CommanderBond.net
  1. ‘007 Legends’ Mission One is Moonraker

    By Matthew Harkin on 2012-06-09

    Moonraker has been officialy confirmed as the first mission to be included in 007 Legends. The game is set to be released on 19 October 2012, and includes 5 more 007 adventures, concluding with the lastest Bond movie, Skyfall. The latter only being available as a free DLC pack once the movie is released.  007 Legends brings together 6 Bond movies with an overarching storyline bringing together the most classic villains, gadgets and locations. It is still unknown whether Daniel Craig will be supplying his voice and likness for the game, but since Skyfall filming is in the can, expect some kind of announcement soon.

    What other missions would you like to be included? Join the CBn forums today and share your views.

  2. Raven Bond game using Unreal Engine 3?

    By Kevin Wells on 2011-02-09

    We’ve known for quite awhile that Raven Software was at one point developing a “stealth-centric” James Bond game. The game was put on hold so that Raven could focus on the Call of Duty brand after Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward imploded last year. After MGM emerged from bankruptcy the greenlight for the next Bond game (assumed to be this one) was said to have been given. According to a new report from Eurogamer, Raven’s Bond game had been in development for 20 months. This isn’t a huge surprise considering the amount of work that was shown in the leaked footage from an animator’s demo reel.

    It should be noted that Eurogamer picked up that tidbit from a resume of a Raven Software employee on their LinkedIn account. No where in the CV does it actually mention “James Bond”, rather the game in question is referred to as an “international movie licence”. The resume also says the licence will be using Unreal Engine 3. Although the engine was born out of the first-person genre, it can and has been used with several different other genres. Of note, the engine powered such high profile games as Mass Effect, Gears of War, Batman: Arkham Asylum, BioShock, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine among many others.

    The CV specifically says this employee was:

    “Involved at highest levels of game design for an unreleased high-profile movie-license action/adventure game using the Unreal 3 engine. Duties include directing a full team of people from different disciplines to design and implement various aspects of the core game as well as specific levels and events in the game. Personal experience scripting and responsible for directing in-game cutscenes as well as implementing some of them”.

    Could be their James Bond game or it could be a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (or another X-Men game) because to be fair that’s also an “international movie licence”, would likely use Unreal Engine 3 like its predecessor, and was developed by Raven Software too. Of course it’s probably Bond, the previously leaked footage looked like the Unreal engine to me.

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  3. Blood Stone title sequence concepts

    By Kevin Wells on 2011-02-03

    A post on the CBn forums alerts us to a portfolio for Vincent Shayer who was the lead UI/UX designer at Bizarre Creations until Activision decided to close its doors. In the portfolio are concepts for Blood Stone’s title sequence that never came to be.

    Blood Stone Title Sequence concept #1

    Although cool looking, it does have more of an Ocean’s 11 vibe to it than Bond, but personally I do like the minimalist look to it. Just like the finished product and Casino Royale this concept also uses silhouettes. The idea for this concept is actually based on the 007 logo.

    Blood Stone Title Sequence concept #2

    A completely different style, but still holding on to the Casino Royale silhouettes. I like this one too, honestly. It’s called “Oil Dispersion Concept”.

    Blood Stone title sequence concept #3

    A third style. This one is more akin to The World Is Not Enough (in my opinion). It’s called the “Oil Molecule Concept”.

    On the subject of title sequences, I have nothing against MK12. They did a fine job with Quantum of Solace, but I sure hope Daniel Kleinman returns for Bond 23. He always brought a certain style that I’ve always loved.

    To see all the images in Shayer’s portfolio (and there are lots more similar concept images to go with the ones above) check out: Vincent Shayer: Portfolio. For the final title sequence check it out here on CBn’s YouTube channel.

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  4. Blood Stone's Bizarre recommended for closure

    By Kevin Wells on 2011-01-19


    The worst case scenario for UK developer Bizarre Creations is apparently occurring. Parent company Activision has recommended that Bizarre be closed. Previously Bizarre Creations went through a “90-day consultation period, statutory redundancy” which is required by UK law prior to shutting down a business. It was thought that during this time Bizarre would find a buyer. One likely buyer was Microsoft who published Bizarre’s Project Gotham Racing series on their consoles.

    Coddy Johnson, Activision Worldwide Studios’ chief operating officer said, “I want to be clear, our first choice was to try and keep this group together and find a buyer for the studio. This decision comes after a few months of exhausted examination of a number of different options across the board.” “But unfortunately, so far we’ve not been able to find any interested parties. So we’ve made as a last resort, a recommendation to the team for closure,” he added.

    Bizarre Creation’s last released game was James Bond 007: Blood Stone which got “okay” reviews but was practically DOA for sales. That said, Blur’s failing to find commercial success appears to be the main reason for Bizarre’s closure.

    Bizarre Creations has almost 200 staffers.

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  5. 2010 Awards: GoldenEye wins 1 nominated for 5 at IGN

    By Kevin Wells on 2010-12-14

    So for the bad news, over the weekend GoldenEye 007 and Blood Stone lost in their respective categories at Spike’s Video Game Awards. Daniel Craig and Judi Dench were both nominated for Blood Stone in the categories: Best Performance by a Human Male / Female. Neil Patrick Harris as Spider-Man won for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Tricia Helfer took the other for her work in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Nicole Scherzinger’s rendition of “GoldenEye” was also beat out by José González and his song “Far Away” from Red Dead Redemption

    For the good news, GoldenEye 007 pulled off a win today with IGN’s Editors in the category Best Competitive Multiplayer. It was nominated for five awards including:

    Separate from IGN Editor’s Awards, are the IGN Reader’s Choice Awards. If you feel compelled to vote for GoldenEye 007 in those categories you can find the voting at the bottom of each of the linked pages above.

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  6. Raven Software's Bond game leaks

    By Kevin Wells on 2010-12-07

    It’s only been a month since the launch of both GoldenEye 007 and Blood Stone, but information on the next James Bond video game is leaking out onto the net. Back in May we reported that Raven Software was working on a “stealth-centric” James Bond game, and that it was put on hold so they could focus on a number of maps for the recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops.

    A demo reel used to show off an animator’s work has leaked out showing various animation and scenes from games developed by Raven Software (e.g., Singularity). The Bond game in the video is in the same style as Blood Stone. Some of the footage shows an un-textured James Bond hiding behind cover and popping out to put down a few enemies. Other parts of the video show a fully textured Daniel Craig in actual sequences. At one point Craig’s Bond is seen slamming a baddie into a toilet and later in a chase sequence that has him sliding under a truck, riding a zip-line while crashing through a billboard and chasing a man across a rooftop reminiscent of the film Quantum of Solace.

    It’s unknown when this game may hit store shelves. Recently Deadline mentioned that the next game was given the go-ahead. It should be noted that while GoldenEye 007‘s sales have been decent (approximately half a million copies sold to date), Blood Stone was practically dead on arrival. To date Blood Stone has sold approximately 200,000 copies across 4 platforms.

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  7. Review: Blood Stone

    By Guest writer on 2010-11-22

    Written by: Brad Hansen

    James Bond 007: Blood Stone marks the second PS3/Xbox 360 launch for the series from publisher Activision and the first from developer Bizarre Creations (of Blur and Project Gotham Racing fame). By now, if you’re a gamer, you’ve doubtlessly read reviews from gaming sites. I’d like to give this review from a position that many readers here might find closer to their perspective- Casual gamers who are dyed-in-the-wool fans of all things 007. So let’s get started on the elements presented in this newest mission.

    Gameplay

    Blood Stone is predominantly a third-person shooter. Like Quantum of Solace, it features a cover system that lets you duck behind objects to avoid enemy fire. The cover system is a little more finicky here but works quite well once you get used to it. Not helping matters is that the game doesn’t have a clear “get to know the controls” level, instead plunging you right into the action and hoping you can figure everything out yourself.

    Hand-to-hand

    Like Quantum, there is also the option to fight enemies hand-to-hand in close quarters. It’s an auto-pilot experience- All you have to do is run up next to an enemy and hit a single button- but it’s very satisfying and the melee moves (provided by Bond stuntman Ben Cooke) look fantastic. An extra reward for these take-downs is a new feature called “Focus Aim.” For every henchman taken down hand-to-hand, you’re awarded a Focus Aim that allows brief automatic targeting for shooting down opponents. It’s a fun way to add strategy to the game, as the Focus Aims can be saved up to get you out of big jams when the henchmen start flooding around you. You also have to be careful with your ammo, as you must rely on picking up spare clips from your dead rivals to keep going. Another touch of realism is the ability to only carry two guns- One pistol and one bigger weapon- forcing you to plan on which weapon you wish to carry at any given time. Dual-wielding a la GoldenEye isn’t possible here. Overall, the shooting gameplay is satisfying and fun, comparing very closely overall with the Quantum experience. But unlike Quantum, the adventure isn’t limited to on-foot action. You also get to pilot a variety of vehicles, from boats to Aston Martins. About a quarter of the game relies on this chasing format, where you must keep within a certain distance of a fleeing villain without falling too far behind or encountering ride-ending obstacles. These sections were my favorite of the game and were all-too-brief. The physics are pretty simple- more Grand Theft Auto and less Gran Turismo– but they work well for the game as you hurtle at blinding speeds past obstacles. My favorite level of the game finds Bond in a tow truck pursuing a giant dump truck barreling through the streets of Bangkok. It forces you to make split-second decisions on how to avoid the wreckage strewn in front of you while still remaining in pursuit. Great fun.

    My only criticism with these driving levels was the invincibility of the vehicles that you pilot. Running head-on into a freight truck does nothing but slow you down. And it certainly looks cool to see baddies shooting at you from vehicles ahead, but it doesn’t harm your car in any way. If there was a damage meter for the vehicles, it would raise the pulse on these levels even more.

    Unfortunately the fun comes to an end all too soon. There’s only enough game here for a solid day of play. While there are three difficulty settings that should encourage replay value, I found myself wishing for more levels from such a top-tier release.

    Plot

    Bond runs from the driller

    Bond scribe Bruce Feirstein makes a welcome return to game writing duties with Blood Stone. Being a big fan of Feirstein’s previous work (including the last original Bond game storyline, the superb Everything or Nothing), I had high hopes for this adventure, perhaps too high. Maybe I was looking for a suitable replacement for Bond 23, but in any case, I didn’t get it here. As a game plot, it works just fine in shuttling Bond off to new locations to chase down new bad guys with every level. But as a memorably cohesive story, it falls a bit flat.

    The Brosnan-era games were such a blast because they reflected the films- Big, goofy, ridiculous fun. Robotic spiders, invisible cars, Bond in space, ninjas, and nanobots are all things that are questionable in the film Bond’s universe and might even make Ian Fleming turn in his grave, but they certainly make gameplay a thrilling and memorable experience. The Craig-era games certainly reflect the Craig-era movies, as Bond is a cold, hard killer, with very little gadgets, humor, and sex to bolster relatively realistic plots. While that might work in the films, this reflection leaves Blood Stone feeling like a story without the fun and humor of the older films but also bereft of the intriguing drama of the newer ones.

    My biggest complaint with the storyline is the lack of a clear central villain. While playing, it’s never clear who the “boss” baddie is. By the time we think we’ve vanquished the central villain, the story sends Bond after another one, then another, and so on. None of the villains are set up in any interesting way or given any memorable characteristics. Nor is the bad guy’s scheme some grand, interesting take-over-the-world reveal (it’s a simple game of bio-weapons here, a little more interesting than raising Bolivian water prices, but not by much). To be fair, there is a nice character twist towards the end of the story, but it’s a case of too little, too late.

    That’s not to say that there aren’t some incredible sequences in the story, many that would’ve made great film sequences. Among the highlights are Bond evading an excavation drill, chasing a train by driving across splintering Siberian ice sheets, and a fantastic hovercraft chase. Remember the “hover-jet” from the book Devil May Care? Here Bond actually gets to encounter it in action! Too bad it wasn’t the climax of the game, as it was the most epic level of the entire game.

    By the way, what’s with the title? What/who is the “Blood Stone” anyways? It sure isn’t those diamonds featured in the title sequence, as diamonds aren’t even hinted at in the story. “Never Kill Me Again” would’ve been better than this! Moving on…

    Voice Acting

    Joss Stone as Nicole Hunter

    Daniel Craig returns to voicing duties as Bond himself. It’s a pity the script doesn’t give him much leverage to actually ACT, but he deliveries his lines with conviction. Ditto for Judi Dench (who unfortunately looks a little frightening in CG form). The show stealer is singer Joss Stone, who does double-duty here by not only belting out the wonderful title song “I’ll Take It All,” but also giving a great voice performance as Bond girl Nicole Hunter.

    Graphics and Atmosphere

    In a side-by-side comparison with Quantum of Solace, the graphics are roughly the same as far as detailing and modeling go. However, the scope of the environments is much grander in scale. There are some locations that are simply jaw-dropping, chief among them being a massive aquarium that’s home to whales and sharks. I sometimes found myself stopping my quest just to look around and take everything in. The sheer variety of exotic locales also keeps the interest up.

    The music, provided by Richard Jacques, is another highlight of this release, with a score that would feel right at home in a motion picture. Here’s hoping it gets released in the near future.

    Multiplayer

    With the single-player mode as short as it is, the multiplayer option should provide a bit more replay value. But, much like Quantum, the online multiplayer option leaves a lot to be desired. The levels are all straight from the game, and unlike GoldenEye, the characters are basically faceless henchmen, not classic characters from the series. There are only a handful of game modes as well. It plays just as well as it looks- like an afterthought. While it’s nice to include this, it makes you wonder why they even tried when there are so many better options out there (Call of Duty chief among them). Adding insult to injury, multiplayer is online-only, with no split-screen local option available, so don’t bother getting your friends with this release.

    Overall Verdict

    All the elements are here for a great game- A talented writer and voice cast, stellar graphics and locales, and a solid shooting and driving engine. But somehow they’re all held back. I kept thinking that if only the people involved were allowed to just let loose and have fun, as they seemed to be in the Brosnan-era games, then the game
    would be more of a joy to play. While I applaud the variety of levels and situations that the game came up with, and the occasionally epic scope it achieves, the short play time and the meager multiplayer mode means there’s not much bang for your buck here.

    So my advice? If you’re looking for Bond 23 in this, you won’t find it. If you’re looking for a $60 game, you won’t find it here either. Wait a few months and buy it used for half off, and you’ll be a happy customer.

    Fan Curiosities

    • Although there is no gadgetry to speak of, Q-Branch is mentioned several times during the game.
    • The Aston Martin DB5 make an appearance here, and license plate reads BMT 216A (the designation as it appeared in the Connery films, not the Brosnan movies).
    • Bond is identified as “Commander Bond” for the first time in the Craig era. About time!

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  8. James Bond recieves 3 nominations for Spike's VGAs

    By Kevin Wells on 2010-11-17

    James Bond has received 3 nominations for Spike’s 2010 Video Game Awards. The list of nominees was announced today. Daniel Craig was nominated for “Best Performance by a Human Male” and Dame Judi Dench was nominated for “Best Performance by a Human Female”, both for their performances in Blood Stone. Nicole Scherzinger’s rendition of “GoldenEye” was also nominated for “Best Song in a Game”.

    The VGAs will be aired on Saturday, December 11 at 8PM EST on SpikeTV.

    Other nominees:

    Best Song in a Game

    • “Basket Case” by Green Day (Green Day: Rock Band)
    • “Black Rain” by Soundgarden (Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock)
    • “Far Away” by Jose Gonzalez (Red Dead Redemption)
    • “GoldenEye” by Nicole Scherzinger (GoldenEye 007)
    • “Replay” / “Rude Boy Mashup” by Iyaz and Rihanna (Call of Duty: Black Ops)
    • “Won’t Back Down” by Eminem (DJ Hero 2)

    Best Performance by a Human Male

    • Daniel Craig as James Bond (Blood Stone)
    • Gary Oldman as Sgt. Reznov (Call of Duty: Black Ops)
    • John Cleese as Jasper (Fable III)
    • Martin Sheen as Illusive Man (Mass Effect 2)
    • Nathan Fillion as Sergeant Edward Buck (Halo: Reach)
    • Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker/Amazing Spider-Man (Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions)
    • Rob Wiethoff as John Marston (Red Dead Redemption)
    • Sam Worthington as Alex Mason (Call of Duty: Black Ops)

    Best Performance by a Human Female

    • Dame Judi Dench as M (Blood Stone)
    • Danica Patrick as Herself (Blur)
    • Emmanuelle Chriqui as The Numbers Lady (Call of Duty: Black Ops)
    • Felicia Day as Veronica (Fallout: New Vegas)
    • Jennifer Hale as Commander Sheppard (Mass Effect 2)
    • Kristen Bell as Lucy Stillman (Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood)
    • Tricia Helfer as Sarah Kerrigan (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)
    • Yvonne Strahovski as Miranda Lawson (Mass Effect 2)

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  9. CBn Review: GoldenEye 007

    By Kevin Wells on 2010-11-16

    Up until GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64, first-person shooters on a console were almost laughable. Many tried, many failed. GoldenEye succeeded and paved the way for several of gaming’s biggest games today; everything from Halo to the latest iteration of Call of Duty. Ask any 90s gamer what some of their fondest memories were and undoubtedly GoldenEye will come up. While James Bond games have had varying degrees of success since then many of them have been outright failures even though some tried to copy or tap into the GoldenEye formula or name like GoldenEye: Rogue Agent. So you’d think the idea of remaking GoldenEye, what many likely see as nothing more than a cash-in for Activision, will fall flat too right?

    It doesn’t. James Bond is clearly back with GoldnenEye 007, easily one of the best James Bond games and one of best games on the Nintendo Wii.

    Story

    This next part might be a little risky.

    When you adapt a fifteen year old story, a lot of the details will have to be changed to make sense in today’s world especially a movie like GoldenEye which came about just after the fall of the Soviet Union and was aimed largely at redefining James Bond from a Cold War hero to a more modern spy. Largely the story stays the same. All the characters are there with the exception of Boris and Jack Wade. The differences are in the details. Valentin Zukovsky, for instance, is no longer a former KGB agent, he’s a trendy nightclub owner, but his role is still pretty much the same. Many other details have been changed as well, from how James Bond infiltrates the Russian facility to where the cradle is located. The main story carries out over six major locations with a number of missions per location: Arkhangelsk (the dam), Barcelona (Zukovsky’s nightclub), Dubai (where the EMP hardened helicopter is stolen from), Severnaya, St. Petersburg, and finally Nigeria.

    Severnaya

    Most of the changes are welcome for a more modern take on the story, but some of the others might leave you scratching your head. The craziest one is the near destruction of St. Petersburg. It’s crazy enough (or awesome enough) to have James Bond in a chase sequence using a tank. There’s going to be destruction, but GoldenEye 007 takes it to a whole new level. Buildings fall, helicopters are blown out of the sky and a battalion of Russian soldiers are decimated. I like my video games to go big, but this might have been overkill. Fun though. There’s another change I don’t know if I approve of. I don’t wish to spoil it because it involves a character’s death. You’ll know it when you see it.

    All in all, the story works with Daniel Craig’s James Bond. If GoldenEye was original, it’d make an awesome Bond 23.

    Design

    GoldenEye 007 recaptures much of what made GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 great. In all it should take you about 7 or 8 hours to complete the story’s 14 missions, but each mission is designed for maximum replayability. The higher the difficulty the more objectives there are and once you’re finished you can run the missions in a time trial.

    Only the second time we've officially seen Ernst Stavro Blofeld since 1981's For Your Eyes Only.

    It seems for most games you either get a great single player experience or a great multiplayer experience, but with GoldenEye, you once again get both. GoldenEye’s multiplayer features two types: an offline 4-player split screen experience much like the original and an online 8-player provided through Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection and includes XP progression, multipliers, modifiers and numerous unlockables. All of the major characters from the single player carry over into the multiplayer with additional classic characters thrown in such as Francisco Scaramanga, Dr. No, Baron Samedi, Jaws, Oddjob, Blofeld and more.

    Voice acting in the game is pretty stellar as far as games go. Daniel Craig takes the place of Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, Judi Dench returns as M (the only actor and character to be unchanged from the original film) and Rory Kinnear reprises his role as M’s chief of staff Bill Tanner from Quantum of Solace.

    Although the soundtrack was done by David Arnold who has done all the soundtracks for the films since Tomorrow Never Dies, I don’t think it stood out or is anything to write home about. Like the film, the James Bond theme barely gets used. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but in a video game you expect it more frequently. Nicole Scherzinger’s cover of the theme song originally performed for the film by Tina Turner is pretty good though. Actually, Scherzinger sounds so much like Turner that it’s a wonder they redid the song at all. I liked how the incorporated the theme and the title sequence with the pre-title sequence. That was unique even for Bond.

    Gameplay

    James Bond uses his cellphone to reprogram a sentry in GoldenEye 007

    There aren’t too many gadgets in the original game or film and that fits perfectly with Daniel Craig’s James Bond. In fact there are even less here. Bond has one, but it’s all he needs. Instead of the watch, he has a cell phone that does just about everything. It can hack, take surveillance pictures, remote detonate explosives and obviously be used as a phone to stay in contact with MI6 (typically Tanner who sometimes in my opinion talks too much and has an amazing sense of exactly where 007 is in his mission). The downside to the phone in my opinion is that it feels like it controls differently than every other “device” Bond holds such as a gun. Bond can pivot around with a gun fairly well looking down its sights, but with the phone, it feels stiff. An indicator pops up on your HUD when it can be used, but sometimes finding whatever Bond has to interact with can be hidden fairly well or the box that you have to line up with is almost too small.

    Not so stealthy.

    The game offers several different types of guns all of which have modified versions. Some have silencers, laser sights, thermal sights, and different looking scopes all randomly strewn about through GoldenEye’s various missions. Bond always has his trusty Walther P99 even comically when he gives one away to someone. It’s odd, he’ll give one to Natalya so she can protect herself and then immediately pulls another one out of his… vest? Interestingly, when Ourumov shows up to kill Mishkin (same as the movie) with Bond’s gun, he dumps the ammo on the ground then gives it back to Bond, yet later Bond has full ammo again. Maybe in harder difficulties that doesn’t happen. I don’t know. It’s just odd. Bond’s Walther can optionally have a silencer for when he’s feeling stealthy.

    Unlike a lot of recent James Bond games, GoldenEye doesn’t have a cover system, but it does have something similar. Instead of sticking to a wall, you can get behind any object and when you look down your iron sights Bond pops up a bit to look over that object. It actually works really well and I prefer it much more than Quantum of Solace’s cover system. Enemies use it a lot too sometimes diving away from your shots to get to cover and then popping out to take a few shots at you. The best part is that a lot of the cover is destructible so the game doesn’t slow down. Crates fall apart and even concrete crumbles exposing its metal frame and the enemy behind it. A lot of the environments are destructible as well. There are plenty of gas cans lying around and almost all vehicles you happen upon can be destroyed with a few quick shots to its gas tank. Missiles can be used to take down attack helicopters and automatic sentries can be reprogrammed to shoot at Bond’s enemies instead of him.

    Stealthy. Personally, I'd just knock him out.

    The game also features some quick time events. These are the events when you’re required to push a button or waggle the Wii remote or nunchuck. This only happens a couple times, specifically with major characters Bond interacts with and it works moderately well. The real delight is to sneak up behind an enemy and waggle the nunchuck a bit to subdue them. Sometimes Bond just knocks them out with a quick punch, other times he puts them out of commission with a stranglehold of some sort. Not many first-person shooters do this, but it works to great effect with GoldenEye especially when Bond is once again feeling stealthy or just wants to get his hands dirty.

    When it was announced, I thought for sure this game was going to fall on its face and be another cash-in like GoldenEye: Rogue Agent. Even if it wasn’t bad I thought for sure it would be difficult to shake comparisons to the original GoldenEye. Gamers seem to hold it in such high esteem that any remake would only really be met with harsh criticism, and up to the release of the game I think that was true, but not anymore. Eurocom and Activision did a great job making this game stand on its own two feet and finally getting a Bond game right. Is it going to redefine the first-person shooter console experience like the original did? No and not even on the Wii which has had great success with the Metroid Prime series, but who cares. It’s a fun game. The story is good, the gameplay is good, and the controls work as well as you’d hope. Easily, as I said, it’s one of the best Wii games of the year. What more can you ask for? Well, perhaps next time do an original story that doesn’t mooch off of GoldenEye’s name and legacy.

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  10. Activision closing Bizarre Creations

    By Kevin Wells on 2010-11-16

    Bizarre Creations

    Recent James Bond developer Bizarre Creations is being shut down by Activision after disappointing sales for their last couple video games including Blood Stone, The Club and Blur. Activision purchased Bizarre Creations only 3 years ago. Bizarre Creations is best known for their critically acclaimed and widely popular racing series Project Gotham Racing as well as Geometry Wars, both of which were developed prior to the sale.

    According to a source at Giant Bomb, Bizarre Creations will undergo a “90-day consultation period, statutory redundancy” which is required by UK law prior to shutting down a business. Bizarre Creations has almost 200 staffers.

    Blood Stone ends with something of a cliffhanger that was designed to setup a sequel. Regardless of what Activision decides to do, that sequel won’t be coming from Bizarre Creations.

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