PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC. The core gameplay in Quantum of Solace is that of a first-person shooter. Throughout the game, however, the view will switch to a.

Now, I Know what you're thinking. A movie tie-in, published by Activision, with movie likenesses. Well hold your horses, because Quantum of Solace is playable, fun and, while nothing astonishing, is a good laugh for any Bond fan. Taking place over the course of the eponymous movie and the previous Casino Royale, you take the role of Daniel 'Moodiest Bond Ever' Craig as he lays a steadily more inconceivable amount of bullets into the hides of Her Majesty's enemies.

Thankfully, Treyarch have learned a fair amount from the rest of the genre and console Bond games GoldenEye (the Rare one) and Everything Or Nothing. QOS focuses heavily on throwing enthralling setpieces at you, doing its best to take your attention off the tight, yet generic, gameplay. Beneath the hood of exploding helicopters and falling debris QOS plays like Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. You'll predominantly play in FPS-mode, but you can 'stick' to cover, flipping to third-person Craig-O-Vision, blind-firing or popping up to shoot.

A Quick Fling

This isn't badly done, either - many games casually ruin themselves with a shoddy Gears of War-style cover system, but QOS happily copies and refines it In fact, QOS does a great deal right. It looks the part, it controls perfectly well on a keyboard and mouse, and it has some honest-to-God moments of goodness.

Treyarch have taken as much as they can from the licence - everything has a slick, gadgety feel, and they even (much like EA's Everything or Nothing) commissioned a game-only theme song.

The problem, honestly, is that as well as only being a few hours long - six at the very most - nothing QOS does is amazing. There are times when you'll be excited, elated even, by some of the cool things going on around you, but the gameplay and experience, once you lose the initial James Bond veneer, is rather generic.

Overall, the Bond setting makes it fun and the setpieces (as utterly linear as they make everything feel) do keep Quantum of Solace exciting. It's tight, it's enjoyable, it looks good, and while it sits comfortably under the 'Pfft, well it'll never be as good as GoldenEye' umbrella, it's one of the few Bond games that come close to the N64 classic.