by: Michael Ogunnubi

November 30, 2008

Control wise the game plays perfectly fine. The COD4 free aim into zoomed aim method works great and when players are behind a wall aiming, a position you get into by tapping A near a wall so there aren’t any sticking problems, the transition is smooth and the only real difference in aiming is that Bond won’t get hit as much. In fact, I think I’ll take this time out now to say I think Treyarch are some really awful and lazy developers. It’s a shame how much stuff they just “borrowed” from Infinity Ward and COD4 and it definitely shows and even in their latest Call of Duty, World at War. So while it may work for the COD games, not so much here. I did find the lock-on that worked so well in COD4 a bit ineffective in Quantum, but it was far from a deal breaker. Other than shooting your foes in the head/body/foot/arm/whatever, the only other truly unique way to kill them is by a physical take down. These basically replace melees and are triggered with the press of a button when the player is close enough. The screen then swings into third person and a single button QTE occurs, which, if pulled off correctly, takes out the enemy in a multitude of cool Bond moves. I will admit Treyarch managed to capture Craig’s no nonsense movements very well for these. While CQC is nothing new it is one of the few aspects of the game that reminds players that they are playing a Bond game and not just an FPS starring Daniel Craig.

The game also has a few stealth aspects in it that are mostly based around crouching and using a silenced weapon (most can be silenced) or one of the CQC take downs. Sadly the only penalty for getting noticed is that three or four easily dispatched henchmen come to whatever location players are at. After players have got rid of them the fact that Bond was discovered has no outcome on the rest of the level and since players can pick up better guns from the elite forces stealth becomes almost a moot point. There aren’t any levels that can be accomplished better with stealth actions either. No matter how silent the player is, a room where a shoot out is taking place will have a shoot out take place in it.

In that vein, there are no multiple paths in any portion of the game. One of the great things in previous Bonds, and most truly great shooters, is the chance to defeat a level in multiple ways. It gets even better when one of those ways is a really awesome Bond move or something tricky. It was one of the coolest features in the EA games and it is not only lost in this version, but the game runs in such a linear style I started to wonder if at one point that game had actually been a side-scroller. This is just another aspect that sort of took the Bond out of Bond.