Garrett Young knows what you’re going to ask first. As the executive producer on Activision’s first 007 game, he understands that everyone’s wondering if his team can put together the first decent Bond game since the franchise began its post-GoldenEye descent. “It’s a fresh start for us and for the movies,” Young offers. “It’s no longer Pierce Brosnan, no longer that style with the jokes and the ice castles. Bond is now closer to the danger that he was written with by Ian Fleming. [Quantum of Solace] is the launch of a franchise, and we’re taking a different spin on it.”

Whew! So, that means no wristwatch rocket launchers and no interminable car-combat levels. And it also means Daniel Craig at his ass-kicking fiercest in a highlight-reel selection of what developer Treyarch considers the most playable sequences from both Casino Royale and its upcoming sequel, Quantum of Solace (which picks up an hour after the events of Casino Royale). While the game is primarily a firstperson, action-heavy shooter, the camera also pans back to third-person at times — after all, why give Craig a paycheck if all you see are his hands? The perspective changes are definitely useful when 007 is taking cover, and they’re also pretty cool when he unleashes an insta-kill takedown by kicking out an enemy’s knees and snapping his neck — or just shoving him over a balcony…

…Which he’ll do a lot, as Treyarch is being careful to build stealth routes and gonzo, emptythe- clip paths through each level. The first sequence we saw is set in the casino during the break in the poker match when Bond and Vesper go upstairs to check on Le Chiffre (the banker with the bleeding eye), but are beaten to the punch by Obanno (the pissed-off freedom fighter). Treyarch took the opportunity to expand what is actually a couple of minutes of screen time into a full-blown level where 007 creeps through the casino’s hotel area as a firefight breaks out between the minions of Le Chiffre and Obanno. “Good movie spaces don’t always make good gameplay spaces,” explains Treyarch environmental artist Manny Salazar, “so [the movie licensors] allowed us to expand.”

Building game levels that retain the flicks’ feel without slavishly mimicking them was the focus of that expansion. Since “Bond’s greatest weapon is his mind,” as Young puts it, you can time guard routes and slip past them, quietly pop them between the eyes with your silenced pistol, or snag a submachine gun off one of the corpses and run full-tilt into the fray with all of Bond’s anger. Whatever you decide, you need to be careful to take cover in a Gears of War kind of way. Quantum isn’t that hardcore, but standing around in the open gets you dead in a hurry, and helpful onscreen icons let you cycle quickly between points of cover.

The level ends with a ginormous firefight against a goon tidal wave, which really showed off Quantum’s impressive level of environmental destruction. Because the game uses Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4 engine, you can shoot enemies through cover, but those bullets now also destroy that cover — and anything else in the way. We were startled by just how much debris flies everywhere during firefights. “It’s not all destructible,” laughs design director Jeremy Luyties when we point it out. “But we are excessively diligent about areas where you take cover. Placing physics objects in the line of fire makes it all more interesting.”

So does the nifty picture-in-picture effect Treyarch’s cooked up for Quantum, which shined in one of Casino Royale’s signature moments: the scene where Bond and the bomber freerun through the construction site. The game puts you in equally hot pursuit, but divides the screen between your usual view and a window that tracks the bomber’s progress. Think 24 (the TV show), rather than actual split-screen play. The two windows change size at key moments, zooming in on the bomber when he jumps between cranes or bringing your view to the forefront when you have to dart across a tricky gap, balancing with a meter much like the one for grinds in Tony Hawk. Visually, it’s pretty sharp, and hopefully these kinds of chase sequences will provide a break now and again from all the firefights.

The final level we saw didn’t appear in either film, but expands on the scene where Dimitrios (the bad guy in the Bahamas) drops off the bomb and guard uniform in a museum. Instead of barging in through the front door, Bond sneaks in through the basement, where henchmen aplenty are dug in. “One of the things the movie guys always tell us is that it’s really important that the bad guys be smart. Otherwise, why send in a double-0?” says Young.

To bring that notion to life in the game, Treyarch employs dynamic A.I., rather than scripted enemy placement, so foes should react in different ways, pick different cover when you replay levels, and generally not be easy to mow down. The museum level seemed like a tough battle as 007 worked his way through catwalks, crouching behind pipes and crates to carefully and slowly pick his shots.

But the team also wants you to experience the visceral side of Craig’s Bond, which was obvious in a boss fight against Obanno. Borrowing a movie sequence, Obanno swings a sword at you as you tumble down a staircase. Rather than having you button-mash like a fiend, quick-time events (where you press a button at a certain time) make or break the day. But not too much: “It won’t be ‘you fail, you start again,’” explains lead animator Adam Rosas. “But you will suffer consequences [if you mess up], and you’ll get benefits if you press the buttons correctly.”

How will it all gel together? Quantum seems like a game that’s about brutal, nonstop gun battles, rather than sauntering around in a bulletproof tux. “It really helped us to have 10 years of games to look at,” Luyties says. “We saw what they were trying to do, and that helped us focus on core gameplay. We don’t want to do everything; we just want [a few] things done right.” That’s all we can hope for, and while it’s too early to say whether they’ll pull it off, Treyarch still has a full six months to make the new videogame Bond as badass as the new movie Bond. If they can even come close, we’re so there.