
	Platform Playstation 3 Genre Action Publisher Activision Developer Bizarre Creations ESRB T (Teen) Released November 2, 2010

- Interesting story - Solid level design - Varied gameplay

- Short single player - Bland multiplayer - Graphics seem spotty in certain story telling moments. - Limited replay value - Some tasks feel too simplistic

Review: 007: Everything or Nothing (GC) Review: 007: Agent Under Fire (XB) Review: From Russia With Love (PSP) Review: Quantum of Solace (360)
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James Bond 007: Blood Stone

Score: 6.5 / 10

Ever since Goldeneye’s release thirteen years ago on the Nintendo 64, James Bond has been a "regular" of every console released thereafter. Blood Stone is the second Bond title to be released on the PS3, with Quantum of Solace being the first.

Quantum of Solace was a mediocre shooter that did not seem to take advantage of the Bond license by focusing mostly on shooting instead of stealth and

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driving elements. Blood Stone plays quite differently from Quantum of Solace. Developer Bizarre Creations, a studio that made a name for itself in the racing genre with the Project Gotham Series and more recently Blur, takes the helm and offers a game that with solid shooting and top notch driving sequences, but ultimately lacks any real lasting appeal.

The story of Blood Stone centers around a

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kidnapped British scientist whose knowledge of biological weapons makes him a hot commodity for a Russian businessman named Pomerov, looking to sell this knowledge to the highest bidder The story sees James Bond travel across six exotic locations including Greece, Turkey, Monaco and Thailand in an effort to ensure the secrets do no fall into the wrong hands. The story has enough twists and turns to keep your attention and certainly leaves the series open to a follow up title.

The gunplay is handled fairly well but borrows heavily from other games. The game allows you to take cover behind walls, look around corners and shoot and blind fire. Blood Stone also allows you to engage in hand-to-hand combat with enemies.

Blood Stone rewards players for using to hand to hand combat over shooting. For every kill you achieve using melee attacks, you earn a “focus shot” for armed combat, which allows you to tag enemies and gives you a guaranteed headshot every single time. You can combine up to three of the “Focus Shots” and quickly clear an area full of enemies. This is a welcome addition and will truly get you out of a jam when you are taking on droves of enemies or playing on a higher difficultt setting.

Blood Stone is also one of the most driving-rich Bond games to be released. Most of the levels always see you jump into a car to chase down enemies. There are numerous set pieces during the driving missions full of explosions, shooting and other environmental destruction. The driving missions are the best parts of Blood Stone.

James Bond is a versatile protagonist. He can drive, shoot, act stealthy and engage in hand to hand combat. One of Blood Stone’s biggest problems is how simplistic most elements of the game seem. Hand to hand combat makes up a large portion of the gameplay, however, there is no variance in how the hand to hand combat is handled. The hand to hand combat simply has a “rinse and repeat” kind of approach. You can defeat any enemy in the game by simply going up to them and hitting the square button. It would have been much appreciated if the game had an RPG like system to the hand-to-hand combat that saw Bond improve his skill as the game progressed and gave you more control over which sequence of moves you can carry out.

The levels look great and the frame rate holds up well during the more intense moments of the game. The actual animations look fantastic as well, especially the hand to hand combat. The cut scenes appear less impressive. They lack polish due to the character models looking rough around the edges and being absent of any personality. There are also rare instances of texture pop in.

The biggest drawback of Blood Stone is the incredibly short single player mode. You can easily play through the game in roughly 5-6 hours. As an avid gamer, it is truly disappointing to see Publishers ship games where the single player can be easily finished in one or two sittings. After playing games as short as Blood Stone, I am always left scratching my head wondering why games take so long to develop.

Blood Stone also features online play, which pits two teams against one another. Blood Stone’s multiplayer modes include varieties of team deathmatch and an objective based mode. The multiplayer pales in comparison to the single player as the online feels rather generic and this is not helped by the generic level design. The online play may keep your attention for a bit, but there are so many other games on the market that are light-years ahead of Blood Stone in terms of multiplayer.

Blood Stone is a solid Bond title and an improvement over Quantum of Solace, but at the same time, it lacks any real substance. The short campaign and lackluster multiplayer make this title more worthy of a possible rental than a purchase.

- Siddharth Masand

(November 17, 2010)