If you were unaware, the Quantum Of Solace game includes the storyline from both the latest movie and Casino Royale. The events of the new movie begin very shortly after the last, so the combined storyline should work nicely in the game — and probably offers a better selection of sequences to choose for a well paced action game. That said, we only got to taste two scenes at this stage, both from the Casino Royale side of the coin (to prevent us learning any juicy spoilers). First a Vienna chase sequence and then a stealth scene through Casino Royale.
The Vienna sequence was quite a challenge, starting with an underground chase and then moving onto rooftops with quite a lot of enemies to contend with on route. There was no penalty for taking your time, but enemies were happy to throw grenades should you play too conservatively. One issue I found was with the cover system, which was a little too sticky in a crisis. Hopefully this gets loosened up a little before release.Playing this directly after Call of Duty: World At War meant the responsiveness when aiming felt a bit sluggish, with aim adjustments less precise. Not sure if that’s really a fair comparison, though, with CoD doing such a good job of such things, but considering this is based on CoD4 engine it seems odd that this feels so soft.
While Vienna was very action-focused, the Casino Royale sequence showed off the stealth gameplay very nicely. This was all about getting close to the enemy and finding clues to show how to sneak through the building. Get it wrong and things turn into a pretty wild firefight very quickly.
Playing this at its best, anyway, is when you are working hard to find the right path to the stealth kills. Pick the right moment, dash in for the kill, then a simple quicktime means the difference between a clean kill and trouble.
We also picked up a sniper rifle in this level, and it played very nicely. Breath control, nice zoom and sharp headshots made for a lot of fun. But I love sniping.
Overall impressions made me feel like this has the potential to be the best Bond since Goldeneye. Two movies are likely to be better than one for game pacing, and if these two levels get some polish and the controls get the last few tweaks they need then this could be a real gem. Of course, they’re always big ‘ifs’. But it’s very close to what we’d hope for as it is, and with multiplayer with many features inherited from CoD4 as well, I’m looking forward to cracking skulls with Oddjob’s hat before too long.
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