Quantum of Solace: The Game

The name of James Bond holds global recognition. The movies have consistently been well received, and Ian Fleming’s novels are still popular. Activision secured the rights to the video-game franchise based on the character and movies and, during a recent event in Santa Monica, unveiled the first title developed for the publisher by Treyarch.

The game, Quantum of Solace, is a groundbreaking effort in many ways. Treyarch, which is developing the game for the PS3 and 360 (the demonstration during the event was shown on the 360) has worked closely with the movie company to present a game that incorporates elements from both Casino Royale as well as the upcoming release, Quantum of Solace.

Activision and Treyarch showed off the game during an event in Santa Monica. The 360 version was demonstrated although Treyarch will also release the game on the PS3 platform. (Beenox will develop the game for the PC and Wii.)

Add to the mix that the game is built using the powerful Call of Duty 4 engine, and you have some of the ingredients for what could be a solid outing for 007.

Mark Lamia, head of Treyarch, said: “We’re fortunate enough on both of our action titles to use the CoD 4 engine.”

The point was also made that the way Ian Fleming wrote the character is almost identical to the way that actor Daniel Craig plays it. “We have a tremendous opportunity with this game,” the Treyarch dev team stated. “This is the first bond game with Daniel Craig. It is also the first Bond game on a next-generation platform.

“Building on the Call of Duty 4 engine, we are able to do things that other games have not done. And this is the launch of a franchise and it’s really important for us to come out with a big bang.”

To “whet the appetite” for the game a cut scene was played and it demonstrated the work that went into presenting the game as a cinematic effort. And the likeness to Craig as Bond was uncanny.

The game is a first-person shooter that blends in third-person action. The story of Quantum takes place one hour after the events in Casino Royale. As such, the game blends elements from both stories. There are levels that are remarkably drawn from Casino Royale, as well as levels that are from Quantum.

“This is a first-person action game, with a first-person camera,” it was stated. “We are actually a hybrid of first person and third person. We wanted to know what gamers want, so we asked a long list of questions. ‘how do you want to play this game?’ the majority of gamers wanted a first-person experience, they wanted to be Bond, they wanted to see the game through Bond’s eyes. About a third of the people we asked wanted to see third person, they wanted to see Bond on screen.”

The game is played as Bond, but when you get up into a situation, then you can get into cover similar to the action in Rainbow Six Vegas. The camera leaps seamlessly from first to third person, But inasmuch as the bits of levels demonstrated looked great, what was more impressive was the attention to the details of the game.

“We had a very strong focus on the core, making the core gameplay right, and making the audio and visuals go along with it,” the Treyarch team said. “If the core gameplay is not right, no one is going to care.

Tactics come into play, so players can not just run and gun. And the difficulty levels also play a major factor in the game. If you work on the easiest level, enemies won’t necessarily notice allies dropping nearby; if you play the game on the 007 level, expect a tactical nightmare. One enemy falls, you may bring on the whole assault team.

While the visuals are impressive, the sound does not take a backseat and is also cinematic in scope.

One point driven home time and again, though, was that this game was built using the CoD4 engine and how it made the development go much smoother.

“We started off using the CoD 4 engine technology,” the Treyarch team stated. “One of the things this engine allows us to do is focus on making the game, to focus on iteration, instead of spending all our time focusing on the plumbing we get to focus on the gameplay elements.

“We spent a lot of time on the dynamic AI. When you play through intimate tight firefights, larger space environments or larger scale battles – we have those types of engagement spaces in our game.

“The AI needs to be challenging and it needs to be smart.”

Game takes selected bits from Casino Royale, like the scene in the Venice house, or at the casino where Lechiffre is being confronted by Obano and Bond is trying to make sure Lechiffre is not killed. Some liberties were taken and the elements demonstrated were not always precisely taken from the movie – some twists have been thrown in to make it much more interactive and a tad unpredictable.

When it comes to tactics, listening for audio clues helps: blowing fans may indicate overhead ducts you can use to work through. Health regenerates as you rest, much like in CoD. Environmental elements are also destructible and as for targeting, the cursor goes from white to red to indicate target lock even in smokey environments. Melee combat is handled with God of War-type hotkey elements – engage, press B for a finishing move (by way of example). The player interface will also provide audio updates on your mission status and progress, often telling you what needs to happen next.

The game will also feature “a lot of exotic locations.”

“We have a great relationship with the movie guys,” the Treyarch team stated, “it’s been really strong. We are not making a Bond game, we are making a Bond experience. We got reference photos, and the script as well as script updates. They have been really receptive to Treyarch expanding out scenes from the movie to make a more interactive experience.”

The team also noted that Daniel Craig is a gamer and he did test some of the early builds.

Players will get a lot of different experiences with each level. From the smallest moment from Bond sneaking through to the large battles in the ballroom “we take players on a complete rollercoaster ride.”

“We’ve done a lot of work to create a seamless cinematic experience.”

To get the look absolutely right, the team took pictures of everything to base art off of, like a picture of a sandbag from Quantum taken from three different angles. Treyarch also has its own mo-cap facility and Ray Park (Toad from X-Men, Darth Maul) came out and did mo-cap work. Have literally thousands of images.

Manny Salazar, lead environment artist, said: “All of our levels are basically driven from the movies. Recreating what you see from the movie doesn’t always make for the great gameplay space, so Treyarch has the freedom to put their own spin, and touch on the game.

“They really allow us to do whatever we can to make the game interesting.”

The question was asked, near the end of the demo, about multiplayer elements, but Treyarch was mum on that, saying only that any multiplayer elements will be discussed at the Leipzig game convention.