Quantum of Solace

I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never seen a Bond movie up until Die Another Day. As was the case with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, I had to be forced into watching that Brosnan flick by friends, who basically escorted me to a packed cinema. Unlike those other two film franchises, however, Die Another Day was pretty damn terrible. I suspected that I might have seen my first and last Bond film in one day.

Luckily, another friend forced me to watch Casino Royale not long ago, and I discovered just why Ian Fleming's ever-popular secret serviceman means so much to so many. Daniel Craig's Bond is smooth, charming, reserved and not without a hard edge – he is already, for many, the ultimate MI6 agent. It's such a shame then that Glu's effort, out to accompany Quantum of Solace's record-breaking debut at the big screen, is a little bit tired, cheap and feels rather rushed.

Even worse is the fact that if you take the menu-screen branding and the occasional mention of "M" (and various other series staples) out of the equation, it's hard to find any part of Quantum of Solace that feels at all Bond-like. The music is limp and the play repetitive and shallow; this is Bond for someone who's never seen any of the franchise's classics. It's almost like I made Quantum of Solace, four years ago.

From the very outset, problems befoul play. For starters, the view is too far out - it's incredibly difficult to make out just what's going on in the game's numerous cut-scenes, with each of the sprites looking like nothing more than stick men. Bond and his various assailants move like black and white silent movie actors running at double speed, giving the entire package an amateur feel. Actual play, which revolves around running, fighting, and with a bit of stealth thrown into the mix, feels incredibly basic.

Initial levels see Bond chasing down a rival on the rooftops, though this amounts to little more than endlessly pressing right (or '6') on the keypad and jumping (with '2') over chimneys and the streets below, with your rival handily waiting for you to catch up at regular opportunities.

Next come the action levels, where you'll find yourself routinely crouching behind crates and firing at guards that have a knack for letting you shoot first. This continues for level after level - it's symptomatic of a title that suffers from a complete lack of ambition.

In truth, the game isn't broken and it all runs with little fuss or bother, but when compared to other action film tie-ins of late - and the recently reviewed Eagle Eye springs immediately to mind - this feels routine, and lazy with it. For instance, in the first stealth level, where survival depends on you sneaking past some brutes skulking on the floor below, the level of the AI can be immediately tested by simply hanging off a ledge, in perfect view of those apparently out for your blood. The result? Said brutes simply charge from left to right, sporadically changing direction and seemingly unable to do anything about your presence.

To its credit, comical errors like this can easily be skipped, with every level available to play from the outset. However, simply charging into the game at a higher level makes the plot impossible to follow, and it's not exactly straightforward to begin with. Detailed via reams of text flashed up on the screen in between levels (and written in some very plain and uninviting language), the story is blunt, and working out who you're shooting at and why is never easy - though the haphazard nature of most of play suggests it's not actually very important.

And that's exactly what Quantum of Solace as a whole feels like - a functional but wholly unremarkable cash-in that ticks boxes in terms of pure content but fails to raise your heartbeat when you're actually playing it. When so many others do it so much better, merely being mediocre isn't good enough, especially when you're dealing with Daniel Craig's 21st century premium Bond.