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Quantum of Solace: The Game Review
by Generalissimo Furioso
Surely Daniel Craig is overcompensating.
Remember Goldeneye? Remember barely scraping by Facility on 00 Agent difficulty, only to learn that you have to beat it under 2 minutes to unlock invincibility? Remember getting together with 3 of your friends and arguing whether or not the RCP-90 was a fair gun to use? Remember how everyone always wanted to play as Oddjob because he was like 2 feet tall and everyone had to aim down to actually hit you? Quantum of Solace has none of those memorable moments, instead opting to rely on a Rainbow Six: Vegas styled gunplay and cinematic bric-a-brac instead of tried and true gameplay. The result of this is a 6 hour snooze-fest based on a semi-enjoyable set of movies that adds nothing to the experience of either while detracting from itself at the same time.
Apparently, MI6 training teaches one to hide behind cloth when being shot at.
As some of you know (but others didn't, which means you should feel bad) the James Bond video game license was owned by EA until a little while ago, when Activision swooped in and bought the rights to it. The first set of EA James Bond games weren't too good (Agent Under Fire, Nightfire, Smokey's Revenge) but they were coming around with games like Everything or Nothing (let's ignore Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, the less said about that, the better). Activision on the other hand decides to ripoff a Tom Clancy game and copy the plot of the two newest James Bond movies verbatim (Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace). But they do so in a way that's both confusing and irritating. That's right, they decide to condense two movies into a review format, only this time you control Bond as he does stuff that is a lot more exciting to watch than it is to do.
Does one really need to use a scope at this sort of range?
The gameplay is composed of a simple first-person shooter format combined with a cover system that puts the view into third person to facilitate things like shooting around said cover. With a glut of games that play out this way, it's kind of sad they thought they'd be able to get away with doing nothing new with this entry. The weapon selection is the standard FPS get-up: weak pistols, strong magnum, SMGs and Assault Rifles a plenty and a grenade launcher for good measure. This only serves to further reduce the game into a dull monotony only broken up by the occasional forced stealth portion and we all know how well those turn out. Seriously though, the stealth portion sucks, First Person generally sucks when it comes to stealth (I miss my new Thief and Hitman games already) and even with the ability to take cover and peek around corners, I'd still much rather have preferred being beaten with a leg of lamb than have to play through that segment again.
Kick him in the back and run like Hell, Bond!
The only time the game deviates from its formulaic nonsense is to interrupt it with Quick-Time Button Pushing, which is quickly becoming the single most annoying aspect of video gaming ever, completely disregarding the skill of the player and completely reverting gameplay back to the age when putting a couple of button presses to a crappy FMV scene was considered a game. That's right, Quantum of Solace has more to do with the Philips CD-i than anything else. There's nothing that pisses me off more than having to reenact action-packed scenes from a movie by having to press a button at the right time. It distracts from the scene and also irritates people who expect cutscenes to be watched rather than a viewing experience interrupted by having to smash buttons.
There's a multiplayer mode available, but as our loyal readers know, I can't be arsed to give a review of multiplayer modes if there aren't two things going for it. 1) It's interesting and new enough that it doesn't just have deathmatch and all its various boring incarnations. 2) There are people who are actually arsed enough from playing the other games to play the new one. Quantum of Solace has neither of those and utterly suffers for it (not from me, but from other people). By the time you guys are reading this review, I'm quite sure that no one is bothering to play this game online, NO ONE. As a matter of fact, I'm so confident that no one is playing this game nowadays that if you can start up a full-game of deathmatch, I will pay you a dollar (no actual money will ever be paid to anyone, if you come looking for money, I will punch you in the throat and kick you in the ribs/groin/kidneys).
BO-RING
Thus we leave Quantum of Solace to fester in its terribleness in some small dark room somewhere that's being guarded by people with big guns and short fuses. Alone forever, to go insane and possibly build some sort of temple from the carcasses of the rats that wander in looking for food, only to be grasped in the game's cold, desperate claws. Fuck you, Quantum of Solace, tell me where you are now, you bastard? (I actually tossed the copy I rented from GameFly down the sewer and then told them I sent it back, but they never got it. Ehheheheheheh.)
All the thrills of staring at Daniel Craig for 6 hours.
RATINGS TIME
How many needles of black tar heroin to make this game good?:
One heroin martini, injected, not freebased.
What made up Barack Obama book would best describe this game?:
Thunderballs of Fury.
Anger Scale: 1000000/10, I like James Bond, I DON'T LIKE THIS GAME.
Distraction Scale: HIGH, I'd rather masturbate by rubbing my dick on a
fine mesh screen than play this game.
Most Comparable to: Rainbow Six: Vegas only dumber.
Sandwich I'd rather be eating instead of playing this?: Chicken Parmesan
Final Comment: Thanks for ruining James Bond, guys.