Quantum of Solace Preview

Although QoS uses the CoD4 engine, the AI has been rebuilt to make it smarter

Enemy flanking is worth more of a mention, since it feels surprisingly effective. In the game's first level - a shoot-out at Mr. White's mountain mansion that picks up where Casino Royale left off - bad guys will pour round the side of a green house and try to flank you as you're preoccupied with holed up in cover bad guys to your front. Later, about halfway through the game, in the Science Centre level - which sees Bond hunt down weapons smuggler Dimitrios - enemies will constantly try to flank you during the metal platform shoot out which eventually leads Bond through a ventilation shaft to the main room. It actually makes the game harder than you'd think it would be, given that it's a licensed title.

If you do find yourself up close and personal with a goon, a click of the right thumb stick will shift the camera into a cinematic third-person perspective and trigger the quick time event-based melee combat. It's a much simpler affair than the QTE melee combat in High Moon Studios' flawed The Bourne Conspiracy, requiring only single button presses to take down bad guys in Daniel Craig's now familiar aggressive style. The important point to make here, however, is that melee combat won't be forced on you in QoS quite as much as it was in Bourne Conspiracy. If you want you'll be able to blast your way through the majority of the game and keep Bond's knuckles clean.

While most of your time with the game will be spent clearing rooms of bad guys in order to progress - the main Science Centre room contained what felt like an endless stream of enemies that needed to be downed before Bond was able to progress - there are stealth elements and a degree of pre-planning that you'll be able to engage with if you fancy thinking before shooting. In the Mr. White level Bond uses his smart phone to hack into the camera system (just hold down a button). From there you're able to use the camera feeds to scout out rooms and enemies. Doing this in the boat house reveals Mr. White's shotgun in the cellar - a satisfying close combat weapon just begging to be used. The phone is also used to open locks - via a simple mini-game that requires players to input d-pad presses following green light prompts - as well as track his objectives.

Add to these elements a degree of platforming - in the Train level there's some car to car jumping required, as well as some back to the wall creeping about outside, and in the Science Centre level you'll have to balance while beam walking - and you've got a good variety of gameplay to sink your teeth into. Even the construction site chase scene from the opening of Casino Royale makes an appearance - don't expect Mirror's Edge quality FPS platforming here though - it's a simple third-person cinematic QTE designed to be watched more than it is played.

Treyarch's Daniel Craig model looks great

QoS will also come with a healthy multiplayer offering. The game supports 12 players on Xbox LIVE and PSN and includes 12 maps (Treyarch promises more maps in the form of DLC). You've got all the classic shooter modes - territory, control, deathmatch, team deathmatch - as well as one or two surprises. Golden Gun mode, which sees players fight over the one hit kill Golden Gun, is a decent blast, and the Bond Versus mode, which sees one Bond player hunted by the rest, is addictive. Again the CoD4 flavour comes through strong - the multiple classes, including saboteur, agent, assassin and heavy weapons specialist, all have unique load outs. The fast-paced feel of the multiplayer action is unmistakeably CoD4, too, despite the addition of a cover system. In fact, at times QoS multiplayer almost feels like Modern Combat wrapped in a secret agent skin.

So we're enthusiastic about QoS. We're not sure it's going to have the same impact as GoldenEye 007 did back in 1997, but it's shaping up to be the best Bond game in a long while. And with Treyarch at the helm, a developer acutely aware of the job it's got convincing shooter fans to fork out their hard earned cash for their games, and the Call of Duty 4 engine powering Craig's lovely character model, we expect nothing else.

Quantum of Solace is due out for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC, PS2 and DS on October 31.