cheats: James Bond 007 Blood Stone Walkthrough Video Game Cheats Reviews Faqs

James Bond 007 Blood Stone Walkthrough Video Game Cheats Reviews Faqs

They'll be sorted out eventually, of course, and James Bond will return to the big screen. But the question is will anyone feel his absence at all? Fans of the series left anxiously awaiting Daniel Craig's third outing can find solace in the knowledge that there's not one, but two Bond games due out before the end of year. Bizarre Creations' Blood Stone is a thirdperson action game hoping'to blend the gunplay, car chases and brutal hand-to-hand fight scenes which define Daniel Craig's Bond into a single, fluid experience. Fellow British dev Eurocom, meanwhile, is crafting a new take on GoldenEye, the greatest game made to date. But what's the enduring appeal of Ian Fleming's Cold War creation? The world which he was born is long gone, but before he was officially rebooted as blonder model, he was an oddly ageless hero. One man who can tell us is screenwriter Bruce Feirstein, who, penned Pierce Brosnan's first Bond movies (including GoldenEye), has written the script for both Bizarre's title Eurocom's updated take on his screenplay.

At its core, Blood Stone is a thirdperson shooter, albeit one that breaks up its shooting with a powerfully efficient hand-to-hand takedown mechanic. The first level Bizarre shows us takes place in Istanbul. A cutscene sets up Bond's mission to find a missing researcher whose location has been tracked to a construction site in the area. What begins is a simple investigation scene, as Bond walks down a street lined with civilians before talking his way into the site. At this point, he breaks out the only gadget which the gritty, raw, Daniel Craig interpretation of the character will allow: a smartphone one that highlights points of interest on the site, to be precise.

"We've worked with [Daniel Craig's stunt double] Ben Cooke", says Nick Davies, Blood Stone's producer at Bizarre. "He shows us exactly what Bond would do it's great." Once the enemy's disabled, Bond fluidly slips back behind the cover he just leapt from, avoiding the trail of bullets spat from the rifle of one of the unconscious guard's comrades. While standard stop-and-pop gunplay is an option, Bizarre shows us the different ways a scenario such as this can play out over the course of a couple of checkpoint restarts. Cautious players can, through a mixture of cover-based takedown manoeuvres and judicious use of the smartphone, stalk their way to the next objective leaving nothing but a trail of snapped necks and crushed windpipes behind them. Bizarre's demonstration of this approach ends with Bond charging at the last man stading and sliding feet first over his cover and into his face with a move which es smoothly from running into takedown animation.

As Bond (wearing the iconic dinner jacket) skulks past partygoers and heads into the heavily guarded gardens behind the casino, opportunities emerge for the occasional contextual takedown pushing guards with their backs turned off ledges and out of sight for instance. In these sections, saving focus kill rewards (the game allows a maximum of three) allows group patrols to be quickly dispatched without raising the alarm. We aren't shown what happens after Bond eventually sneaks into the casino through an open window on the first floor, but we'd wager it leads to a car chase.

Back in Istanbul, Bond's battle through the construction sitewhich includes a segment in which he flees an absurdly sized piece of underground digging machinery leads, as these things do, into a car chase through the streets of the city. And an awfully pretty one at that, too, the scenery flashing by in a mixture of saturated browns and blues which capture the palette of 2008's Quantum Of Solace. And, having watched that film in preparation for our visit, one of the most immediately appreciable aspects of Bizarre's chase scenes is the fact it's possible to tell what's going on. And an awful lot is going on. As Bond and his quarry hurtle through the streets, to the docks and out again before reverting to an on-foot chase through some ruins, there's nary a single piece of scenery that isn't destroyed. Sparks and bullets fly, caf chairs and tables are upturned. Petrol stations explode. Even "a John Woo-style flock of doves is scattered. Occasionally the game slows down to capture a single moment of action a jeep packed full of bad guys flipping in mid-air, for instance but most of the time demands that players remain constantly aware of their surroundings, and monitor the interplay between these scripted hazards and other risks on the road, such as traffic. It's a unique experience every time. There are scripted elements, but in terms of the movement and behaviour of the vehicles, you get different experiences.

For Bizarre, of course, the difference between the movies and the game is that the latter is its chance to direct a chapter in Bond's history one destined for more scrutiny as fans look to Blood Stone to slake the thirst caused by theabsence of Bond 23. The pressure is on, but Cavanagh has his own take on why: "I think we put the pressure on ourselves to make a great game. There not being a movie can't put any more pressure on us in that respect." Even so, it's hard to imagine there isn't a movie producer somewhere perhaps in a hollowed-out volcano stroking a white Persian cat and watching Blood Stone with anxious eyes.