Ian Fleming's immortal vision of testosterone is now starring in a new outing that's bypassed the big, silver screen, opting instead to try and cripple the windpipes of gamers who relish big explosions, fast cars, and faster women. Activision teamed up with UK Project Gotham devs, Bizarre Creations to whip up a fairly decent 007 duck-and-cover third-person shooter on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Blood Stone features an original story starring digital renditions of the mighty Daniel Craig and the wrinkly Dame Judy Dench along with a nubile Joss Stone. All three, and indeed the supporting voiceover actors, bring a believably Bond-like story to life, even if the character models look more like blow-up dolls than actual people.
Blood Stone's single-player campaign is short, straightforward, and, well, fairly entertaining. It's odd that the driving/piloting sections of Blood Stone are so strong visually when the gameplay is only so-so, especially given the pedigree of the developer, but, well, whatever. Bond's got enough slick karate moves, and access to enough big guns and pithy one-liners to make up for it. If you've played one third-person shooter that uses a cover system, you've not necessarily played 'em all, but you'll certainly have played Blood Stone.
The multiplayer feels incredibly bolted on, and while it alludes to an addictive ranking/XP progression system, it's really just eight vs. eight in some rather unimaginative arenas, spanning a couple of not-very-new mode types. That said, Blood Stone offers more than enough action to offering an interesting distraction for five or ten fleeting hours. At this time of year, games need to pull out the big guns, and Bond's latest peters out somewhere around the end his own Walther PPK's silencer.