James Bond: Quantum of Solace PC Demo Impressions

By Joe Haygood | October 9, 2008

Last night, I finally got around to downloading the new James Bond: Quantum of Solace demo for the PC.  This game came on my radar when it was shown off at E3 this year, but when I saw the pre-order price of $29.99 on the PC, I started to get cold feet thinking it was going to be a PS2 port to the PC, which has been done by a lot of companies as of late.Well, the game looks to be a 360 port of the game, and while it was fairly enjoyable to play at this point, there are a few issues that need to be cleaned up before it can be a great PC game.

The Quantum of Solace demo takes place in what looks like a set of catacombs and at first glance looked rather fugly.  Messing with the settings, I realized that the game decided that I needed High settings on everything but textures, leading to some horrible looking environments.  I switched that up to high and the result is in the above video.  Also, the demo is framelocked at 30 frames a second, so you never get a smooth flow of the game experience.  Back to the story.  We have James just witnessing an assassination of a fellow agent, and you have to chase after him through the catacombs.

Quantum of Solace looked pretty good, once the abovementioned graphical tweaks were made.  James looked pretty good, although he had a bit of a glow around him.  Maybe it is because Bond is just too cool for me, but I have a feeling it has more to do with the engine issues.  Environments were detailed, but a bit bland at times, primarily due to the location.  Enemies came in three flavors, and had a generic feel, due to a lack of seeing any real differences between them.  Sound work was also top notch, with the voice talent putting in a lot of good work.  I believe it was Daniel Craig doing his own voice work, and it was very well done. 

For some fans of the series, I can see people that loved GoldenEye really getting into Quantum of Solace, as it has that complete vibe.  Lots of frantic action, wrapped around a mostly first person shooter experience.  And of course, you only see the hands holding the gun while playing.  The cover mechanic works well, the switch between that first person/thrid person stuff is pretty smooth on the fly.

None of the Games For Windows LIve stuff was enabled in the demo, so I can’t get a feel on that, but I will say that there was some serious random stuttering in the demo.  It did not happen at a set location, so it could be a system conflict or just some rough code.  That is something that needs to be fixed.  Also, as a general demo critique, it stinks to download a 700 meg file only to get five minutes at best of demo gameplay.  Hard to formulate opinions about the game with that length of time. 

After playing the Quantum of Solace demo, I am a bit conflicted.  I love the first person/third person transitions and the action seemed to flow nicely.  But the current level just felt so bland and uninteresting, that I am questioning whether this is truly a day one purchase.  The price is right and it has something going for it in a revitalized franchise, but Quantum of Solace needs a bit of work to get my dollars at launch.