New Blood Stone 007 screens and trailer, and why you should care

As a general rule, you can bet thatthere are always at least two James Bond games in development. We've talked up the upcoming Wii GoldenEye remake, but also announced at this year's E3 (and leaked prior, of course) was the new PC, 360, PS3 entry: Blood Stone.

But who cares, right? Just another 7/10 Bond game, yeah? No! Wait! Keep reading. You might be more interested than you expect...

The 23rd James Bond game holds no ties to previous games or films, though it does feature the voice and likeness of Daniel Craig, and it's being written by Bruce Feirstein, who wrote or co-wrote the scripts of GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough. What's really interesting, however, is the game's developer: Bizarre Creations. The veteran studio is best-known for its racing games, the most recent of which is Blur, which it produced after being acquired by Activision. It might not have been an instant hit, but we couldn't stop talking about the fantastic combat racer after playing against our readers during our recent 24 Hour Marathon. The point: Bizarre can do driving games. Gee, I wonder if there will be any driving in Blood Stone?


Above: It seems likely

So we know that Bizarre has combat driving down, but what about non-vehicular combat? The dev isn't known for its shooters, but if you've heard of The Club, you know its got that aspect covered too. The game didn't sell as well as it should have, and it did have some notable flaws, but regardless, The Club was a creative, unusual, and madly fun shooter. If you missed it, you can get it pretty cheap.

So, to recap, we've got likenesses and voices of the current Bond cast, a three-time Bond film writer, and a first-time Bond game developer which is known for fantastic racing games and at least one great shooter. This might be worth paying attention to.

Unfortunately, not a lot of the praise we just heaped on is apparent in the new trailer, which looks a little generic. Still, we're willing to wait until we get a deeper look at Bizarre's gameplay before we declare this "just another Bond game." Ya dig?

Also check out the rest of the new screensin our viewer.

Aug 25, 2010

GamesRadarTylerWilde
Associate Editor, Digital at PC Gamer