Unlike the previous DS Bond game, Rogue Agent, this doesn’t attempt to replicate the console version of the game, instead it does its own thing. A bit like the Game Boy Bond game, this is also clearly inspired by the handheld’s Zelda game, utilising a similar control method to Phantom Hourglass with the game being controlled by the stylus.

While the opening starts in the same place as the other games, you don’t get to play it, instead you’re whisked off to a tutorial at MI6. This is necessary because the controls, unlike Phantom Hourglass, are not intuitive. The DS is held sideways (either way to cater to left handed people) and moving works by holding down on the screen, crouching by tapping under Bond. Shooting is done by holding down a button (any button works) and tapping – but as you tap, the camera moves around. The zoomed in view also means that you can’t shoot far, while enemies hit you from off-screen.

Get close to an enemy and hold down a button will enter melee mode (if they haven’t seen you, you’ll take them out automatically). This is a fiddly punch-out style system where you swipe left/right up for jabs, hold on a side of the screen to block and do a circle to perform a throw. It’s extremely awkward and the detection of moves isn’t very good. Due to not much ammo, you’ll be doing this a lot. The chase mission is walking around rooftops and shooting/punching guards.

Moving onto the opera house and it’s not closed off like the other games, there’s an actual opera happening and you have to locate a wine bar to take a ticket off an enemy. You’ll collect objects like weapons, ammo, keys and health pickups, but you need to managing your inventory. You have limited space and each ammo clip uses up a space. Reloading is also a faff – you have to go to your menu and drag it to your gun as Bond will never reload on his own. Once you upgrade your quick slots, you can tap on there. Once you find Greene, the flashback to Casino Royale will start.

Skipping the start of Casino Royale and going to the science centre, the main thing you need to do are clear: be stealthy (when needed), kill enemies, collect keys and proceed to the next door. In the forced stealth sections, getting spotted will instantly fail you, and this will often happen from enemies off-screen.

Heading to the airport and you have to walk around activating servers to unlock doors. As you search levels, you’ll also find poker chips and playing cards for the game’s upgrade systems. Chips can be spend on upgrades to your strength and weapon use, while cards are moved in your inventory to create a “hand” of cards. Each cards boosts a stat, but forming poker hands will give you even more bonuses. It’s a really interesting system, but unfortunately doesn’t mean much in this game.

The train level also returned and I somehow managed to get lost. Part way through the level, the map changes from an up/down to a left/right layout. You reach a door that needs a key so I went back and forth, one of the guards commented that I had found the key. Turned out the door that triggered the dialogue about needing the key is a dead end, you have to go back to the start of the level.

The Casino Royale has you looking for keys to proceed until you need to reach the high roller’s room – which is something you needed to do in the Game Boy Bond game. You don’t partake in any gambling, though, instead you assault the innocent staff member with the pass to the room, before punching Obanno a lot (the bosses in the game have Body armour, so you can’t shoot them).

On the barge, you have to hunt around for a way to unlock Vesper’s cell. You start with no items, so there’s lots more annoying punching to do until you track down your guns (even more punching if you’ve ran out ammo). I thought that there was going to be a puzzle at the start of this level as you’re stuck in a cell, but you just walk to the door twice and a guard will let you out.

You do get the Venice level in this, but it’s more of what game before, you’ll reach a locked door and walk around killing enemies until one drops the key you need. The end of the level is comical, with Vesper being held in a cartoon-style cage suspended above the water.

Turns out that the flashback in this version was Bond daydreaming while spying at the opera house, as now he needs to escape. This level is slightly different, as you can’t attack enemies. If you stand next to a civilian, the guards won’t pay any attention to you, so you have to walk between civilians to get out.

As the main important person M wants to investigate is Haines, but recommends that you should speak to Felix, who is chilling in Bolivia. Felix doesn’t offer anything other than to Haines’ house in London. A group called the “Delta Force Squad” is out to get Bond for….reasons (Bond is still working for MI6). After Bond tells Felix “I owe you” for nothing, you fight your way out.

The final mission is an infiltration and assault on Haines’ estate, the event teased at the end of the other versions of the game. You have to set bombs off before sneaking to an lift and then have a final boss against Mr. White, who keeps setting off a bomb on Haines so you have to constantly go back and disarm it. Mr. White escapes and you take Haines into custody.

The DS version of Quantum of Solace would have been novel when it came out, but is just a pain to play. Both the shooting and punching mechanics are annoying, and the interesting RPG and upgrade systems buried in the game can’t save it. The most interesting thing is the very different ending, with the climax of Quantum of Solace simply missing.