Does Bloodstone give you the Bond experience in gaming fans have been craving for? For me personally there only have been a few video games that managed to do that. I know most consider Goldeneye on the N64 to be the best. But to be honest while being certainly an excellent First Person shooter it doesn't quite give you that true Bond feeling since it is limited to being a FPS. And let's face it, James Bond does more than just shooting people. For me the best bond game is Everything or Nothing. That game nailed it in translating to gameplay what we most enjoyed in the movies.
Bloodstone at first glance is similar to Everything or Nothing. The one thing you immediately will notice it how good Bloodstone looks and sounds. They actually got Daniel Craig and Judi Dench to voice the characters. Even the facial expressions and movements are top notch. Also like in most movies and games you dive right in the story without having a clue what is going on at first. Shooting, speedboat racing and driving in the introduction definitely look promising. Soon however you realize when playing the following missions there is not that much variety from the introductory one. A little stealth is added plus a focus aim mechanic very similar to the mark and execute one in Splinter Cell: Conviction that only at a few occasions is handy. It's relatively easy (and much more satisfying) to do headshots on your own. Personally I think the developers should have made more work of stealth. What use is a stealth attack if only seconds later the body will be discovered and you have to resort to shooting anyway. It looks like they copied the mechanics from Splinter Cell: Conviction without realizing what made them work in that game. More depth could have been achieved and certainly some replayability if they had copied the stealth mechanism from the older Spinter Cell games and thus given incentive to play full stealth in some missions. But that is just my personal preference for stealth speaking. Don't let this little wish of mine get in the way of the game itself..
So the core gameplay consists of lots of shooting and some racing sequences. But what makes Bond really fun? Of course the outrageous stunts and gadgets that are added to those action sequences. Which sadly are hardly present. Apart from some explosions and some racing stunts there aren't any Bond moments. And how I wished they were present because with these visuals it would look amazing. Which brings me to the phone, the one and only gadget you will receive and use (very much like in Casino Royale). It will open doors,disable cameras and functions as a radar showing you where the enemies are located (Why can't my phone do that?). That is very impressive indeed,but would it have hurt to add some more even if it was briefly in an escape mission for nostalgia sake.
Overall the gameplay that is present is solid and decent but might lack the challenge for people that expect it. But this game doesn't come close to Everything or Nothing which is a bloody shame.
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