007: Blood Stone Review - The weakest martini Bond has had.

By Sam Coles:

I don’t why it’s difficult for game developers to make a really good James Bond game with a few exceptions like Nightfire, Agent Under Fire and Goldeneye. However most of the time they’re bad or painfully average it can’t be hard to make a game based on 007 he likes fancy drinks, driving expensive cars, sleeping with women and shooting bad guys it seems perfect for a game right? 007 Blood Stone was released in 2010 on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, this game looked like it was going to solve the problem but what we got instead was a mediocre title at best with a campaign that can be finished in just under 5 hours.

Blood Stone was released during time that James Bond got the reboot treatment after the abysmal film that was Die Another Day. So it has the likeness of Daniel Craig adapted into the game which looks pretty good although it can look a bit odd in some scenes. The story is really incoherent as it seems to jump all over the place as you seem to kill off villains like influenza did in the early 20^th century. You never actually see the main villain in this story as it cuts to the credits when you’re about to find out, you basically chase the person who think is the head villain then Bond says the usual “Who do you work for”? Then you do the same again in the next chapter. The story is not the best but maybe the gameplay can make up for it.

The gameplay is split up into three segments you have your investigation moments where you scope a place out hacking doors open, combat/stealth sections and the surprisingly fun high speed chases. The investigation parts are the most Bondish moments you can get where it is subtle and you’re not blowing things up and these can range from mingling at a party to pretending to be an inspector. You have stealth and action sequences play like a poor man’s Splinter Cell and I mean really poor I’m talking Conviction levels where you can take a stealthy approach but the loud approach is more effect as you’re not penalised for it.

The high speed chases are the highlight in the game where you get to take control of Aston Martins and speed through the streets with oncoming traffic as you takedown your target with a hefty side swipe coupled with the sound of roaring engines.

The A.I during the combat segments are laughable they do seem to have armoured and non-armoured soldiers but you can take them down with a swift head shot with your silenced pistol even if they have a helmet on. You can also take them down instantly with a melee attack no matter what even if they are heavily armoured or not which sucks all challenge out of the game. 

The game visually is okay nothing special there are environments that do look good like a jungle area and a high speed chase in Bangkok with rain effects that look great, but there are areas that look drab and blurry. The character models are laughable with some questionable lip syncing and this came out the same year as Call of Duty Black Ops where the character models from that game still look pretty good. Another visual effect that I cannot stand in this game is the film grain filter, I’ll say this again film grain does not make your game look cinematic it makes it look terrible stop using it in your games as it is really noticeable on a big TV.

Overall Blood Stone is a painfully average game, it’s not terrible but average and I managed to finish it in less than 5 hours, luckily the game only cost me £3 so it was not too much of a sting on my wallet but I would have been annoyed if I paid full price. Pick it up if you’re curious but it’s not a game I would recommend.