My Word Is My Bond by Roger Moore – Review (Book)

I will come right out and say it – I’m not a James Bond fan. I’m not adverse to the odd film here and there (usually on a Bank Holiday) but they never really captured me.

I have fond memories of Roger Moore from Stella Street rather than anywhere else but I just couldn’t resist this book.

It’s interesting to hear about the fabulous stars of yesteryear with Moore having worked with, or known, such luminaries as Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Sean Connery, Tony Curtis, Joan Collins, Audrey Hepburn and many more.

Coming from humble roots right through to Hollywood – it’s a classic rags to riches tale and Moore’s amiable tone pervades throughout, making the reader feel a little like he’s telling the stories round a fire on a winter’s night.

Moore had actually been in a lot of programmes I’d forgotten about like The Saint and The Persuaders. He tells all of his stories with gusto and again it’s great to see how things worked behind the camera back in those days.

Of course Bond takes up quite a chunk of the book but even those sections are interesting to a non-Bond fan like myself.

The final quarter or so of the book is about his work with Unicef and it’s interesting to see how much it humbled him and how much he still does with the charity to this day.

This book won’t be to everyone’s taste but if you are interested in old films and TV it can provide a great insight into how programmes were made before the digital age.

Rating: 7/10

Quantum Of Solace – Review (PS3)

Quantum Of Solace actually covers both of the ‘new’ Bond films starring Daniel Craig – Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace.

Using the Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare game engine makes for a fairly smooth experience and Craig’s likeness, while looking slightly ‘waxworky’, is pretty good.

The plot is as you’d expect if you’ve seen the films and they certainly lend some explosive situations to the game. The game even fills in a few plot parts so you get to see exactly what happened between some of the scenes in the films.

Quantum Of Solace sees Bond garner an array of weapons but sadly not so many cool gadgets and no driving any of his fancy cars either. But I suspect that’s because it’s sticking to it’s strengths – shooting and cover.

The cover system works really well and is similar to Wanted, in that you press X to take cover behind an object and then at the edge of that object another press of X will see Bond dart to the next bit of cover.

Also there is a fairly cool takedown system that involves a one button QTE to activate. Not quite Bourne but certainly not terrible.

The game really does hold your hand though, giving you on screen prompts all the time for almost everything.

The online wasn’t packed (no surprise as I’m late to the multi-player party on this one! ) and after playing the fairly odd Bond Vs mode (one person is Bond, everyone else tries to kill him – it lasts about a minute) I came across Golden Gun mode which was much better.

Essentially an 8 minute death match but the difference being the one hit kill Golden Gun that is picked up by killing whoever has it. It gave the game a fun, if slightly wonky, logic in that it was a real challenge to get the gun off someone if they had a good vantage point.

Overall I’d say Quantum Of Solace is the perfect game for someone looking to try out a first person shooter to see what they think of the genre. It’s not too punishing and has all the usual features.

The story mode took a little over 5 hours on Medium so that gives you an idea of the difficulty and time you’ll need to playthrough.

For FPS veterans I’m not sure there’s enough here to satisfy, however as it’s fairly low priced now might be the time to give it a whirl – especially as there are still folks playing it online.

Rating: 7/10