Bond 007: Quantum of Solace

Okay... In a word, fail.

Let's see. So, right off the bat in the very first level, instead of being a bad ass, 007 can't even hop over a fence to get back to his car which is now mysteriously not there for some strange reason anyway. Yes, 007, can't even hop a fence. Right...

Then I get right up on a guy and am told to press down on the right stick to perform a melee attack then press one of four buttons to complete the attack. Ok. Cool idea, and maybe even a cool animation of 007 taking out some bad guy Bourne Identity style but... where is the gun 007 was holding just before he started kicking the empty handed ass out of the enemy? They didn't even try to have it somewhere on his hip or anything. It's just not there at all, not even on the floor. Not that that would have made any more sense for 007 to ditch his weapon every time he wanted to karate chop someone in the nuts but at least the weapon would not have disappeared in to thin air and came back again.

And then, for some strange reason, the opening sequence which plays after the intro level is this recreation of what I take are scenes from the movie. They have the movie license. Why didn't they just show me clips of the movie? Why am I being forced to watch cheap CG knock offs? Then it occured to me. If they actually showed you how cool 007 really is by showing you clips of the actual movie, it would make the barely B grade graphics of the game that much more unattractive to look at. So, show the player a bunch of CG reenactments who are on par with the actual game play and the player won't realize he's watching terrible graphics. Well, what can I say, it didn't work on me. The graphics were terrible anyway.

But, even with all these faults, I kept playing for a few levels after that just because I do enjoy shooting virtual enemies with virtual weapons even if the game as a whole may be a bit on the lame side. Then the game did something a console game must never do. It crashed my 360! Yup. right in the middle of a level, BAM!, dead stop. And that was it for me. Not only did they not bother to make a decent game, they apparently didn't bother play testing it much either. You know, it's moments like this which makes me happy that I'm a Gamefly renter. Bond 007: Quantum of Solace went right back in the envelope it came in and was in the mailbox on its way back to Gamefly never to be seen by me again. Thumbs down, Quantum of Souless, and thank God I didn't have to pay full price to find out. Woohoo~, Gamefly! :D