Quantum of Solace

For quick summary, skip to bottom of the review.
 
James Bond, don't we all just love him? He's got the good looks and is mad charming. He drives the nice cars and knows how to "live da life". He drives nice cars and nails all the hotties. Simply put, he gets paid for getting laid. Every man desires to be him; every woman wants to be with him. That's why we all love the movie franchise - to fantasize about being James Bond / being with James Bond. It's no surprise that the movie franchise did so well.
 
Then someone came up with the idea of having a James Bond game, so everyone can experience being him. Great idea!!! Then there comes GoldenEye 007, which many consider to be one of the best genre-defining games out there. It was rad. It was revolutionary.
 
Eventually years passed, Bibd movies are getting made and 007 games getting released. Some good, some bad ; Some worth checking out, some don't. But they all share a common trait:  none are as revolutionary as GoldenEye 007.
 
Now, the movie franchise went on a reboot, so did the game. When it was announced that Activision took over the franchise, I was thrilled, believeing that they could've done a better job, but then it disappointed me.
 
The plot of the whole game was simple. Two easily forgettable missions based on Quantum of Solace the movie, then a bunch of missions based on Casino Royale. Then we return to one final mission based on Quantum of Solace's final scenes. So here comes the first problem with the game - it isn't about Quantum of Solace, it's about Casino Royale.
Actually, had the story made sense at all, this would've just been a remark. But then the story unfolded in such a horrible way. At this point, you may say to me, "Jason, we all know games based on movies are hardly faithful to the storyline." Actually, I knew that the story wouldn't be faithful at all, I just anticipated a plot that makes the slightest sense. It turns out that it doesn't at all.
 
Remember the scene where James first met Vesper in the train. The dev team dedicated a whole mission to that scene. They somehow came up with something so you get to shoot a bunch of people in that mission. They also dedicated a mission to the scene where Le Chiffe getting caught by the black dudes. That missions makes you kill the goons that the black dudes took with them... in the hotel. Seriously? And the poker game continues on the second day as if nothing happened? It's a bloodbath and those guys just went on playing cards? I never knew the world is this cold until after playing this game.
 
After the less-than-engaging-more-of-infuriating storyline, you'll notice how bad this game runs on the PC AFTER PATCHED. It's just turrible, turrible, turrible *CHARLES BARKLEY IMPERSONATION*. The graphics is at a pass mark for a game released in 2008. The sound effects are less than impressive.
However, what convinced me to give this a 1.5 out of 5 is how choppy the framerate is. The game is running on an Intel C2D E8500, a GeForce 9600GT 1GBDDR3 and 3GBs of RAM for your information. Somehow the game's framerate manages to drop below 20 at many times. Explosion? Framerate drops. Lots of enemies? Framerate drops. Checkpoint reached? Framerate drops. For Christ's sake the cutscenes don't even play out too well, being choppy at times here and there.
 
Now on to the gameplay.
Knowing that it was based on the COD4 engine, I actually expected it to be decent. You know, it's COD4, right? Then it disappointed me, once again. Since you can now hide behind covers, the whole thing changed. The cover system was actually smartly designed, with you being able to hold a button and the game runs to cover for you. But sometimes, the game just takes you to another cover other than the one you wanted to head to. It wasn't a big deal though.
However, the cover system also made the game less challenging, since you'll be spending lots of time behind covers.
The game also introduces a melee take down which involves pointing the mouse into a rectile  accurately within a few seconds. They aren't exactly difficult to perform, but are pretty much pointless. Given for most parts of the game you have a gun with you, and I mean a gun which you can silence at will with you, why not just shoot them?
 
The game includes a very friendly user interface, with a life bar despite of a renerating health system. The screen also turns black and white at this point and you start seeing the classic gun barrell screen forming up. It is a very nice touch. 
The level design in this game is mediocre to say the least. They are very linear and straight forward.
On certain occassions, you'll encounter rails where you'll have to walk past, and a mini game that involves maintaining the balance of James will trigger. They aren't all that remarkable since you don't lose balance at all. There are also times when you have to play a hacking game involving timing and pressing buttons. It just gets repetitive after some time.
 For the weapons, some are licensed, some aren't. But reagrdless, they all just feel the same. Perhaps they are the same, or maybe you spend most of your time shooting barrels which blow up and kill loads of enemies with a few shots. Yes, explosive materials are everywhere in the game, even in an opera house.
 
After the story, the presentation and the gameplay, what you'll notice next is the worse-than-awful voice acting in this game. It's horrible. It's not horrendous because of its poor dialogue, but more of the voice actors (ie the actual actors from the movie) not even trying. Daniel Craig is a good actor in real life, but in the game? He's just flat out bland and boring, no signs of emotions whatsoever. Eva Green is a nice actress, and she ended up reading lines from the movies. Olga Kurylenko fails to impersonate her own damn accent. I mean, you can't even play your own damn accent right? Come on!
The only acceptable vioce acting is done by the guy who voices Tanner - otherwise known as that guy who briefs you from time to time - and Judi Dench who reprised her role as M.
You see, I don't normally complain about voice acting, but damn, this is ugly.
 
The only good which came out of the game is (very surprisingly), the theme song. It flat out owned the theme songs to the two movies. I'm dead serious about that .
 

   
 
I don't know for the other systems, but if you're a PC gamer, it's recommended that you spend your money on something else. Maybe buy some flowers for your girlfriend or spend the money on a good lunch or something. I don't know. Whatever.
To sum things up, I've made a list of goods and bads about the game.
 
Good:
Nice interface.
Great theme song for a video game. 
Doesn't cost much for now.
 
Bad:
Sense-lacking, poorly adopted storyline.
Terrible framerate.
Repetitive gameplay even on a short single player campaign.
Unremarkable mini games which may become annoying over time.
Straightforward level design. 
Weapons don't feel unique.
Truly Razzie-deserving type of voice acting performance.  

Rants (not taken into account for score):
Some character models don't look like their counterparts.
No sex scene? I mean seriously? No sex scenes?
Poorly animated cutscenes.
Some lines or moments from the movies feel so crammed in. 
More of Casino Royale than Quantum of Solace. Ironically they could've had better levels had they decided to go with the QoS direction.
Sentimental moments + Bad voice acting = Ultimate corniness
In the credits, Treyarch had this section for newborn babies. Under the heading of "New members of the Team" or something like that, they actually left a subheading of  "because great games aren't the only things we make". Do they have no shame?  
Again, not even suggested sex scenes?