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So I picked up Blood Stone last night and decided to keep it despite the horrible early review of 5/10 by IGN.
Blood Stone is Splinter Cell Conviction meets The Bourne Conspiracy, meets Batman Arkham Asylum. It borrows Convictions Mark & Execute feature which is granted one mark at a time by hand-to-hand combat (which is pretty satisfying by the way), and also has a lot of stealth elements. The running and takedowns reminded me a lot of Bourne, also with high octane chases and so forth. It borrows from Batman by using his Smartphone to see where enemies are on the map, with minor detective work.
I have 3 gripes with the game though:
1. It incredibly short... I beat it last night with a time of 5 hours.
2. The cut-scenes and lip synching are definitely not polished.
3. The sound is really bad; I usually have my receiver at -24 for gaming, but I had to turn it up to -18 for decent sound.
I can see why IGN was so harsh, but on the other hand I can see why Game Informer gave it 7/10. Despite the listed problem, this actually was a very entertaining game, but at the moment it's more a rental than a $60 purchase.
There are however certain areas that have polish... the hand-to-hand combat is perfect in every which way, it's very easy to silently take someone down, and the transition from gun shooting to a takedown is just as seamless as SC or UC. I thought the guns handling was awesome, and the focus mode is really easy to switch to when several guys are shooting at you.
The car chases are actually pretty decent, way better than the crap they put on The Bourne Conspiracy. You have about 4 chases and each one is unique and gives a nice break in-between stealth and gun fights.
So if anyone is on the fence in here, I would say if you love games like Splinter Cell and The Bourne Conspiracy, then you will definitely love Blood Stone. However, I honestly don't believe it's worth $60... I would either rent it, or wait for black Friday or even Christmas. I guarantee the games price will be chopped in half by then.
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It's been a long time since I've played a quality Bond game. While Quantum of Solace was pretty good, the shift from first to third person was a necessary one. This game combines a fair amount of stealth with action-oriented gameplay along with vehicle sections. I had a blast playing it, trying to nab all the achievements before the game was over. The only problem I can think of is the game's length, it only took me 4-5 hours to finish on medium difficulty, but I'm sure that number would be much higher if I went back through on the 007 difficulty. Overall, a quality title that's worth any gamer's time to play.Best Deals for James Bond 007: Blood Stone - Xbox 360
This bond game isn't quite as good as Goldeneye for Wii or the new Goldeneye Reloaded, but this is far superior over the From Russia with Love game with Sean Connery's voice. That game was for 10 year olds. BloodStone isn't super advanced, but very cinematic and fun to play. Great storyline compared to other games. The game is made to be just like a movie!Honest reviews on James Bond 007: Blood Stone - Xbox 360
Blood Stone is effectively the latest Bond movie, and if the latest Hollywood gossip is any indication, it may well be the last. After stopping a suicide bomber at the G-20 summit, Bond is tasked with capturing a suspected rogue bioweapons expert attempting to sell his knowledge on the black market.All the main names are present. Craig and Judi Dench play themselves, and even Ben
Cooke, who doubles for Craig in the bond movies was used for character modeling, so Bond moves like Bond and talks like Bond, and Craig is great at voice acting, which any screen actor will tell you, is much harder than it seems. The audio is clear and crisp, with none of the background washout or mumbling that makes half the dialogue in a typical action game so much gibberish normally.
Graphics are tolerable, if somewhat dated. Story items are richly detailed, such as the vehciles from chases, but backgrounds and terrain are mostly faded shapes on the horizon. This problem comes and goes, but the only real downside is that the interiors are sometimes ridiculous and cartoonish in their out of whack scale and placement of cover thats supposed to be "randomly" placed furniture.
Gameplay is very ordinary. There's some stealth aspect, which is bungled for the most part, as theres no real crouch, so you're running towards an enemy rather than sneaking up on them. Run and gun is tolerable, though the over the shoulder aspect makes aiming a chore and difficult to follow at times, and h2h, which is the most stylishly done, but manages to be the least used, as unless you mess up during a stealth sequence, is rarely used outside the stealth takedowns. "Evidence Collection" is the turn of phrase for open your smartphoe and follow the markers to the plot devices, meaning there is no NPC interrogation or actual intelligence involved. Dialogue is all scripted, so the feeling of really watching a movie is so pervasive that you'll look down from time to time and wonder why you're holding that funny V-shaped piece of plastic.
At a total time investment of just under 6 hours, Blood Stone is a movie/game that might as well have "RENT" stenciled on the case. Theres a multiplayer feature, but with a style and setup as bland as plain yogurt, I can't imagine that this will be more than a flash in the pan, after people try it twice then hand it in for the Goldeneye reboot. A tolerable game with lots of flash and the normally and utterly predictable Bond plot. Worth a watch, but a buy? Not hardly.
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I'll start off with this. If you loved Splinter Cell Conviction you will like/love this game.I'm a third person shooter fan, when it comes to shooters. The game-play is similar to Splinter Cell Conviction. The controls to get into and out of cover are a little tricky to manage at first, but I was so stuck on conviction for so long I expected the same and it isn't. There is a focus fire system, similar to the mark and execute system, but the enemies have to be in front of you for it to work, unlike conviction. You can have a max of three and need to do a hand to hand take down to get one.
If your a die hard FPS fanboy,(which seems to be 99% of the xbox crowd) well you wont like it. Its the only reason I can see for the multiple negative reviews here. The driving sequences were amazingly fun, and the driving smooth, as expected from a game maker who makes racing games primarily. The graphics are a bit toned down for multiplayer, but I'm okay with that if it makes for smoother game-play, and it does. The graphics are NOT n64 quality as I've seen other reviewers compare it too, I have no idea where this comparison comes from.
My one major complaint is the complete lack of gadgets/grenades and no crouch. I can't understand how this vital feature of a partial stealth game could be missed. Standing up while going from cover to cover in the face of full gunfire made this game ridiculously difficult at times.
You use your smartphone to scan and it goes fuzzy when moving, similar to the sonar goggles of Conviction. But overll this is only my second game that I'm trying to complete the cheevo's on, the other being SCConviction. The multiplayer lobbies are still active and its possible to get the MP cheevos/trophy's as well.
Well worth the current price of $18.00, once you get over the lack of crouching in this game.
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