If this game is in continuity with the films, thanks to Spectre I think we can speculate Nicole was hinting at Blofeld and SPECTRE.

As a die-hard Bond fan and avid gamer, I adore Blood Stone. To anyone else it's just a competent third-person shooter with some great driving levels but to a hardcore Bond fan it's literally Daniel Craig's "Everything Or Nothing" and canonically fills the gap between QOS and Skyfall. The shooting is tight and responsive, the hand-to-hand combat is amazingly satisfying, the driving levels are superb and Joss Stone's theme is in my opinion the best Bond video game title song. Some sections of this game are so great I'm astounded they weren't saved for a film such as the Hovercraft scene in Siberia, the entire Bangkok level, and the car chase through the streets of Monaco. The fact "Call Of Duty: Goldeneye Edition" did better than this underrated gem is a travesty. It's understandable among the casual gamers but Bond fans should have eaten this game up and pushed it's sales much higher. Instead everyone flocked to the Call Of Duty clone which had barely any Bond elements to it besides a great remake of Tina Turner's theme song and that's about it. Even 007 Legends had more of a Bond flavour with it's driving stages, gadgets, fan service and colourful levels whereas Goldeneye: Reloaded was just shooting your way through dull brown and grey corridors with barely any gameplay variety. I bet the same people who complain about the last few Bond games being Call of Duty clones are the exact same people who neglected to buy Blood Stone and bought Goldeneye instead. Given that IO Interactive are likely using an original Bond model for their upcoming game and Daniel Craig is done after NTTD, Blood Stone will remain the best game of the Daniel Craig era and probably the most underrated Bond game of all time.

Blood Stone, coupled with Everything or Nothing, are my favorite Bond games due to their undeniable ability to feel "cinematic." It feels like I'm in a Bond film. Not to mention the killer scores that both possess.

I love Bloodstone. For me, it perfectly captures the look and feel of the Daniel Craig Bond films, whereas I always felt that the EA games, as enjoyable as they were, were also very over-the -top, verging on the silly. Bloodstone feels like it could be a Bond film. That's not too say Nightfire, or Everything or Nothing could't be a Bond film, but they be very over the top. They'd make Die Another Day look restrained. Part of what makes Bloodstone work so well, it's that it could be Quantum/Spectre behind everything. If Mr White had turned up, it wouldn't have felt out of place. Add in the gritty and brutal hand-to-hand combat, the realistic cover shooting (as opposed to wandering though the game as a bullet sponge), and the intense driving sections, the multiple locales, and it perfectly captures the feel of the Craig movies. I thought restricting Bond to simple real world gadgets, like a smart phone and a gun feels refreshing after the increasingly ludicrous screen vof the EA Games (a smartphone can only have so many functions, and taser and grappling hook are a little unbelievable. Besides, it wasn't that long ago that we saw Ben Shaw's Q issuing 007 with a gun and a radio. Also, I'm pretty sure United Artists got the character of Blofield back when they reached agreement with Columbia Pictures over the rights they held, and also the rights over Thunderball. I should explain why this particular game did so badly. Not only was there Goldeneye on the Wii on the same day of release (and obviously, Goldeneye would remove the bulk of the hype from its name alone), but Activision, choose to release on of the Call of Duty games that day as well. And they put the bulk of their Marketing in CoD. The fact Tydd I should also mention that my old University flatmate Vincent worked for Bizzare Creations and did fittings sequence concepts, as well as trophy and user interface design. I actually put off buying Bloodstone for a while though, in case it was like so many other licensed games. Glad I changed my mind. Oh - and it wasn't a hovercraft. It was an Ekranoplan. A Russian built vehicle that uses ground effect to fly at extremely high speeds just a few metres above the ground or water. They are a few which were built as ground "" '

3:31, 13:06 - The soundtrack in those scenes has an almost Brosnan-esque feel to it (Tomorrow Never Dies esque.) 13:23 - *"CIRCULAR Bed? I'm not quite sure why that's a major selling point!"* I almost bursted out laughing at that.

I like to think the Craig Bind games (besides 007 Legends) are canon to the main Craig film continuity. If Bond is meant to be a seasoned agent, it’s believable that he went through a huge adventure like GoldenEye and this, where Nicole seemingly hints towards SPECTRE.

I always considered this game as the "Mature Craig" story that we never got as a movie. He was either too young and hot blooded or too old and tired. This one was in the middle ground.

It's definitely blofeld, it would make sense being that he's "everywhere" and bigger than anybody like she said

For me, Best Bond game since the EA ones...

Blood Stone is definitely my favourite game of the Craig era. Like you, I prefer when the Bond games have original stories. But Quantum of Solace, Goldeneye Reloaded are also good, solid games. 007 Legends, unfortunately, was rushed.

I have a real soft spot for Blood Stone. It feels authentic, in keeping of the tone and context between QoS and Skyfall, and if there have to be long gaps between movies, games like this are the next best thing.

Re: Bond videogames' poor sales - Rogue Agent definitely broke goodwill with a lot of consumers who enjoy these titles and, despite stronger showings after that, the aftertaste never wore off. In addition, Blood Stone not only released day and date with Goldeneye Wii, it also released dangerously close to a Call of Duty game. Activision bet on Bond being as relevant as COD and did they got it massively wrong... But I'm rambling on, haha.

A squeal to Blood Stone was in production called Risico after the short story and had the return of Spectre and Bofeld but was cancelled due to the company going bankrupt and the film series wanting to use Spectre again.

As a car guy it always bothered me that an Aston was able to catch a Koenigsegg on a straight road, maybe Nicole really was a crap driver

i can see ben whishaw's Q being obsessed with putting everything in a smart phone

It's funny. The ad just after your joke about Bond's drink was actually a Heineken tie-in ad for No Time to Die.

They should make a Goldeneye prequel where Bond and 006 are working together before 006 became a turncoat in the next game.

I am a massive Bizarre Creations fan, and its really impressive to me that they made a solid third person shooter despite being known almost exclusively for their driving games at that point. Its a shame the Bond-isms are lacking, but I could see that as a problem with Quantum of Solace Bond in particular. Deserved better, as well as Blur, another great game they developed that year.

I haven't played the game so I can't judge. I would love to see Joss Stone sing the theme for a film. Her voice and style of music would be a great fit for the franchise. That ending where the drone Nicole get killed by the drone would be a great moment in a film.

18:52 "How many more names should i suppose to learn in order to keep up with this plot" Daaaamn 😂😂😂 tears of despair

I loved this game mainly because it brought back the driving segments; though they pretty much they broke my immersion as Bond was pretty much stealing other people's cars that somehow have Bond's license plates from the movies. I mean take the Istanbul mission where Bond arrives in the DBS and chases the henchmen later in the mission in a DB5 bearing the licence plate:- BMT 216A but that's Bond's licence plate for the DB5 presumably back in England because as far as I know MI6 can't airdrop vehicles like Diamond Dogs in Metal Gear Solid V. And as for the DBS; dear o' lord. All three DBS's throughout the game bear the licence plate:- 72 GH3LD. - The first DBS appears to belong to that complex to the first bad guy or just one of the citizens staying there and couldn't belong to Bond as he parachuted in. - The second DBS belongs to Nicole's Friend to go to Siberia. - The third DBS presumably belongs to Bond and MI6 as he arrives in Morocco to track down Nicole. But all the DBS have the same license plate, I know it's only a small detail but it was something that bothered me from the first time I played it. I loved the game but it really confused and bewildered me why they couldn't make different Aston 3D models with a different license plate texture.

I think Daniel Craig tried the hardest in this game for his voice acting

While you might've found this out by now, GoldenEye Wii was released a year early because that was the deal Activision made with Nintendo. Nintendo got a 1 year exclusive to the game so that the Wii Port actually got sales because Nintendo felt that people would just go for the XB360 & PS3 ports because those graphics were better, which was actually the reason why GoldenEye XBLA was cancelled which was a completely idiotic decision. They should've known that people would've still bought the Wii version because there are a lot of people who would've been fine with those graphics because they still would've been miles better than the N64 one (which was the main/only point of the remake), as well as people who only like playing Nintendo consoles, not to mention people who would've preferred playing it on a Nintendo console because that's what the original N64 game was released on: a Nintendo console. Was such a stupid decision, and I hope you go over that either in the GE Reloaded Review or in a separate video.

Amazing review as usual. Still my favourite KZfaq channel and, to quote yourself, that ain't likely to change any time soon!

If you beat the game on 007 difficulty, you earn the GB sequence :) However, if you look it up and watch it, it's not too dissimilar to the QoS gunbarrel. Still, a shame it's not automatically there in-game! :(

Have you ever thought about reviewing Kingsman: The Secret Service?

No mention of that intro *TITLE CARD*!? I'm disappointed.

Greatest Bond Game we as PC Gamers got. It was everything that was on console Shooting & Driving missions were in this game. After that dissapointing PC port of Nightfire, I could probably tell you that this is the best game you could ever get for PC. Only complain it was short & we there was no sequel.

Imo, Blood Stone was a missed opportunity to insert Craig's Bond into a Brosnan-type story with over-the-top villains, exotic locations, and amazing gadgets. While I prefer the realism and grittiness of Craig's Bond films, that approach doesn't really work for producing exciting video games.

I enjoy the Daniel Craig films but this game is next level

Another fantastic review, Calvin! As an American, I have to ask, what are the laws in the UK around the possession of prop guns? I've seen you with a few throughout your videos. I know that gun laws in the UK are very restrictive, and I've even heard that prop and airsoft guns are heavily regulated. Are you required to have some sort of license to own them? Being from and living in the US, I'm a big gun guy, and I'm used guns not being a huge deal in our culture. I apologize if this is a stupid question, but I'm genuinely curious. Lol

I always thought that the "unnamed" guy was Silva (from Skyfall) but I guess that's just me. Also there is a gunbarrel, but it was deleted from the game.

Oh and Calvin, that is a tunneling drill. It’s usually used to make a freeway by drilling through mountains.

Great review Calvin! Keep the good work up!

Great review as always, Calvin. Looking forward to your GE:R review, and then maybe one day we'll see a Top 10 James Bond Games video from yourself? ;)

brilliant work calvin i've been waiting for this for a while and I certainly wasn't disappointed

It's very interesting to hear about these games from the perspective of a fan, and I especially appreciate the detail you go into explaining them. With that said, given how the status of Bond games is currently in limbo, which studio, if you have a choice, should take their turn with the franchise?

I thought the gunbarrel was part of the main menu.

I recently played Bloodstone for the first time this year and I loved it. Best game in the Activision era of Bond games.

This game wasn´t even translated to spanish, where as literally every other bond game was even dubbed to spanish. That´s one of the many reasons it sold so poorly in my country. I´m commenting 5 years later because I just beat the game and loved every minute of it.

Well at least with Spectre we know that "Him" was Blofeld

Can't wait for your 007 Legends review :P

Love Bond's sad-dad/sunday best outfit in the early levels.

I grew up on this game, I perfected all the car chased so that when the scene was finished the car had no damage for some reason, I loved this game

Solid review Calvin, keep up the good work

No comment on how odd Judi Dench's facial model appears? It always looked really off to me. Regarding the lack of a gunbarrel sequence: oddly enough, there is one in the game's files, but there's no way to access it in the game itself. Cut for reasons unknown.

Loved the wannabe martyr sketch, Calvin! Great as always! Also, as somebody who has worked both on industrial construction sites and in emergency rooms, I can't help but chuckle at the idea of a random object falling on Bond's head and putting him on disability for the rest of the series. Then again, though, since this eventually led to Spectre, perhaps that version of Bond would have been best for all concerned...

I've been waiting for this video for ages, great video.

Love that Heiniken quip!

This does fit in now with Spectre

Great video as always Calvin! If you could have a video game version of any James Bond film (that hasn't been done yet) what would it be?

The smartphone thing doesn't bother me a lot considering the franchise's decades long obsession with "watch that does x"

Next time you do an "I watched all Craig's films in one day" video please include Bloodstone!

Another excellent review! I remember liking this game; it was nothing special but definitely one of the better ones to come out in recent years.

I've always felt this game's story was weak, but didn't really realize how weak it was till I watched this review and glimpsed it again. It really is awful. However, I really did like this game a lot and it holds a special place in my heart simply because it was not only the only Craig-era Bond game we got not based on any movie, it was the only one that wasn't a Call of Duty Clone. It was a real treat to play. Unfortunately, this is the last game that's done that. Gen 7 was a pretty underwhelming generation for Bond video games and there don't seem to be any new Bonds games on the horizon. Bond appears to be being milked in the mobile market instead :( I feel that the video games have so much potential beyond simply being shooters and still would love for the series to have its own Arkham Asylum: A game which perfectly captures the spirit of the source material and brings the series great critical acclaim and sales. I can dream, can't I?

The circular bed is a reference to the 67 Casino Royale, The Spy Who Loved Me and Austin Powers.

I loved this game and loved your review, look forward to the next one.

Blood Stone was probably the last Bond game I actually enjoyed (sort of). But it hasn't aged very well, looks and feels much older than it actually is.

So excited for this been waiting ages! :)

Pretty sure there is a gunbarrel for Bloodstone, it's just an easter egg at the end of the PC version when you complete the game on 007 difficulty. Pretty sure you can find it on YT. It's just about as crap as the QoS GB in all honesty, with the model of Craig walking on too fast and the terrible gunbarrel and blood graphics to boot.

Calvin, you nailed it another great review when will u do goldeneye and 007 legends

One of my personal fav video games-LOVE Daniel Craig! :)

The awesome hovercraft level reminded me a lot of a part in the Bond novel Devil May Care which also had a large, jet powered hovercraft. I wonder if the makers of this game were inspired from the book.

When I first played this I thought she might've been referring to Alec Trevelyan from Goldeneye Reloaded but looking back I do kinda like to think that it was Blofeld

Thanks for this review, this game got crapped on from the moment it was released and I never purchased it as a result...reminds me of Everything or Nothing, that same level of quality in creating something that is basically it's own IP but implements the use of the current actors. One of the few things EA did right was allow for stuff like this, brand new story and stay far away from a carbon copy of the movie in video game form. From Russia with Love was also decent and the tried with Legends it just got caught up in the COD B.S. and there's nothing they could do to make it better but oh well. Let's just replace it with one of the Brosnan titles instead like, let's say Nightfire...

Finally! One of my favorite Bond titles, glad to see CD putting his opinion to it.

Calvin, the gunbarrel sequence IS in the game. You unlock it by completing the game on 007 difficulty

I just realized. It been exactly a year since this review came out and exactly 2 years since Quantum of Solace review. Are we getting another review on this day in 2017?

Random question to ask you Calvin: Have you seen the Epic Rap Battle of History between James Bond and Austin Powers?

I know this is an old video, but I wanted to point out that the way M pronounces "Nicole" is the way French people say the name.

Can't wait for On Her Majesties Secret Service!!! But this does really nicely! Great Review, Mate!

i would like to see a 007 game taking place during the gap between "on her majesty's secret service" and "diamonds are forever" in which bond is still seeking revenge for Tracy's death. The game play would be a sort of like a mix of goldeneye and hitman with a heavy helping of gadgets minigames and vehicle combat to break up the gameplay. i also think it would be cool to have the option to choose from a selection of different bonds to play as. anyway these are just my ramblings about what i would do with a 007 game.

Great video, as always. Can't wait for GoldenEye!

YOU DID IT CALVIN!! PRAISE YOU!!

Not sure how but I missed this backing 2010 ... but have just finished it finally.. really enjoyed it..

Hey Calvin will you be doing a review for OHMSS soon?

Oh my god, you look like Jimmy Carr.

Finally! I really hope you like it, because this is my favorite bond game on the ps3

I heard a rumor that apperantly Nicole was supposed to drop "Dr No" before she died. Now I read that in a forum a long time ago and probably fake but damn that would've been awesome.

Joss Stone's character of Nicole being a socialite is pretty different for Bond. I could imagine Denise Richards playing that sort of character pretty well instead of the one she was given.

So upset that this is removed from Steam. :/ I'd love to give it a try.

Both the Goldeneye remake on Wii and every other Craig bond game had to use the circular menu and in game computer layout. QOS style. The menus didn’t have their own identity.

oh my, does this mean we're gonna get a goldeneye reloaded review soon !!??

even though it has nothing to do with the video (which is amazing as always btw) i just have to say your podcasts are brilliant.

Calvin, where did you get that model gun thingy at 7:33? I'm thinking about getting one if you can buy them that is.

Love the song from Bloodstone. Its better than the last two movie songs!

When are we gonna get the spectere my weekly bond?

Hey calvin I've waiting for you to review 007 blood stone and finally you are thanks calvin your my favioute

I got this game the day before yesterday and it's so fun!!!!!

the driving level in Istanbul has an absolutely impossible achievement

Love this game and played it probably 8 times on my PS3.

I love 007 blood stone because It was the second James bond game i got for my PlayStation 3 the first being 007 legends

Driving levels were not in quantum and goldeneye because they were on Wii. One was a Wii exclusive for a year. Kinda hard to program driving levels for a 007 game when the console runs on motion controls.

Wouldn't it be cool if they made a Metal Gear-like stealth game with James Bond?

it's quite possible Nicole was working for Silva or Blofeld, if you wanna tie this game into the Craig film series

6:48 That is called a "mole" AKA a Tunnel boring machine.

Who else want to see a Bond Game with Roger Moore?

Originally the sequel was supposed to be risico but unfortunately the game didn't sell very well & the game developer went belly up & they focused on making 007 legends for the 50th anniversary at the time.

Awesome review! Do you think you will be doing a review of that damned game 007 Legends? :)

Hi Calvin Have you heard of other bond youtubers like JamesBondRadio and DutchBondFan and Quinn C? Do you watch/listen to their videos? I'd be interested to know? Keep up the good work? OHMSS or Spectre Review next (; ?