POSTED 28/11/10


BLOOD STONE: 007

Activision
PS3 (also on Xbox 360, PC, DS)

The Broccoli family: they inflicted the icky vegetable they so modestly named after themselves upon us, but they gave us the James Bond movies – for every sin there’s salvation, or something.

As any kid forced to eat the freaky, mutant, pea-meets-cauliflower will attest, it goes better with cheese and, aptly, so does the 007 universe. The Broccolis may have had zero involvement with this Bond flick that isn’t a flick, but the rennet flies thick and fast – as it should.

Assembled like a typical Bond movie – opening extravaganza involving boats, planes, parachutes, baddie-killing and saving G20 leaders from blammyville, followed by flashy credits (avec theme belted out by Joss Stone, who also earns her keep as the story’s requisite bimbo), then a headlong dive into the main plot (stolen biochem) - Blood Stone: 007 is both a triumph and a bugger. As the suave super spy (in Daniel Craig guise, funky infrared phone and all) you do the third-person stealth thing, the shooting thing and the really awesome close proximity takedown thing. Then the pay-off arrives – taking down the big boss for example – and the game takes over. You do the grunt work and it gets the fun. Sucky much?!

There are also breaks where you drive assorted Aston Martins. It’s kind of like arcade fave Chase HQ, but without the... erm, well, there is chase, but not much fun.

With only six decidedly linear missions – in different countries, natch - BS can easily be knocked over in an arvo. Yeah, it’s longer than a Bond film, but we expect more life from an exxy game.

We’d love to end with a classic Bond line in “Shocking, positively shocking”, but this isn’t. So “Average, positively average” will have to do.

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