James Bond 007: Blood Stone
Over the Christmas Holidays, I inevitably watched a selection of James Bond movies because it is one of my seasonal rituals. As a child a Bond movie was always one of the TV highlights of Christmas or Boxing Day. Subsequently this habit has stuck with me over the years and so I dutifully watched On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill. Naturally this raised my interest in all things Bond, so I decided to dust of the video game James Bond 007: Blood Stone. I originally bought this game upon release back in November 2010, unaware that the Bond franchise has always been an utter lottery when it comes to tie-in games. I initially played through it for a month or so, then deleted it from my hard drive. It was a classic example of me simply losing interest in a game and then removing it in one of my regular PC housekeeping exercises. To be fair I had a lot of other games on the go at the same time, so there was a good chance that I didn't give it the level of attention it deserved. So yesterday I decided to give it another go and re-installed the game via Steam. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, I downloaded the 9GB game in twenty minutes.
So, what does James Bond 007: Blood Stone have to offer, second time around? Well exactly the same frustrations that caused me to kick it into touch last time. The story is quite good for this sort of thing, being written by Bruce Feirstein who penned a few of the Pierce Brosnan movies. There is also voice acting from Daniel Craig and Judi Dench as well as a “Bondesque” soundtrack by Richard Jacques, which all do much to elevate the proceedings. The game is a third person cover based shooter with additional hand-to-hand combat and driving sequences. James Bond 007: Blood Stone features a focus aim system which allows players to lock onto targets after melee takedowns, providing guaranteed kills. The stealth kills are quite satisfying and look the part. Ben Cooke, who is Daniel Craig's stunt double in the films, provided the motion capture choreography for Bond's digital animation and is credited as the game's stunt coordinator. Like in recent Bond movies the vogue for gadgets in this game is far more subdued. There is a lot of hacking of electronic locks and computers via a smartphone, which mainly involves the use of quick time events. However, it also provides a means for highlighting waypoints, weapons and enemies as well as items that can be scanned for intel.
However, despite all these acceptable points, the game is a very clumsy console port. It has all the obvious hallmarks. First there’s the cartoon like cut scenes and a game engine that simply looks lacklustre on a decent PC. Then there’s the clumsy UI. However, the biggest failing and the main reason I ditched this title last time I played is the control system. The keyboard and mouse work fine for combat but are inadequate for steering vehicles. The PC version does support an Xbox controller but not simultaneously with the other input devices. So, whenever you reach a check point prior to a car chase, you have to wait for the chase to fail, then go into the game settings and change the input to a gamepad. Once that section is over, you then have to do the same again to return to the keyboard and mouse. This is frustrating to say the least and it doesn't take long for tempers to fray. I shall try to persevere with James Bond 007: Blood Stone but I can't make any promises as to whether I shall complete it. The whole thing just highlights the fact that Bond as a franchise has never really got the treatment it should have from the gaming industry. Apart from Goldeneye and Goldeneye Reloaded but they never got released on the PC platform anyway.
I would love to see a more complex and nuanced RPG, where you could play as Bond and have a story that has multiple endings. A game that as well as shooting sequences, offered other activities seen in classic Bond movies such as Skiing or Scuba Diving. A mini game based set in a Casino would also be a great addition. Perhaps setting the game in a specific time period to would add atmosphere and ambience, be it the suave sophistication of the sixties movies or the excess and grandiose scope of the seventies films. Games such as the The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Red Dead Redemption 2 have an excellent balance of narrative choice and action. This sort of game style and mechanic would be ideal for the world of James Bond with its focus on pithy dialogue and kiss-off lines. But I’m not particularly hopeful. Activision were the last licence holders for Bond video games and they struggled to do the franchise justice. James Bond 007: Blood Stone is a weak title which killed off its developer Bizarre Creations. Oddly enough the follow up game 007 Legends was even more of a dog’s dinner and also put pay to Eurocom, the studio that created it. For the present no one seems to want to tackle the possibilities presented with such an intellectual property, because it doesn’t immediately lend itself to live services or multiplayer gaming.
