I could make a million different Bond references in this review and none of them would make sense if applied to Blood Stone. Blood Stone is a fairly vast departure from any of the previous Bond games, straying more towards the nature of the recent Daniel Craig era of Bond films. Bizarre Creations has taken it upon themselves to revamp the series with the removal of most Bond gadgets and has replaced them with a game influenced by parkour. Taking cues from Bizarre’s previous efforts such as The Club and Project Gotham, Blood Stone is born into a world of fast melee combat and explosive driving sequences. While the changes are immense, Bizarre only somewhat captures the intensity of Craig’s on-screen persona. Blood Stone follows the typical Bond narrative almost to a fault. Blood Stone picks up with the end of one of Bond’s pursuits, before picking up with a new one, much like many Bond films from recent memory. Bond is hot on the trail of a researcher threatening to divulge a boatload of secrets regarding chemical weapons, with the aid of a vixen voice by Joss Stone. If you’ve seen either of the two most recent Bond flicks, you’ll immediately call out the key players that will turn on Bond in his pursuit of saving the world. The locations are exotic, as well as the women and cars, with motion capture performed by Craig’s outstanding stunt double. All in all, this is the Bond we are recently accustomed to, a much more realistic and modern day hero, as opposed to the Brosnan’s Bond of whom was without flaw. Craig’s cunning yet faltering character shines through in Blood Stone, but the transition from film to game doesn’t quite carry as well as it has previously.
Blood Stone is a fusion of a few different key gameplay elements. First off, it’s a 3rd person cover-based shooter. There is a variety of weapons at bonds disposal, most of which are utterly common in any 3rd-person shooter. Blood Stone is developed in a fashion where it doesn’t really matter what weapon you have in your hands, each can be just as effective as another depending on how you use it. Taking cues from Splinter Cell Conviction, Bond has a “Focus Aim” special, with a max of 3 available at a time, gained by using a takedown on an enemy. Once you have a Focus Aim, you can eviscerate any enemy within sight, with a click of the trigger, as Bond instantly targets the dome of a terrorist and lays them out in slow-motion. Taking-down an enemy and quickly snapping to another target is always a satisfying motion, even throughout the heavily repetitious fire fights. This keys into how Blood Stone is meant to be played. Players are intended to play through the shootouts as fast as possible, using Bond’s available arsenal and attacks. It feels akin to The Club in this manner, but if you choose to take Blood Stone at a less-than-brisk manner, you’ll be severely disappointed. So for those that choose to de3lve into Blood Stone, know this, the game is meant to be played through as fast as humanly possible. This idea is only complimented by the ridiculous driving missions, each of which feels faster than the previous. Bizarre has largely been working on driving games such as Project Gotham Racing, so it would only make sense that the driving segments in Blood Stone are outstanding. This is sadly not the case, as every driving sequence in the game is heavily scripted, with little to no leeway in how they play out.
The “racing” pieces of a mission typically involve a chase or an escape, each of which is impressive in the design of its respective set piece. Most of these segments are as explosive as the tracks seen in Split Second, but rely too heavily on memorization of the current layout or track. Trial and error is the name of the game, and some of the latter driving segments are so crowded with effect meant to visually astound, that it becomes a challenge to focus on the road ahead. While it all looks great, it quickly becomes a distraction to the task at hand, which is obviously keeping Bond from suffering from a severe case of road rash. It also doesn’t help that most of the coolest moments of the game are played out in a cut scene. Just when Bond is about to fly off some insane jump, Bizarre has so kindly placed a cinematic in its place, instead of letting you play out the moment yourself. It’s completely jarring and does little to make the game feel satisfying. Blood Stone does take a few steps in the right direction with Bond’s fluid actions such as jumping from rooftops, or through the construction sites that Craig has always been so keen on. As I mentioned earlier, he game carries over the parkour element from the recent films. There are plenty of areas that Bond must climb or leap around on in a cinematic nature. Instead of using the gadgets that Bond is typically familiar with, a detective-esque element takes their place. Blood Stone features a gimped version of “detective mode” from Batman Arkham Aslyum. There are times where Bond must whip out his handy-dandy cell to pursue a lead or even detect enemies within the area. These moments lack any sort of depth, and typically draw away from the action-oriented gameplay. There is the occasional rhythm-based segment of hacking, which becomes more challenging as you progress, but never becomes interesting.
Once you run through the 6-8 campaign, there are a couple available multiplayer modes such as Team Deathmatch or an objective based mode. While I happened to find some enjoyment out of these modes, they seemed to lack the same cinematic flair from the single-player. The Focus Aim is still an available option, but takedowns performed on other players have weak hit-detection and lack the takedown cinematic found in the campaign. On the upside, things run extremely smooth, with virtually no lag in the matches I played. The multiplayer also carries a similar leveling system other Activision games carry, complete with new weapon unlocks and different outfits as you progress up the ladder. Blood Stone is a decent looking game with hardly any frame drops, and just a small number of bugs such as clipping issues, but I didn’t ever really run into anything that significantly deterred my experience. The voice actors are all grade-a, most of which carry the standard Bond plot. While I listed off a bunch of weaknesses in Blood Stone, I still had a good time. It’s not exactly the best Bond game to come along, but Bizarre tried an entirely new formula with the game that could bode well for future installments. Craig’s Bond didn’t exactly translate well into a game, especially with the lack of any fresh elements, but it’s expected as gadgets have almost entirely been removed from the series. I must say, I’m excited to see Bond leap into the hands of Bizarre especially if they make another game with much deeper gameplay elements. Sadly, Blood Stone 007 lacks any real depth. It does however contain some simple gameplay that could be a great foundation for future Bond games if expanded upon and fine-tuned just a tad bit more. It’s easily the fastest Bond game ever created and for those Bond fans looking for more of Craig in the midst of the fall of MGM, Blood Stone is a great place to find a quick, albeit mediocre fix.
