007: First Light - Review
"I thought Christmas only comes once a year." -The World is Not Enough (1999)
Bond, James Bond. Game, video game. Two phrases that haven’t seen the (first) light of day since the atrocity of 007 Legends back in 2012. After Activision’s reign of Daniel Craig’s tenure at MI6, the 007 license was then granted to IO Interactive, the creative minds behind the beloved Hitman series. 007: First Light not only manages to meet the expectations of a James Bond adventure, interactive or otherwise, it cements itself as one of the best.
I know this review is late, but ever since the game’s release frankly I’ve just been completely infatuated with 007. Including watching the films starting with Daniel Craig’s era, while planning to read the Casino Royale novel (once my girlfriend’s done with it). I have no doubt that it will serve as a gateway drug to the rest of Fleming’s work, as I’ve always adored this character and this world ever since I was young. It’s clear that IO Interactive have done their homework. As a result, First Light stands tall and proud amongst the history it’s against.
First Light takes its player through a new origin story with a titular James Bond. He’s reckless, prone to making mistakes, rarely has permission, yet always knows how to talk his way out of things. Should words not be enough, James has other means of getting his point across. The game takes all the best parts of what came before it and pays homage by crafting one of the best incarnations of the character.
Patrick Gibson is simply phenomenal as James Bond. Not only is Patrick himself naturally chiseled with great hair, the cadence he brings with his personality in conjunction with his suave appearance makes James instantly likeable from the second he’s on screen. Never does Patrick oversell it as James. His personality is boisterous to be entertaining yet grounded enough to be believable. This was a perfect casting, and one I hope we can even see on the big screen one of these days.
Matter of fact, everyone does a great job, I even enjoyed Lenny Kravitz as our trademarked Bond celebrity cameo. However, the biggest complimentary standout to me and many others was John Greenway, portrayed by Lennie James.When he started speaking, flashbacks to The Crucible popped in my head. For most, he’s recognized as Morgan from The Walking Dead. For me, he will always be Lord Shaxx from Destiny 2, thirsty for the blood of fellow Guardians.
However it doesn’t take recognizable actors for First Light to reach theatrical heights. Utilizing IO’s proprietary Glacier engine, the result is a gorgeous experience that never loses its visual luster from the minute the game begins. Cutscenes are shot to emulate that of what it’s like to watch a Bond movie, but should anyone be backseating it’ll feel like one throughout. There’s such a high level of polish and finesse making First Light’s presentation one to remember, while also maintaining playable framerates at all times since this isn’t on Unreal Engine 5.
Many are calling First Light a serious game of the year contender and with good reason. Not only are you getting that enthralling James Bond cinematic experience through its presentation, you’re also able to engage with some of the best free form combat I’ve ever experienced in a third person game. In many cases, comparisons will be drawn to the recent Hitman: World of Assassination series. However, I must remind you that you are Bond, James Bond. A different agent.
Now, obviously you don’t have to get into a scrap if you can avoid it. In fact, it is worth taking advantage of First Light’s excellent stealth system. When in public crowds you can blend in and eavesdrop on conversations for intel regarding opportunities. In restricted areas, it’s your standard cat and mouse line of sight affair. However, upon getting spotted the alarm doesn’t just start blaring alerting goons to squabble. Instead, you have a chance to bluff your way out. Using unique dialogue given wherever you may be to talk your way out of a fight.
It makes exploring these levels feel dynamic, even if the amount of options for how to reach the goal are rather limited once you pull back its scope. Most of the time I managed to always find the perfect intel I needed right at that moment by always and conveniently finding just the right person to listen to. However, to play like a perfectionist does require some delicate patience and memorization, and it always feels satisfying walking in where you don’t belong as if you did.
Eventually all hell will break loose, and sometimes it’s just inevitable. Combat is presented in two phases. The first of which are where fists and only fists are flying. First Light adopts a similar style of hand to hand combat to the Arkham games, but really only the blueprint of punching any target of your choosing at any time. James is nowhere near as composed as The Dark Knight is, but it makes for much scrappier (and arguably more fun) fighting.
James is able to utilize anything and everything around him, including the tossing of wrenches and coffee cups. Tossing hands like a salad never gets old though. Inputs feel very precise and most hits I took I felt were my own fault. Though, on normal difficulty it feels like it takes no more than three consecutive punches to kill you. It wouldn’t be so annoying if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve had James consume full pistol magazines relatively unscathed.
On the subject, should an enemy pull out their gun and fire it, James is then granted a License to Kill. In gameplay terms, now you can grab a gun and let bullets fly as James will never shoot someone unarmed. The guns in First Light feel amazing to use, they’re very punchy and hit feedback is incredibly satisfying, particularly for headshots. You are able to swap in between your firearm and fisticuffs with ease. It’s when you learn to combine the ‘guns’ on your arms and on the ground that makes this combat shine.
Guns don’t have much ammo, encouraging you to constantly swap weapons in the middle of a firefight. Whether it has ammo or not, a gun can also be thrown to stun an enemy for them to then be disarmed. Enemies can also be stunned whether you shoot the weapon right out of their hand, or pop them in the knee. The more you play around with how you can dispatch your does the more tech you’ll discover, including different melee combos that the game doesn’t outright teach you. Everything can be woven into one another for seamless grunt removal.
If I were to have any issues with the gunfights themselves it would be that too many enemies are heavily armored. I understand why given the threat at hand, but it’s just not fun wasting an entire magazine into someone’s armor plates. Towards the latter half, armored units are a dime a dozen. They aren’t difficult to take down per se, it just sucks the flow out when you take out seven regular guards in half a minute and it takes just as long to take one down with armor.
That’s just me searching for any faults. Though, a big point of contention for most is how much content is on offer for how much the game costs. First Light’s (amazing) story took me about 11 hours to complete on Normal difficulty. Now mind you, I wasn’t going for collectibles and I also knew that I was getting a self contained linear story that would feel like playing a Bond movie. While yes you can only play the story for the first time once, it’s not as if there is no reason to go back.
You can go back to very specific checkpoints across every chapter of the game and load that checkpoint on a brand new save file. This allows you to collect any aforementioned collectibles you missed, complete challenges, or just replay specific combat sections for the hell of it. My favorite of which is escaping the courtyard into the exhibit in the chapter “Uninvited”.
More importantly, there’s the TacSim mode or Tactical Simulations. These are First Light’s side missions and how IO Interactive plans to keep the game alive post launch. There are in fact brand new missions that launched just days ago as of this writing, which is what led me to finally get the word out about just how damn good First Light is.
These missions are inspired by the main campaign but they all have their own sets of challenges to complete with changing modifiers. Though, they do force you into playing a specific way. This is just a personal thing but the gameplay is its most fun when everything adapts to your play style. Combining Bond Wick gunplay while also slamming heads into fire extinguishers, for example. Given that TacSim’s a tad more difficult by design, it can be frustrating that previous tactics don’t work but that’s also the point, so I can’t fault it since the mistakes I make are (mostly) all mine.
TacSim admittedly is hardly the draw for First Light, that belongs to its cinematic story (the plot of which I will leave for you to uncover). However, it is a fun albeit surface level supplementary distraction and it’s fun for a few hours. I honestly just appreciate that IOI didn’t stop at the excellent story, as that’s already worth the price of admission. It’s also nice to be able to dress James up in various outfits such as the Dia de los Muertos suit from the beginning of Spectre (that movie’s best part) or Brosnan’s Die Another Day turtleneck. Luckily, they plan to add outfit changing to the main story as well.
All in all, sure the game could have been longer. Sure, TacSim could use a bit more fleshing out. That’s only if I am fishing for complaints though. As a Bond fan, First Light did everything in its power to not only meet my expectations but exceed them. Instead of being Call of Duty or Uncharted with a Bond coat of paint, IOI crafted the 007 game that we’ve desperately needed. You’ve got the action, you’ve got the Bond girls, you’ve got different parts of the world to see, you have a job to do and a license to kill. Even if you aren’t a Bond fan initially, you will be by the end.
So, as Lana Del Rey asks, will you play?
007: First Light
James Bond's first gaming odyssey in fourteen years also happens to be one of his best.
