007: Quantum of Solace

The game begins with MI6 agent James Bond kidnapping Mr. White, a member of the previously unknown criminal-terrorist organization Quantum. While he and M interrogate White, they are attacked by the traitorous MI6 agent Craig Mitchell, who is killed by Bond while White escapes. Later, Bond spies on a meeting of Quantum members at the Bregenz Opera House and photographs them; among them is Dominic Greene, a well-known environmentalist. The game jumps forward to Bond crashlanding in Bolivia, where Greene is trying to buy land. By this time, Bond has met Camille Montes, who is seeking vengeance against General Medrano, who is trying to overthrow the Bolivian government. Bond learns that Medrano killed Camille's family, and this is why she wants revenge. Bond opens up to Camille about the death of his former lover Vesper Lynd, recounting his experience during the events of Casino Royale: chasing Mollaka through Madagascar, infiltrating the Miami Science Center to kill Dimitrios, saving Skyfleet from Carlos at Miami International Airport, killing Bliss en route to Montenegro, meeting Vesper, saving Le Chiffre from Steven Obanno and his men at the Casino, saving Vesper from Le Chiffre, and finally confronting Vesper and Gettler in Venice where Vesper dies, at which point the game flashes back to the present. Bond and Camille soon arrive at a hotel in the middle of the Bolivian desert. There, Greene and Medrano are discussing the land that Greene wants to buy; Greene will fund Medrano's attempt to overthrow the government in exchange for the land that he wants. Bond and Camille break up the meeting; Camille kills Medrano while Bond kills Greene. During the fight, the hotel's fuel cells are ignited; Bond and Camille manage to escape from the hotel before it explodes. They leave the area in an MI6 helicopter. In the closing scene, it is revealed that Mr. White and Guy Haines are reviewing MI6 debriefings and updates on 007's missions. The game ends with a scene of Bond outside the house telling M that he is going in. ==Gameplay==

Quantum of Solace is played as a shooter game across all platforms, with players taking on the role of James Bond in each version. Home console and PC version The PC, PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 versions are primarily a first-person shooter, but perspective switches to third-person whenever Bond takes cover from enemy fire. DS version The DS game is viewed from a third-person isometric perspective, but switches to an over-the-shoulder view during melee attacks. Bond can jump at predetermined sections in the game. The Wii version also offers an offline split-screen option for up to 4 players. Points are awarded for each round of multiplayer that is won, and these can be used to purchase new weapons and upgrades. Multiplayer modes in the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 versions include: • Bond Versus: One Bond plays against six other members of the 'Organization'. Bond will win if he defuses two of the three bombs, or else eliminates every member of the Organization. To make the game fairer Bond has two lives, can see all enemies, and can use any weapon set (whereas the members of the Organization have only 3 basic options). The Organization wins if Bond dies twice or if he cannot defuse two bombs in the time limit. • Team Conflict: Basic Team Deathmatch of MI6 versus the 'Organization'. • Golden Gun: This is a standard free-for-all conflict, which the main aim is to score 100 points. One point is scored for a kill with normal weapons, or for picking up the Golden Gun, while kills while holding the Golden Gun (or killing the person with it) scores 6. The winner is the first to score 100 points or the highest number of points in the allotted time limit. • Bond Evasion: There are two teams, MI6 and The Organization. One player from the MI6 team is randomly designated as Bond, and therefore as the VIP. MI6 wins the round if Bond can get to the escape point, or if all of the Organization are eliminated. The Organization wins if Bond is prevented from escaping within the time limit, or if he dies. • Territory Control: Basic match of one team having to control a point to gain points for their team. • Classic: Players starts with a GF 18 A (Glock 18). Weapons and explosives are spawned around the level for them to pick up. The Wii version has fewer multiplayer options: • Conflict: This is a death-match. Up to four players compete versus each other to score as many kills as possible in a selectable number of minutes. • Rush: This is a mission death-match. All players (up to four) are against each other and are assigned certain missions to complete in a selectable number of minutes. • Team Conflict: The goal is to get the most kills for the player team (Organization versus MI-6). The teams can be constructed in any way (3 vs 1, 2 vs 2, 4 vs 0, in a four-player match). There is a time limit of 15 minutes. • Team Rush: This is a team play game. The goal is to do specific missions before the other team does, all while staying alive. 15 minutes is the time limit. ==Development==

In May 2006, Activision reached a deal to acquire the publishing rights to James Bond video games. The company reportedly paid $70 million for the licence, which had been held by Electronic Arts since the late 1990s. and Quantum of Solace would mark its first Bond game. Treyarch, a studio owned by Activision, handled development on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. Beenox handled the PC and Wii versions, while Eurocom worked on the PS2 version. Vicarious Visions developed the DS game. The existing engine gave Treyarch a head start on development, allowing time for the team to create its own artificial intelligence (AI) and to add new features such as the cover system and takedown moves. The developers also received a James Bond bible from the filmmakers, establishing basic rules about the character and his universe. Otherwise, the developers were granted creative freedom wherever it would help to make for better gameplay. In addition to the bible, the developers also had access to the film scripts. The game includes a fight on board a train, a scene that was removed from Casino Royale. The Treyarch team played previous Bond games, including the acclaimed 1997 instalment GoldenEye 007, which provided the biggest source of inspiration. The game lacks driving levels, a common element in past games, as Treyarch sought to avoid taking on more than it could handle. Craig was reluctant to be involved in a Bond game: "When I started signing contracts for Bond I said, 'I'm not doing the computer game' and they said, 'Tough, you are'. I said to the people making the Bond game, 'You've got to make this good because there is so much rubbish out there.'" Craig played the game during development and provided feedback. Executive producer Garrett Young said that Craig's version of Bond "isn't quite as reliant on gadgets as previous Bonds, but with the OK from the filmmakers, we added the gadgets we felt would be fun and that would help gameplay, yet still fit within the world of the new, more realistic James Bond". Craig provided his likeness and voice for the game, along with other cast members from the two films, including Judi Dench as M, Eva Green as Vesper Lynd, Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, Olga Kurylenko as Camille Montes, and Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene. Craig's likeness was created using three-dimensional scans and photographs of the actor, Treyarch added the third-person perspective to allow for Craig's Bond to be more visible to players. Stuntman Ray Park performed the motion capture for Bond and most of the other characters. ==Release==

The game was released in Europe on 31 October 2008, followed by the U.S. debut on 4 November. In Australia, the game was released on 19 November. The release coincided with the film's theatrical debut, making it the first film-based Bond game to release concurrently with its source material. In Japan, Square Enix published the game for home consoles on 26 March 2009, two months after the film's release there. Quantum of Solace and other Bond games by Activision were removed from the company's website and Steam in January 2013, reportedly due to expiration of the game rights licence. ==Music==

The music was composed and produced by Christopher Lennertz, who previously scored the 2005 Bond game From Russia with Love. Lennertz began working on the score in early 2008, while parts of the game were still in a conceptual stage. To maintain a classic Bond sound, Lennertz rewatched Casino Royale and also listened to previous Bond scores by John Barry. According to Lennertz, "The brass is especially integral to the sound of any Bond music and I felt that at the end of the day it absolutely needed to be performed by players who really understood the genre and could blast in a way that might not come as naturally to classical players, so I fought long and hard and eventually got permission to record [at Capitol Studios]". The game features a different theme song from that of the film. Titled "When Nobody Loves You", it was written by Richard Fortus and Kerli, and performed by them along with David Maurice, who produced and arranged it. The song plays over an opening title sequence that is proprietary to the game, but based on the film's pre-credits sequence. ==Reception==

Across all platforms, Quantum of Solace received "mixed or average reviews" according to Metacritic. Bryan Stratton of GameSpy also found the gameplay repetitive: "There's no real hand-to-hand combat, no puzzle-solving to speak of, and all of the best vehicular action is limited to cut-scenes". Ben Fritz of Variety found the game to play "more like a series of new 'Call of Duty' levels", criticizing the decision to develop a spy game with an engine used for a military game. He considered it a decent action game which "doesn't remotely capture the spirit of its source material", falling "well short of the year's best shooters". Critics generally believed that Quantum of Solace, like previous Bond games, failed to live up to the standards set by GoldenEye. Conversely, Roy Kimber of VideoGamer.com called it "GoldenEye for a new generation and by far the best Bond game we've had in years", stating, "Praise really doesn't come much higher than that". Storyline Criticism went towards the combination of both film storylines in a single game. Andrew Reiner of Game Informer criticized the lack of chronological order: "The result is a plot that bounces chaotically like a super ball in a stairwell. It's impossible to comprehend what is going on in this game unless you have seen both films". According to Nicksarlian, the game "flies by at such a rushed pace that it's hard to imagine anyone could actually follow the plot here without being familiar with the films". Alex Sassoon Coby, writing for GameSpot, found that the Casino Royale portion occupied too much of the game and felt out of place in the storyline. Constantino wrote, "The majority of your time is spent recapping the events of Casino Royale, with only a few brief opening and closing sections taken from the game's namesake", stating further that the voice acting "does little to clarify the haphazard patchwork of random sequences and events culled from the two films". Nate Ahearn of IGN opined that the game felt like it was originally intended as a Casino Royale tie-in which missed that film's release date, prompting the developers "to tack on a few [Quantum of Solace] locations and slap a new name on the box". PS2, Wii and DS versions Natalie Romano of GameZone found the PS2 version an adequate alternative to the PS3/Xbox 360 version, while Ahearn considered it more enjoyable thanks to its third-person perspective. However, the PS2 version did receive criticism for its lack of multiplayer. The Wii version was criticized for its difficult motion controls, as well as poor graphics and frame rate, the latter contributing further to the game's difficulty. Mark Bozon of IGN considered the Wii version a "wreck" because of its numerous issues, calling the frame rate "unreliable at best, and broken entirely in some areas". Nintendo Power considered the frame rate "extremely choppy" at times, and found the graphics to range from "so-so to downright ugly". David Clayman of IGN determined the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions to be the best, writing about the others, "The Wii version is not exactly a stellar game but it does have some redeeming qualities like the local multiplayer. The PS2 lacks even that and is a lackluster package at best". The DS version was praised for its gameplay ideas, although critics found the execution to be poor. The touchscreen-based controls were considered difficult and unreliable in their accuracy, with hand-to-hand combat receiving particular criticism. Some critics also considered the isometric view too zoomed-in, making it difficult to shoot at distant enemies. Others praised the upgrade system. Jon Mundy of Pocket Gamer wrote that despite its original ideas, the game "fails to capture the kinetic energy and style" of the two films, stating, "The clunky hand-to-hand combat and a few too many rough edges rob the game of momentum". In a positive review, Neal Ronaghan of Nintendo World Report called it "not only a great movie adaptation, but a good, mildly innovative video game". ==References==