James Bond 007: Blood Stone

If this game was remastered with today's technology, this could be a perfect game. Loved the bond song created for this game. And the Aston Martin car and action sequences which if were with todays graphics i cant even imagine how could they would look like! I felt the activision theme and vibes about this game too, reminded me of some call of duty games, and thats cool. But sometimes this reminded me about hitman too, and i love that game as well!

What i didnt like was obviously the graphic and audio quality of this game. Subtitles were awful and with many mistakes, teribly timed /synchronized. Audio of voice acting quality was terible, sounds old and with noises on top of it. Loved the original actors' voice acting of course. If they used random voices for M and 007 i would give this one 1/10 at best.

Only thing i found annoying is that one guy you think is the main villain then another then another and it was really repetitive. However the gameplay , controls and everything else was pretty good.

After the disappointment that was Quantum Of Solace, I hoped that the next James Bond video game would surely improve on the mistakes that had made Quantum Of Solace a failure - I was not let down.

James Bond 007: Blood Stone is a game that will please all Bond fans and gamers alike. The game-play is very exciting and manages to satisfy those who enjoy a good thrill or two - or in this case 10 or so. The story sends 007 across the globe as he chases down leads regarding 'Bio-Weapons' ... or something. The plot isn't exactly made clear. Which is where Blood Stone seems weakest. You are dragged around to all these different locations and are at some points unsure why. You find yourselves in situation where you are asking "Wait, so why are we in Siberia?" "Why are these men trying to kill me?". This continues throughout the game until eventually it doesn't really matter anymore. The game levels are enjoyable enough without a purpose.

The game-play revolves around shootouts (Expected of a 3rd Person shooter ;). James Bond is either sneaking about a building, trying to escape or is chasing someone - All of which faces Bond against a series of enemies which he must dispatch by shooting them or using a take-down. The shooting is very straight forward and familiar but it's the take-down system where Blood Stone shines. When Bond is close to an enemy, the player can press a button to perform a special melee attack that dispatches an enemy in one go. It sounds pretty dull in theory but when you are playing, the take-down system is very ...how do you put it..AWESOME! I just love running up to an enemy and hitting 'square' (PS3) to beat the crap out of some goon. Performing a take-down earns the player one focus aim which can be used to shoot an enemy, killing them in one shot. A maximum of three focus aims can be obtained at a time.

Now onto the other game-play system of Blood Stone – the driving. These levels are chases. Bond must race after and enemy through an environment that is so chaotic, you can't even see! Explosions, debris and out of control cars block your line of sight and cause you to crash and get game over. Honestly, it seems as though sometimes the civilians in downtown Istanbul are trying to kill you. Cars come out of nowhere. On top of that, the person you are chasing often has help. White vans or oil tankers block your way and try to stop you from catching up - Most of the time they succeed. Game over again. Oh well, I'm sure a few more goes I should get it. Asides from the beautiful graphics of these chaotic driving sequences, this area needed improvement.

Overall Blood Stone is a good game. With some flaws such as the unclear plot and impossible driving missions, this is a worthy title to the James Bond games. A must have for all Bond fans. (Which I happen to be.) 8/10

It took me a decade after this game came out to finally pick it up and give it a try and boy am I impressed and angry at myself for not getting it sooner. If I had to justify myself I would say its because I played Quantum of Solace and while it was cool for what it was, it was just a little too close Call of Duty for my liking so I thought Blood Stone would be the same causing me not to rush to play it but boy I couldnt have been more wrong.

A welcomed change is the return to 3rd person as it really compliments the chase sequences and takedowns and just he overall fast pace that a Daniel Craig Bond game needs. And although it is a faster paced game it still has some strong stealth elements that are not exclusive to this game. Take downs and silencers are your main tools to staying silent so if you've played any other Bond games you are familiar with the stealth in Blood Stone which im not gonna say its a bad thing because I'd rather that than shitty forced stealth sections that go on for half an hour with little or no checkpoints in between.

I would certainly rank Blood Stone among the creme of the crop in the Bond games simply for the way it captures the feeling of the Craig films and as I play this game I cant help but feel more and more excited for IO Interactive's upcoming Project 007 which I hope will breathe new life into the James Bond video game market with recent game technology and developers that we know actually care about the quality of the games we could be in for perhaps the best Bond game since Goldeneye or the biggest letdown since the Goldeneye remaster. Only time will tell.

So... overall this bond game was pretty good. Though, there are some major flaws with this game.

Story was pretty good, seemed a little less complex than the movies, but I can't really complain about that since it had my full attention through the entire story. So overall story I'd say was an 8 or 9.

The major flaws that came from this game are really the mechanics that make it so annoying to play... and that might be because times moved forward, this is an older game. Reload sometimes just won't work, and don't get me started with the car segments... GOD. The car segments are in EVERY SINGLE LEVEL. Now most people would love to drive the Bond vehicle. But this is a little too much... a couple times throughout the story I would have been happy. The driving mechanics are awful... remember Watch Dogs? How bad the driving was in that game? Okay well double how awful the driving in Watch Dogs was and that's Blood Stones driving. Not to mention, with how much I hated the vehicular segments, had they of cut out all out, it wouldn't have made a difference, since there's lots of pieces missing when you go into a cut scene and the developers just expect you to put the little pieces together... so.. a couple seconds of a cut scene with the car would have been just as good. I dunno, I really hated the car segments though, which were by far the most frustrating part about this game. Especially where there's no hint or telling you when a trap is coming, the car gets totaled and you're forced to go back to a checkpoint... I dunno... I personally think this part of the game wasn't finished or ready to be in the game but they put it there for the big fans of the movies.

Aside from those things, I liked this game. I'm sure some would disagree but this is my opinions.

Play it for yourself! You'll still have fun either way!