Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg helped with the facial animations and provided new techniques for applying textures to the 3D models, while design company MK12 helped develop a very simple story telling technique using game story boards.

Bond has always been an FPS (with the exception of From Russia with Love, which was a 3rd-person shooter) and QoS is no different. The FPS genre is very strongly rooted in the 007 games; not only is it like a tradition but the same devs who have spent their lives working on the Call of Duty franchise and other shooters before it have taken their knowledge of FPS games to QoS. However, third person view points are incorporated into QoS to let the user get a better understanding of Craig's Bond. "We wanted the players to really see Daniel Craig because he really redefines who Bond is," added Luyties. Craig and other actors from the movie not only had their heads scanned into the game but some also had their whole bodies imported into the 3D world. Players will catch a glimpse of the Craig-esque James Bond whenever players take cover or shoot around corners. Players will also get a great look at Bond when he takes someone down with punches and kicks. Melee attacks can be performed when players get close enough to an enemy, Bond can then put the hurt on enemies in many different ways and all of this happens extremely fast. Once the melee attack is done the camera instantly switches back to the first-person view. Luyties also suggested that "we wanted players to really get a sense of how Daniel Craig is always taking people down with melee attacks. Our attempt was to fully utilize all of Bonds combat abilities without attacking the integrity of the shooter."

The Activision devs also made sure that the multiplayer competitive matches had to very closely resemble what made GoldenEye for the N64 so great. There will be many different multiplayer maps to choose from and not only will the matches be online but there will also be the option to hold local, multiplayer, splitscreen matches which undoubtedly reach back to the days of GoldenEye. New and old weapons will be available in QoS, including the ever so loved and ever so cheap Golden Gun.

Activision received some help getting the facial animations just right from the German college Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Not only did they help perfect the facial animations of the 3D characters (developed within the research project "Artificial Actors"), but Filmakademie also helped with providing new techniques for applying textures to the 3D models throughout the game. Another studio that lent a hand to Activision is the graphic design company MK12, which helped develop a very simple storytelling technique for QoS that involved in-game story boards to help move the narrative along. MK12 was also responsible for refashioning the film's iconic main title sequence as well as MI6's graphic interface.

With all signs pointing in the right direction for Quantum of Solace, it will be very interesting to see how this title pans out. QoS has all of the traits of a great piece of work and hopefully if it does turn out to be a great piece of work that QoS will be received well by the always fickle gaming community. All of the developers that put QoS together, form a very tightly knit development team, most of whom who have been working together for many years going all the way back to the original Castle Wolfenstein. Let's hope that if QoS turns out to be a great title that it is not overshadowed by upcoming huge name releases like Call of Duty: World at War and Gears of War 2. Let's also hope that this extremely hard working development team gets some serious vacation time after this.

Peter Rizkalla is a life long enthusiast of videogames and the videogame industry. He has worked in various videogame companies such as THQ, Namco and 2K Games and avidly attends many game conferences such as E3 and E for All. Peter can be reached at PRizkalla@gmail.com.