Nowhere near as good as EA's Bond games, and a disappointing entry for the great British spy, might as well play CoD: GE
Just to get it out of the way, I do not like Activision. Much like the EA bans, I decided awhile ago to avoid Activision games, but I can't say no to Bond. So, I was eager to try out Blood Stone, to see if Activision's second Bond game would be an improvement on its first, and I can't say that it was. I really wanted to like it, and at times it was pretty fun, but all in all, it was just disappointing in many respects.
Developed by former Project Gotham Racing developers, Bizarre Creations, Blood Stone incorporates third person stealth & shooting sections along with a handful of vehicle levels. And in between levels are your obligatory story cutscenes to move the game's plot along.
The prologue level gets things kick-started quickly, with some action and driving a boat and car. From there, things slowdown as the game progresses, splitting everything back up. Levels dedicated to sneaking and shooting are alright, but there was something missing from the shooting: it just felt too simple and/or bland. I recall reviews of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, calling the combat too simple, and while I did not think so, I really thought that here. You can takedown enemies, but as far as melee goes, that's it. You just knock them out. Each one earns a Focus Aim, aka instant head shot with any gun. This was pretty cool, if ripped from Splinter Cell: Conviction, seeing as Bond has performed similar actions in the movies. Still, the basic gameplay was lacking, particularly when Bond has a gadget, a Pierce Brosnan Bond-like super smartphone that tells you where to go and where enemies are. The game is pretty linear as it is, why make the smartphone tell you where to go? And why can it see enemies behind walls? Moving over to the vehicles, while they looked good and felt okay, their handling left a lot to be desired, especially when Bizarre worked on Project Gotham Racing. So, they have made racing games, yet the vehicle handling here was bad. Very odd. As it stands, the vehicle levels were okay, but again, nothing really noteworthy.
Where I take some offense is in the plot and presentation. Blood Stone does not look very good for this day and age. Some things look good, others definitely not, case in point, M. To go along with this, the lip syncing is horrendous. It barely looks like their mouths are even moving, or it looks like they have a fish mouth. For a game based on realism, not good. My issues with the plot mostly stem from how writer, Bruce Feirstein (writer from GoldenEye), penned the story. As an attempt to capture Daniel Craig's Bond in a game, he remarkably made DC's Bond a lot like Brosnan's. Doesn't help that the ending is just awful, and the rest of the story to by too quickly.
While its easy for me to say that Blood Stone is not as good as Everything or Nothing, and for some people to just say go play Everything or Nothing and let us enjoy Blood Stone, I can say that while I enjoyed EoN when it released, is it too much to ask for someone to make a better game from it? Blood Stone is a pretty short game, and fairly average too, making it a disappointing addition to the Bond series. It had potential, but came up very short. I'll be looking at the next Activision Bond game a lot closer.