Blood Stone Video Review
My interest in the 007 franchise has dwindled over the years; I haven't watched a Bond film from start to finish since Casino Royale hit theatres, and I haven't played a Bond game since From Russia with Love came out in 2005. But because Blood Stone doesn't look like yet another blatant attempt to recreate Goldeneye's amazing success, I decided to give the franchise another chance.
STORY
A biotechnology researcher named Malcolm Tedworth has gone missing; he was believed to be dead until the MI6 receive a tip that he may still be alive. The tip leads the MI6 to Istanbul, where special agent James Bond is sent to see what has become of the scientist. When Tedworth is found, he is strapped to a chair being questioned about a password. When he finally breaks and reveals the password, he is shot. It is later discovered that a man named Pomerov was behind it and has gotten his hands on some biological weapons, this sets off a series of events that lead to the uncovering of a terrorist conspiracy which Bond will have to take down.
The story is written by Bruce Feirstein, who has also written the story and screenplay for some of the movies and games in the series since 1995. I personally didn't find Blood Stone's story to be as memorable or interesting as Feirstein's other works, but overall, the story and dialogue are well written, and fit very well with the Craig era Bond films, especially the ending, which, in my opinion, paves the way for a new Bond movie perfectly.
GRAPHICS
Throughout the campaign, Bond travels to various different locations around the world, such as Monaco, China, and Greece. Every new area you visit has its own look and feel to it, which really helps keep things visually interesting, the most impressive and notable places you visit in Blood Stone are; the Casino in Monaco, and the aquarium in Beijing.
The set pieces in the game are phenomenal, particularly in the driving segments; they are very exaggerated and unrealistic; with bridges falling, buildings exploding, and helicopters shooting at you. It really looks amazing, and it goes very well with the cinematic style of the movies.
All of the explosions, environments, and character movements look very good, and the game is relatively glitch free. In fact, I only came across ONE glitch in my entire play through, though it was quite serious.
For some reason, the in-game graphics are actually BETTER than the cut scenes, everything in the cut scenes look slightly muddier than they should. And lastly, the character's faces are mediocrely textured, lack detail, and are completely void of emotion.
SOUND
Unlike most games based on movies, the voice work is done by the actual actors from the recent 007 movies, like Daniel Craig (James Bond), Rory Kinnear(Bill Tanner), and Judi Dench (M), so needless to say; the voice acting in Blood Stone is superb. New characters like Nicole Hunter, who is voiced by singer and actress Joss Stone, are just as good. On the contrary, I really don't like how everyone in every country you visit speaks fluent English. Geographically inaccurate voice work is a serious annoyance for me. I'd personally rather hear the country appropriate language being spoken and have to read subtitles than listen to everyone speaking English with a slight accent.
Everything else in the sound department is great, and needs no further evaluation.
GAMEPLAY
Blood Stone is primarily a 3rd person cover shooter with an emphasis on stealth. You can go through the majority of the game guns blazing if you like, and it is quite enjoyable to do so, since the shooting mechanics are very good, though I found the stealth to be a lot more enjoyable. In stealth you have to move from cover to cover while disabling cameras with your smart phone and killing nearby enemies with the either the excellent stealth melee system, or with your silenced pistol. I really like the cover system in this game because it allows you to turn corners without getting you out of cover; it's a very simple addition, yet extremely helpful.
Killing an enemy with a melee attack gives you a "Focus Kill", which is kind of similar to Splinter Cell: Conviction's "Mark and Execute". The only notable difference is that you don't "mark" the enemies you're about to kill in Blood Stone, instead, pressing "R2" activates slow motion and locks on to the nearest enemy's head, pressing the fire button kills them instantly. I absolutely loved this feature; it improves the pace of the shooting and stealth while augmenting the cinematic style Bizarre was going for.
There are a few platforming segments in the Blood Stone, and said platforming is the weakest aspect of the game. The game chooses where you're allowed to jump, and you can only jump when prompted to do so. This odd design choice makes the jumping feel contrived and awkward; fortunately, there aren't very many of these in the game.
The smart-phone is the only gadget you use in the game, as I mentioned earlier; you can use the smart-phone to disable cameras. You can also use it to spot enemies, distort equipment, and collect enemy intelligence. The intelligence items you collect gives you further insight in the game's story, but you won't have to look for them if in game collectibles aren't your thing.
Developer Bizarre Creations is best known for their Project Gotham Racing series and more recently, Blur. So it should come to no surprise to anyone who's played any of those that the driving in this game is excellent. I had a lot of fun with these brief sections and it's regrettable that there are only a few of them in the game. I have one problem with it, however. The steering is a little too sensitive, and it takes a while to get used to.
MULTIPLAYER
When I first got into the multiplayer, I was surprised that there are actually a lot of people playing it, especially since I picked this up after the release of Call of Duty Black Ops.
The multiplayer supports up to 16 players and consists of 3 team based modes; Team Death match, Objective, and Last Man Standing. These are all the same basic and generic modes you'd find in any multiplayer game, so they should be self explanatory, but I'll explain them in detail for those who may be curious.
Team Death match has 2 teams with a maximum of 8 players on each side kill each other for up to 10 minutes or until one team reaches 50 kills. This is the mode most people are playing; I had no problems finding a full match.
Last Man Standing is basically the same as Team Death Match, but now you only have one life per round, and can't re-spawn until the next round begins. I had quite a bit of trouble finding a match, as of this recording, I've only been able to 1 match with only about 5 or 6 people playing.
And finally, there's objective. In this mode either the MI6 or the Mercenaries are tasked with a certain objective, as the title implies. The objectives your given vary by map, but they mostly just have you and your team activating or deactivating bombs, and transporting an object from point A to point B, while the other team has to stop you from carrying out all 3 objectives, or vice versa. While not as much were playing this as Team death match, I didn't have much difficulty finding a well populated match.
Blood Stone has a ranking system that allows you to unlock new weapons and skins for your characters as you earn experience and level up. It's not as robust as other games with this feature like Battlefield Bad Company or the recent Call of Duty titles, but it's serviceable and it adds a good amount of replayability to the game. Also, the player with the most kills on the MI6 team in a match gets to play as James Bond, while the best player on the Mercenary team gets to play as one of the games main villains; Rak. It doesn't grant you any perks to play as either of these two character, but it's a cool addition nonetheless.
Bizarre came up with a great way to keep you invested in the action at all times by removing the pause menu load-out screen and replacing it with in game weapon crates placed near your spawn points. Speaking of spawn points, each team re-spawns on the opposite sides of the map, the spawn points never change, so spawn-camping is a possibility, but it's not a big problem since those people rarely survive more than a few minutes after entering the opposite side.
The "focus aim" from the single player has been slightly modified to accommodate the multiplayer; you still have to melee kill an enemy to get a focus kill, but now the takedown animations and slow motion have been removed, giving it more of an "auto aim" feel.
I played Blood Stone on the PS3 and there was absolutely no lag or glitches in my experience with the multiplayer. However, I heard the Xbox 360 version is a laggy and sparsely populated mess, I'm not entirely sure if this is true, but it's something 360 owners should consider before buying.
Overall, I thought Blood Stone's multiplayer was very enjoyable, but it won't be replacing Battlefield Bad Company or Killzone for me anytime soon.
VERDICT
Blood Stone is a phenomenal game; overlooking it because it's not Goldeneye or because IGN said so would be an extremely stupid decision. Goldeneye fan boys might hate me for this, but I actually think this is the best Bond game I've ever played…