Edgar and I also got to go hands on with the new Bond games at the recent Activision event. It was fun. They set up a great PR stunt, got us drunk, had beautiful women and hot cars all over the place. Oh, and there were games. After the cut Edgar and I chat about all of it.

Edgar: So what did you think of the Quantum of Solace games? Are they what you expected them to be?

Nicholas: Ask me what my name is.

Edgar: I don’t care what your name is. I’m not interviewing you!

Nicholas: It’s Bond. James Bond!

Edgar: Um… yeah. So, before we talk about the game, let’s talk about the whole experience that Activision had prepared for us. I think the event and everything surrounding it is worth a mention.

Edgar: Everyone got picked up in super swanky cars. We got picked up at the hotel in a ridiculously expensive Mercedes.

Nicholas: Yes, the event Activison put on was just my style. Cool cars, hot chicks, dry martinis.

Edgar: The gentleman that you are, you let me sit in the back with the hot bond girl!

Nicholas: I get enough hot girls anyway. And I only go after the married ones.

Edgar: Haha, yeah, about half way in the ride, the bond girl looks behind, and tells us we’re being followed, so the driver turns in a small alley and we meet up with our contact. It was tense.

Nicholas: Haha. Yeah, it was so cheesy but so great. I almost shot the driver in the head with the plastic gun they gave us.

Edgar: They also give us a briefcase with a fake passport, some cash, a little lockpick device and hilarious tudexo t-shirts to put on. We also got a doisse describing our objective for the night.

Nicholas: Probably the coolest PR stunt I’ve ever experienced.

Edgar: Same here.

Nicholas: It made me think about the loss of E3 and how it’s not really much of a loss if you do things like this. You can’t do this kind of stuff stuck in a convention hall.

Edgar: Yep. And then we got to the Viceroy hotel and were treated to a room full of stations to try out the 360/PS3 singleplayer and multiplayer games, as well as the DS game.

Nicholas: Very clever thinking from the PR team. You forgot about the Aston Martin outside and the martinis we were handed immediately upon entering the hotel. Strong strong martinis.

Edgar: Sorry, I forgot. I was following the cute girls.

Edgar: So, we both tried the single player portion of the console game. What did you think about it?

Nicholas: For the console version, it seemed very cinematic. It reminded me a litte bit of Goldeneye.

Edgar: Yeah it did.

Nicholas: And a lot of the movies.

Edgar: I liked the mix of action and stealth.

Nicholas: But the difficultly was crazy!

Edgar: Nah, that was just you.

Nicholas: I mean, I suck at FPSs that are not mouse and keyboard, but…

Edgar: No, you just suck at consoles FPS, and I saw this with my own eyes at the event

Nicholas: Unless they are on the Wii… which wasn’t even there. So, master of the FPS, what did you think of the console version then?

Edgar: This games mixes first person and third person mode pretty well. The camera moved in 3rd person when you were hiding behind walls and objects.

Nicholas: That’s true. It felt very seamless.

Edgar: So this way you could shoot from cover. Felt a lot like Gears of War.

Nicholas: The overall art direction was beautiful.

Edgar: Yeah, the game is using a modified COD4 engine. Which brings me to multiplayer.

Nicholas: Nice. I didn’t try that. I was getting drunk. How was the multiplayer? Didn’t seem as intense as CoD.

Edgar: It was fun, but no CoD4. It felt similar, but the 3rd person cover mode made it slower. I don’t really know how to explain it. It did feel less intense,although there were some new modes of play, like the man with the golden gun where everyone had to hunt him down.

Nicholas: As far as taking cover… you could only kneel, not lie down, right?

Edgar: Yeah…

Nicholas: Bond doesn’t lay down.

Edgar: Haha, that’s something I noticed instantly in multiplayer.

Nicholas: Unless it’s with a lady.

Edgar: Haha, that’s what they told us! But with this type of game, I’m used to the prone position.

Nicholas: Yeah you are.

Edgar: Lol. One thing I did like, were the guns.

Nicholas: Oh, so no driving in the game either.

Edgar: Yep, that was kind of a let down, but the dev we talked with was right. It’s better to do one thing well and really focus on it. And then you won’t having everyone talking about how bad the driving was, and not talking about how good the game was.

Nicholas: Yeah, I don’t want a crappy driving game in my good FPS.

Edgar: Exactly. Why mix genres and have a sub-par game.

Nicholas: So, overall… You thought it was good?

Edgar: Oh yeah, I’ll definetely get it for the Single player experience. Especially since it will have parts of Casino Royale in it.

Nicholas: That part is cool… tell the readers about that.

Edgar: The part where I won at poker?

Nicholas: No… That was with fake money anyway.

Edgar: Oh.

Nicholas: No, how scenes that were cut from the first movie were in the game.

Edgar: Ah, well they worked pretty closely with the makers of Casino Royale and some scenes couldn’t make the final cut for the movie, so Treyarch added them to the game.

Nicholas: Cool, I just wish I had seen the Wii version.

Edgar: That’s one James Bond game we didn’t get to see. Hmmm.

Nicholas: Nice, now let’s talk about the game I could actually play… The DS version.

Edgar: I was impressed. I was expecting a FPS game like CoD4 or Call of Duty World at War.

Nicholas: The DS version , as you pointed out at the event, was kinda like a Metal Gear game.

Edgar: Yeah, it really felt like it.

Nicholas: In full, good looking 3D. But, before we get too far, let’s talk about the big flaw though… the save points… very few and far between. It was a bit of a pain starting level all over again.

Edgar: But again, that’s just because you suck at video games, haha. Let’s talk controls.

Nicholas: Jerk. Controls felt good.

Edgar: You moved James with the D-Pad, and you fought with the stylus. If you pressed L (or R) you drew your gun out and could shoot in any direction.

Nicholas: Yep, tapping on a guy to shoot him. And then if got in close you could engage in fisticuffs!

Edgar: Haha, yes. I liked those, for the most part. They had you draw different strokes on the screen to throw different punches, like stroke right for a left jab, and stroke left for a right jab, up for uppercut, and down to bash him on the head.

Nicholas: Also, the blocking/parry system was very cool…

Edgar: Yeah, by holding your stylus either to the far right or left of the screen, where the guys raised fist was, you could block. If you were successful, you could chain in a combo, that would appear on the screen.

Nicholas: It was fun. Although sometimes I just wanted to shoot the guy and be done with it and get back to the sex mini game.

Edgar: What…?

Nicholas: Oh, er, I wasn’t supposed to talk about that. That’s confidential. For double O agents only. Sorry.

Edgar: If you’re reading this Treyarch, contact Kojima to do a Metal Gear Game.

Nicholas: Yes. for real, it would be great.

Edgar: At the end of each level you could upgrade some stats with special cards and tokens, that you gathered in the level.

Nicholas: Yeah, what was with the cards? I was too busy playing the martini drinking mini game to pay attention to the cards.

Edgar: Each number and color card had a special stat associated with it. You could equip them and get bonuses. Since you had 5 slots for cards, you made poker hands with them to get even more bonuses.

Nicholas: That’s kinda cool, cept I don’t know how to play poker.

Edgar: When you start, you get a quickslot on the bottom left of the screen which you could use to place either ammos, health packs or other items. So at first, you would place your ammo, since going back everytime to your inventory to reload your gun was annoying but once you finished a level, one of the things you could upgrade was the amount of quickslots you got. That was a big plus, because in later level you need to quickly get health back and ammo.

Nicholas: Yeah, that’s true, although I didn’t notice that that much.

Edgar: Wait, didn’t you die in the tutorial? And had to start over again?

Nicholas: Yeah, so what. My character was drunk and it inverted the controls. Stupid martinis.

Edgar: Lol. That’s ok. We’ll ask for a super easy mode for you where the bullets don’t hurt you.

Nicholas: That would be like my real life. But, I think one of those bond girls roofied me.

Nicholas: But yeah, the game was great. I came away from the whole Activision event loving all the DS games the most. This and Spider-Man are must buys for me.

Edgar: Yeah, I really liked the 360/PS3 single player experience. Not so much on the Multiplayer though.

Edgar: But like you said, the DS game was really good and I will probably pick up.

Nicholas: Cool. Well, thanks Activision for a cool event and getting us drunk. Oh, and letting us play some cool games!