Until about a week ago, the James Bond film franchise had been in jeopardy of never having another movie made. However, the same couldn’t be said about the James Bond video game franchise. Locked down at Activision, the 007 license is in the hands of the one company who will ensure that at least one Bond game is released every single year. Whether or not that’s ultimately a good thing or not is still up in the air, but if Blood Stone 007 is any indication, things are getting off to a rocky start.

Someone has kidnapped a top British scientist, and is hoping to unlock the secrets of his cure for smallpox and anthrax, and turn them into biological weapons. It’s up to James Bond to track down the scientist, and the men who captured him, before this terrible weapon is used somewhere in the world. Bond’s journey will take him through places like Siberia, Greece, Bangkok, and more, as he tries to hunt down the men responsible. Like any good Bond film, there are a handful of twists and turns, as every lead you have takes you down a deeper, darker hole. Written by Goldeneye scribe Bruce Feirstein, the story has all the right beats of a Bond film from the pre-Casino Royale days. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as this is the first original Bond game since Everything or Nothing, but since this is a Daniel Craig adventure, you would think the story would have the same feel and tone of the most recent Bond films. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case, and even though it’s not a bad narrative at all, the tale feels out of place with Craig as the star. Craig’s Bond lives in a world that is much more serious than Pierce Brosnan’s, Timothy Dalton’s, or Roger Moore’s, and Blood Stone plays out much more like a globe-trotting adventure than a hard-boiled spy tale. At the end of the day, it appears that the game is trying to set up its own continuity somewhere between Quantum of Solace and wherever the film franchise is headed. I think it’s great that Bizarre Creations is attempting to create something they can go back to without having a film to tie into it, but I’m not certain this is the right direction.

Blood Stone’s biggest knock against it may be just how much it borrows from other games to varying degrees of success. The shooting takes elements from Quantum of Solace, Activision’s previous Bond game, and Splinter Cell: Conviction. It’s a fairly standard third-person shooter with some cover mechanics, and you even have the ability to hit one button to perform takedowns on your enemies should they get too close.  Successful takedowns earn you a focus aim, which can be used to get an automatic headshot on an enemy in the room. You can have up to three focus aims stored at one time, and they do come in handy. Of course, the reason they come in handy is because there are so many enemies trying to kill you, getting a quick three free kills can mean the difference between clearing a section or dying. Though there are portions of the game that can be completed stealthily, much of the game relies on your targeting acumen, and your ability to stay behind cover until the onslaught is over.

There are small portions of the game where Bond will have to use his smartphone to unlock doors, or disable security cameras, but that’s about as covert ops as the game gets. Your smartphone also activates Blood Stone’s version of Arkham Asylum’s Detective Mode, and will highlight enemy positions, hidden intelligence items, and other points of interest. It’s semi-grounded spy tech, which is just what the modern Bond franchise is all about, but it feels cheap and unnecessary. I appreciate that the developers enjoyed Arkham Asylum so much they thought to implement some of that game’s gameplay into Blood Stone, but there really is no need for it in this game. It’s a functional tool, but it doesn’t tell you anything that you can’t see on your own, other than pointing out the hidden intelligence items. While that’s all well and good, the intelligence items don’t serve any purpose in the game, and unlike the hidden items in Arkham, they don’t flesh out the backstory either.

The single most bewildering part of Blood Stone is how awful the driving portions of the game are. Bizarre Creations is no stranger to driving games, so it begs the question, “How can the chase sequences in Blood Stone be so awful?” Car handling is but a small portion of the issue. Sure, the cars all handle terribly, but the biggest problem is actually in the layout of the levels. Driving levels in an action game should cause you to be reactive. They should have twists, jumps, turns, and close calls. You should be able to finish them on the first try, but if they’re more challenging, a second or third attempt is okay. The levels in Blood Stone rely more memorization of pitfalls and horrible turns than anything else, and will have you replaying them over and over again because of how cheap they are. The Siberia driving section alone is one of the most torturous and horribly laid out levels I’ve ever seen in a game. I thought when I couldn’t beat the level on the first try at New York Comic Con that something was wrong with me. Thankfully I was wrong. It’s just that the level is absolutely atrocious, and the rest of the game’s driving portions are just as annoying.

Daniel Craig lends his likeness and voice to the game, as do Dame Judi Dench and Joss Stone. The characters all look like their real life counterparts, but Blood Stone has stylized them a little bit, which makes the actors all look odd. Judi Dench’s M in particular looks really strange, with wrinkles that can’t decide if they’re just painted on, or are actually part of her skin. The voice work is superb, but all the actors sound completely disconnected from the work. It’s as if they know this game isn’t on par with their films, and don’t give it the same dedication. I’m not saying Craig and company didn’t work hard. I’m just saying they don’t sound fully committed to the story, or what’s been done with their characters. As for the rest of the game’s graphics, animations look fine, and the settings and surroundings all look really good. One of the best parts of the game is watching all the different ways Bond can take down an enemy. Part of that is owed to Craig’s stunt man doing the motion capture, but just as much credit should be paid to the animators who brought it all to life.

Though there is a smidgen of online offerings, none of the options available are anything worth mentioning. Team Deathmatch is where you’ll find most of the other players, but the game is incredibly laggy, and doesn’t offer anything worth sticking around for. There’s a leveling system, and you can change weapons at any point in the game, provided you’re near a weapon locker. The entire online experience is a watered-down version of just about every other shooter currently on the market. Perhaps if it ran a bit more smoothly, or had a game mode that centered on something more Bond-related, I’d be more impressed. As it stands, Blood Stone’s multiplayer simply exists.

Blood Stone 007 just doesn’t have a lot going for it. It’s got some standard shooting, some decent graphics, and a modicum of difficulty. Unfortunately, there’s just nothing here that stands out, or deserves your attention beyond a lonely weekend. If you’re craving some James Bond action, just rent the movies. You’ll have a much better time.

Tags

	Blood Stone 007 Xbox 360		Batman: Arkham Asylum Xbox 360		Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction Xbox 360		James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace Xbox 360
	Project Gotham Racing 4 Xbox 360		Xbox 360