JB 007 Blood Stone

James Bond 007: Blood Stone jumps headfirst into a spectacular action scene before the opening credits even roll. Going from silently dropping enemies on a ritzy yacht right into a pair of harrowing chase scenes--first by boat on the Mediterranean and then by car on the streets of Athens--this third-person action game from Bizarre Creations makes a thoroughly memorable first impression. What follows is a game that takes its sweet time stepping outside the shadow of this explosive prologue, as a number of early levels fall prey to flat pacing and drab, predictable level design. Such woes don't last forever, though, because the invigorating energy of that opening scene returns full force in the latter half of the adventure. The result is an uneven yet worthwhile James Bond experience, aided in no small part by stellar production values that make it easy to forget that this Bond story isn't tied to a new movie.
There's no hiding the fact that the events driving Blood Stone'snarrative are paint-by-numbers James Bond. You begin the game on a hunt to track down a weapons dealer bent on terrorizing theG20 Summit, but a tangled conspiracy sends Bond all over the globe tracking down the usual array of informants, turncoats, and crime lords.