of the film in order to allow them to happen.  It’s an odd choice, but when you realize that the game would most likely last 2 hours if they just stuck to the action sequences from the movies, it’s understandable that some fluff has been added.

“But Addam, how does the game actually play?” Well, Quantum of Solace plays as part-FPS, part-3rd-person-shooter, part-quick-time-event.  For the most part, you will go around a given level, killing off anything that has the nerve to question MI6 in first-person.  When you get into large gunfights, you will use the cover mechanic, and when you do, the game will switch to third-person.  If, however, you prefer to show off some badass hand-to-hand combat skills, you can press R3 and you will go into a kill sequence that plays as a Q.T.E.  It allows for digital recreations of excellent fight scenes and often times works just fine.

Much of the time, you will go from one shooting gallery to the next.  It’s a simple formula, but the gameplay is decent enough that it will keep you going.  However, the game comes to a screeching halt when you reach the game’s stealth sections.  There are many occasions that you will be encouraged to forego combat by sticking to the shadows.  This feels awkward, as you will still remain in first-person as you sneak around a level trying to avoid cameras and guards…well, mostly cameras.  The guards tend to be about as intelligent as wet paint.  The cameras tend to have this “Miss Cleo”-like sixth sense about them that tells them where you are at any given time…and to not marry that fat man because he only wants you for your money.

The big problem is that you can’t do anything about these cameras.  If you shoot them, it triggers the alarm, and your entire plan is ruined.  When the alarm is triggered, it’s almost as if you are living in the Matrix, as I swear guards appear out of nowhere to mess you up.  While you can survive these enemies, it’s mainly a pain to go through an entire area, stick to the shadows, then a single camera that you didn’t realize was there sees you and your entire plan is ruined.

Treyarch makes good use of the modified Call of Duty 4 engine.  The visuals of the game are good, however there are several times where framerate issues will arise.  There were multiple occasions where the game’s framerate dropped considerably.  In addition, many of the characters look somewhat bland and there is little to distinguish enemies at times.

While we’re on the subject of characters, the voice acting for this game is not that well done.  Both Daniel Craig and Judy Dench revise their roles as James Bond and M, respectively.  When you listen to them perform their lines, they almost sound bored to even be recording.  When you actually realize what was written for this game, you realize that they have every reason to be bored as many of the lines are just poorly written.

The total single player campaign can be completed in about 5 hours or less.  This seems to be a fairly decent time, as even with only 5 hours of content, they were stretching themselves thin on plot points.  In addition, there are hidden cell phones that will provide you with useless information.  If you are a total completionist, this may be worth it, but there is little replayability.

The game includes a multiplayer component, as well.  You can play over both the internet of a LAN connection.  The multiplayer component features 7 modes ranging from Conflict and Team Conflict (basically, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch respectively) to Bond Versus, where one player will play as James Bond and will attempt to diffuse bombs while other players act as members of Quantum attempting to stop James, to Territory Control, where players will try to capture and control different points on a map.

It’s important to remember, however, that this is a retrospective review.  Perhaps when the game first came out, this part of the game would have been better, as there would have been more people to play.  To this point, I was only able to play 1 multiplayer game of Bond Versus and it still took me a while to find other players.  The one game I played was decent, but somewhat boring.  If you were killed by Bond, you were out until the next round.  I do think it’s important to note that the final review score for this game is based solely off the single player campaign.

Overall, Quantum of Solace is able to rise slightly above the terrible quality that most movie-based video games have.  It has an interesting idea in using both Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale and bringing them together as a single story.  The fact that the game is so loosely based around the movies feels totally out of place.  In addition, the game could have been better if it had simply stuck with either the stealth mechanic or the FPS mechanic and not both.  However, Quantum of Solace is a decent distraction and I didn’t feel ripped off for $10.