James Bond 007: Blood Stone

James Bond 007: Blood Stone was the first time that Activision took a stab at making an original story with a James Bond game. EA did this a few years earlier and did one hell of a job. At the time this was released, I thought that it was a lot of fun, even if some stuffy video game journalists did not!

Spying All Over The World

The plot of the game is perhaps not the strongest. The last original Bond game, Everything or Nothing was truly an awesome story. In James Bond 007: Blood Stone, we have Daniel Craig going up against a group of biochemical terrorists that sees him having to travel all over the world to stop them.

It is pretty action-packed stuff and the fact that they were able to get Daniel Craig, Dame Judy Dench, and even Joss Stone who is our token Bond girl to take part in this game does give it a real sense of authenticity like it could be based on an actual Bond movie.

Is The Gung Mightier Than The Hand?

One of the unfair criticisms that I saw thrown at this game was that it was a generic third-person shooter. I feel that this was way too harsh. I will admit that the game is not groundbreaking in its design and it plays things very safe, but that does not make it bad! You play as Bond and I would say the game is more of a cover shooter than anything else. You need to take down bad guys with shotguns, machine guns, pistols, and so on.

The melee system in the game is awesome and some of the takedowns are brutal! Not only are these fun to do and a way to be stealthy. You get a focus token when you do this. A focus token lets you then take down an enemy in a slow-motion, badass kind of way which is fun.

The Car, Chicks Dig The Car!

To break up the shooting sections, James Bond 007: Blood Stone has some spectacular vehicle sections. These have you driving in a car chasing down the bad guys, one, in particular, has you in the iconic Aston Martin. You also get to drive boats which again is awesome stuff and helps add a bit of variety to the gameplay.

Bond, James Bond!

The production values of James Bond 007: Blood Stone are sky-high. The likeness of James Bond and M are fantastic and the game has you going all over the world and the locations are very well detailed. It has a solid soundtrack and the voice acting is great and feels like it is a real movie.

Pros:

• The character likenesses are great
• It features voice acting from the actual actors
• The gameplay is fast-paced and fun
• The vehicle sections are spectacular

Cons:

• The game is only around 5 hours long
• It does not try to do anything new