Bond 25 - My guesses 2 years early

Since it’s been announced and confirmed the Bond 25 is happening starring Daniel Craig and coming out in 2019, I figured, perhaps now is the time to take a stab at what should probably be the plot of Bond 25.

The end of SPECTRE left the franchise in a peculiar spot, it didn’t end as it probably should have. If you’re wondering what I mean, SPECTRE should have ended exactly like (SPOILERS ahead, seriously) OHMSS, where Blofeld comes along and tries to kill Bond but actually kills the girl, or really just intended to kill the girl (wife in OHMSS). Let’s start from there, shall we?

Bond 25’s pre-credits scene will open at MI6 in M’s office with Moneypenny, Q, and M trying to figure out how to contact Bond, because Blofeld had just escaped MI6 custody. None of them have been able to contact Bond and they call Felix at the CIA to see if he can help now having been promoted to Deputy Director. Cut to Bond and Swann driving down some country road in the DB5, along comes a car from behind seemingly trying to race, but as it passes, Blofeld is seen with the window down and a gun, and shots are fired as Bond tries to race and catch up to Blofeld but the tires are shot out. He pulls over and finds Swann has been shot.

Title credits roll.

That’s about as detailed as I’m going to get with what will actually happen in the movie, and I hope does.

The overall plot structure of the film will follow something like this:

Bond returns to MI6 after M and Moneypenny finally get in touch with him

Bond vows to hunt down Blofeld while being weary of whether or not MI6 and the intelligence agencies can contain Blofeld if captured.

Felix joins Bond in his hunt for Blofeld

Felix begins to notice that Bond wants out and to retire. He communicates this to M who knows already and is trying to figure out what to do about that.

Bond and Felix find Blofeld and his new scheme

A capture or kill situation arises with Bond in regards to Blofeld

Bond kills Blofeld much to Felix’s opposition.

Bond and Felix return to MI6 where Bond hands in his resignation to M and walks out.

M asks Felix for help figuring out who to promote to 007 and discuss the importance of the name of Bond.

Oh yea spoilers above possibly? This sets up what I think could be some pretty good “between films content” of M, Felix, Q, Tanner, and Moneypenny figuring out who is going to be the next 007. Webisodes or something on youtube in the hunt for the next Bond actor.

Like I’ve said before, the franchise dug itself a hole it needs to figure out how to climb out of when it comes to who plays Bond now that Daniel Craig’s Bond is actually James Bond.

This was a quick little stab at my hopes/thoughts for what Bond 25 might/should/will be. It needs to be the swan song Daniel Craig and his Bond, but there needs to be a clear transition to a new Bond, be it something like above where they try and find someone who can fill Bond’s shoes and become Bond/007, or that seamless transition of old where a new actor comes in and becomes Bond without any explanation (except in OHMSS where Lasenby actually says “This never happened to the other fellow.” We’ll see, what happens, Casino Royale was the reboot, nothing before that movie in theory had never happened in the current storyline.

If Barbara or Michael are reading, if I spoiled it, let me know.

As for who I think the next Bond should be… stay tuned for when I get around to writing that.

CoD:WWII - Perhaps the CoD to bring me back?

Call of Duty is going back to World War II, and that was enough to bring me out to write this. For those that know me, Call of Duty and Medal of Honor have a very special place in my heart. If it wasn’t for those games, I wouldn’t be who I am today, I wouldn’t have thought to ever get into the video game industry, and I wouldn’t have met a whole lot of people I call friends.

Call of Duty going back to its roots in WWII, for me, is a great thing… if done right. And that’s what worries me the most. I have no doubt in my mind that Sledgehammer has made a great game, from what it sounds like, the amount of effort they’ve put into the story side of this game makes me happy and less worried they’re gonna somehow tie it to other games within the CoDverse. My problem with CoDs as of late have never been with the campaign… that’s a lie, the last Campaign I thought was “good” was actually Advanced Warfare, Blops3 was a little too disjointed, I didn’t touch Ghosts or Infinite Warfare. My problem with CoDs as of late has been the multiplayer, and that’s where I’m worried.

I’m worried about multiplayer for a couple reason, the biggest being this: the target audience for Call of Duty since MW3 has been eSports and kids aged 12-16 who somehow manage to get their parents to buy them the game. People who had been playing Call of Duty since Call of Duty came out in 2003 have not been the target audience for the games, at least in my eyes. This is a problem for both us and them. For us, we have to worry about whether or not whatever they’re about to reveal is going to have gameplay like CoD’s roots back with CoD1-4, or if they’re going to continue down the path of multiplayer that has become the norm for CoD in the last 4-5 games. For them, if they do indeed go back to their roots with how multiplayer gameplay works, the target audience won’t be the group that has spent the money to keep CoD going for the last 4-5 games, but the hesitant group that are the CoD players from back in the day, weary of another cut and paste multiplayer eSports based multiplayer.

My main worry isn’t whether or not the target audience is going to change, its that if they are indeed going back to their roots with this game, that means huge gameplay elements of multiplayer that almost everyone has been used to in recent years… should be stripped from the game. I’m not worried that they might do that, in fact I welcome killstreaks, deathstreaks, ridiculous perks, stupid weapon attachments, and all of the other crap that has clouded CoD recently be stripped out of multiplayer; I’m worried they won’t in order to keep the audiences happy. Some of these are core gameplay elements since CoD4 came out, and by all means, CoD4 is still in my top 10 all time video games (which includes other CoDs mind you), but they are core elements in a modern to future warfare CoD multiplayer. I’ll admit, there are probably a couple “killstreaks” that would make sense in WWII if done properly, but the good majority of kill and death streaks don’t make sense and have just made CoD so gimmicky recently.

Let me sum up with what I want and hope for out of CoD:WWII multiplayer.

1. No perks 
2. No weapon addons that don’t make sense for WWII 
3. A careful curation of kill and death streaks 
4. A wide array of period only weapons that are balanced but not equal in power
5.  Slower gameplay, close to what CoD, UO, and 2 were 
6. Making sure that the multiplayer isn’t designed just with eSports in mind, but the entire playerbase 
7. No future bullshit in multiplayer at all, don’t even try and alter something from previous CoDs just to put it in 
8. Keep it real, keep to CoD’s roots 
9. Make sure it’s fun… again

That’s it, that’s all I’ve got. Other than that, Glen or Michael or any of the SHG team, if you’re reading this, good luck, I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Make me want to play a Call of Duty again, you’re halfway there already with WWII as the timeframe.

-DontCallMeKelso