Usually any type of party on a Monday will be a bust. Sadly, the Quantum of Solace launch party this past Monday was no exception. No matter how hard I tried or wished, the party just wasn’t happening. The launch took place in the area of the massive Best Buy located in West Hollywood and even though it was a public event held in a very open area (outside in the cold I mean), there was hardly anyone there.

Aside from being able to the play the game, which doesn’t look that bad at all, people were able to take part in the many “activities” that they had in store for all the people. Such activities as drinking Coke Zero in plastic martini glasses, or walking over to the other side of the building to get a code for a drawing. And then my favorite, standing in line in order to get a chance to try and open up two chests and win a few game bundles. You could also take Polaroids with the car that was in the movie, but sadly it was so dark that the car didn’t even come out in the pictures. You could have also been Bond himself by sticking your face in the cutout they had of the famous agent. Overall it was pretty lackluster, but the one thing that got to me above all else was that in the raffle they had going on, there were multiple people who won more than once. One guy won a bundle and 52” TV. Now that just isn’t fair because although there weren’t a lot of people at the event, there was still enough so that no double-winning shouldn’t have taken place.

On the bright side the game looks great. I had the chance ot play it for about 10 minutes and what I payed was very nice indeed. The controls were easy to pick up and the graphics were pretty darn good (Stay tuned for our in-depth comparative review of the 360 and Wii versions as our resident Bond specialist — Razak, Matthew Razak — gets through the games). There was even a scene that reminded me of the knife battle with Krauser in Resident Evil 4. Luckily, Joystiq was nice enough to supply these photos of some of the happenings at the launch. Not much was missed, which is sad, because if you’re going to call something a party, then for crying out loud make it a party and not some little social happy hour minus the drinks.