James Bond: Blood Stone Review
I played through James Bond: Blood Stone last weekend since I was waiting for Brink to release. You play as the Daniel Craig version of James Bond with a story that fits could easily fit in with the movie franchise. Overall, I enjoyed the game and the story, but it is definitely a rental. I easily completed the whole campaign in about 5 hours. Like most Bond games there is a mix of on foot and in car missions. These missions give you a good mix of stealth, gun fights and melee combat. The cover system works well to let you easily jump from cover to cover without getting up. There are a decent mix of guns to use and since most of them are pretty accurate swapping with whatever is lying around is never much of a big deal. I enjoyed being able to sneak up on enemies and silently take then out, and then turn the corner and open fire to clear a room. These missions were all a pretty good length in that there are multiple sequential objectives but not so many that it gets annoying.
The driving levels are the one big thing I really did not like. I was expecting some fun driving levels since the developer, Bizarre Creation, made the awesome racing game Blur. Instead the driving is terrible. Instead of the normal overtake style missions you would expect the driving levels are instead about keeping on the course and not letting the enemy get too far ahead. I could probably live with these style of driving missions where you have to complete the whole course if the cars were fun to drive. Instead, the cars are a real pain to handle and control. The driving levels have a very specific path you have to drive and because they are way to long it becomes a matter of memorizing the course and where you need to turn or drift.
If it was not for the driving levels I would have said that James Bond: Blood Stone is great rent. But, I almost quit playing after the first driving level because I had so much trouble completing even the first checkpoint. It is a shame the driving is so bad because the rest of the game is pretty fun. Still, if you like Bond games and can deal with some driving level suckage then check it out.
I'm an tech fan and avid gamer. Looking to have some fun and try new gadgets.
Rudy
8 Jun, 2011
I really enjoyed this game and I really liked the driving levels. They were far more sim than arcade like so that is personal preference.
I spent a lot more time on the game than 5 hours. Quite frankly the game is too easy. Not only is the normal difficulty too easy, the smart phone’s ability to show enemy locations was dumb. The only way to properly play this game was to play it on the Hard (Agent?) difficulty and not use the smart phone other than when required for certain things. I started playing on the medium difficulty and you just fly through areas with little risk. I restarted after an hour since I was bored. The harder difficulties made the game a lot longer and more fun. I never finished the 007 difficulty you unlock though. That was really tough for me.