Narrative:

I think that this story was rather good, with a captivating opening of Bond crashlanding somewhere in Iceland prior to becoming a spy. That huge explosion which transitions to Lana Del Rey was captivating, leaving me nostalgic from the iconography and the conventions it adhered to regarding James Bond openings. The first act continues with a resoundingly good pace, as we watch Bond begin his training in Malta.

Once he is up to speed, Bond is eventually tasked alongside the other 00 recruits to hunt down 009 within Slovakia, travelling to the Grand Carpathian Hotel for a chess competition. This huge, expansive hotel was absolutely beautiful and traversing it was just as satisfying. Climbing the pipes and scaling the ledges made me feel both like Agent 47 and Nathan Drake.

I think Act 2 (which I will call the Aleph arc | Chapters 4-6) is slightly worse in hindsight, somewhat overstaying its welcome for a conclusion that feels unsatisfactory and like huge plot convenience (e.g – Bond and Greenway almost being eaten by crocodiles before Greenway uses Bawma’s sister as leverage, Bond and Greenway nearly being captured until they’re saved by Bawma last minute, 009 being killed off-screen before Bond and Greenway could confront him). It is more so the content within Aleph that drags out the game’s runtime more than the final chapter of Uninvited. Chapter 6 does act as a compromise for the sluggish speed of the former two chapters.

Act 3 (Chapter 7-10) does improve upon this massively via more screen time with Bond and Greenway (even though there isn’t as many guards around in the floors as you would imagine for such an important building; could argue that it’s late at night but I imagine Webb would’ve learnt about Bond escaping captivity and perhaps placed more guards to protect his building). The reveal that THEIA is flawed and that Damien and his dad have been producing false narratives to represent the supercomputer as flawless was a nice reveal.

Furthermore, I did also like the social commentary about AI and how Nicholas states that people are so quick to judge robots on their mistakes but aren’t when it comes to humans – which is ironic when you recognise that humans design these robots, imprinting their flaws either implicitly or explicitly. It’s this type of genuinely plausible motivation that does make me like the Webbs as villains.

Once we get to Vietnam, we are treated to the lush, dense landscape and gorgeous yellow haze of the sun. As Bond adopts the persona of Sir John Smythe, he is tasked to figure out which environmentalist is being targeted by Damien Webb (this is due to him pretending that a former terrorist Caliban is still alive and is perpetrating these current acts). One of these potential targets is Theresa Lorca, which leads to a typical Bond-esque romance scene that made me laugh. The fact that this man just does whatever he wants is wild.

We do get another close brush with death as Greenway saves Bond from being sawed in half. I liked getting to see him take action, and his death really had an impact on me (perhaps it’s because I’ve also seen Lennie James before in The Walking Dead and know he is a good actor). From here, I thought the game was over. Damien is seemingly dead, Greenway is dead and Nicholas Webb walks away from persecution.

Enter, the sequel. But the game continues on. Bond reaches out to Isola (or Miss Roth) and they make their way to an Antarctic research facility owned by Webb, realising that he has a sibling supercomputer called HYPERION (get it guys, greek mythology? THEIA and HYPERION?). Isola and Bond are a dynamic which I really enjoyed, notably since it was given time to flesh out right from the Slovakia chapter. This chapter was good but it left me at a point where I was kind of hoping the game would wrap things up once we had reached the Antarctic and defeated Webb once and for all.

However, the game has one final chapter, where it is revealed that Damien survived his injuries and is now far more powerful. We see that he has raided MI6, where Bond and Isola are in holding cells for insubordination. Bond is able to break out and help take back the HQ, with M affirming that he is her only chance at taking back control. He makes his way to THEIA and Moneypenny is injured (although, not dead, I presume). Q gives Bond full control of the Q-Lab and James takes the fight to Damien. They eventually fight deep underground and then it culminates in Isola saving Bond from drowning, leaving Damien’s body behind.

But Isola has her own secret agenda, which the actual ending does seem to hint at regarding a sequel. By the end, we are fully entrenched in the notion that this is 007. And that James Bond is no longer the Royal Navy aircrewman he once was.

I realise I didn’t cover everything but that’s because I don’t want to spoil absolutely everything. I want people to play this game and see the events transpire on their TV screens or monitors.

Characters:

As mentioned in my non-spoiler review, I think that Patrick Gibson was fantastic as Bond. Being this game’s anchor, it meant that my issues with other characters weren’t as substantial when we were following such a charismatic and compelling protagonist. However, I did mention that I found the members of the 00’s very hit or miss.

The only ones that truly spring to mind are Monroe and Cressida, the ones who are actually somewhat fleshed out and have good chemistry with Gibson’s Bond. The others however, I don’t remember enough to care about them. Which is a real shame since that chapter where the group are performing a field test within the London nightclub, there appeared to be a real camaraderie between one another.

However, this is squandered by the fact that most of them are killed, incapacitated or MIA after the bombing in Slovakia. Monroe and Cressida are the only ones of the 00’s besides James that I cared about. I think we should’ve gotten more bonding time with Cressida and Monroe as James to really make their loss hit that much harder.

Monroe being killed and Cressida being paralysed didn’t really hit the emotional stakes it was supposed to. We don’t even talk about the other 00’s. I had to search for these members because I don’t even remember their names:

• Kristina Kingsley (002)
• Robert Nash (004)
• Alexandra Ronson (005)
• Marcus Singh (006)

This is what the game’s wiki has told me, since I don’t remember them enough to recall their names. Nash and Ronson are the only ones that I can think of from reflection; Nash caught me leaving my post as chauffeur during the Slovakia chapter and in the Q-Lab, I think Bond tased Ronson? Again, because of how unremarkable these 00 recruits were, I just don’t remember.

Furthermore, I didn’t really like the 009 plotline. Since we never really met him as Bond, I didn’t like how he was just thrusted into the storyline, only to be killed off-screen and it be revealed that he was actually framed by THEIA (or I suppose, HYPERION). It would’ve made this moment hit harder if we had seen his personality shine, especially if he was in conversation with Greenway.

Villains:

I do also believe that the villains were good but not ground-breaking, by any means (they weren’t exactly the next Vaas from Far Cry 3). I weirdly predicted that Sir Nicholas Webb would be a villain when we met him at the funeral, with his dialogue and noted presence suspicious enough that I presumed he would be an antagonist. I didn’t however expect him to have a son named Damien, who I actually did enjoy seeing. But I wish that we got to see Damien first in the shadows as this mystery figure, only donning the golden mask and hunting down Bond.

Rather, we meet him halfway through the game once we reach the exhibition for Webb Industries; his actor’s performance was quite good and you can tell his actor had a lot of fun becoming Damien Webb. I was concerned that when James stabs him in the eye that they were going to turn him into the new Blofeld (but this is quickly subdued by him wearing more armour and eventually dying by the hands of Bond).

Ending:

The game’s ending was overall quite good, leaving you on the edge of your seat as there is still unresolved conflict regarding MI6 and the shadow organisation that Agent Roth (or Isola) belongs to. I’m sure that in 007: Second Wind (my own imaginary name for the sequel, perhaps I should trademark it) we will see Bond come face to face with this secret adversary. Perhaps she’s working for SPECTRE, perhaps she’s not. Time will only tell.

Gameplay:

I liked all parts of the gameplay within 007: First Light. Ranging from the gun and fist combat, to social engineering and stealth. While I did like the “Bluff” mechanic (especially since you had to earn points to use it), I believed it got a bit ridiculous after some time when I managed to bluff the same soldier 5 times with new or reused dialogue (I know this is a game thing and it’s hard to program NPC behaviour to be this advanced but it was still funny to me).

Regarding the boss fights, I thought that they were mediocre. The first two boss fights with one of the assassin twins was fun but when the majority of bosses can be simplified to “hack bright spotlight to somehow injure highly trained individual”, the charm is quickly lost. However, the set pieces for these battles were fun (especially the one where Bond is attacked in his apartment and is forced to narrowly escape with his life).

The fist combat was a little difficult at first when I was adjusting to the controls but once I tweaked my button inputs, it became far more rewarding. Gunplay was fun and the aggressive nature of combat made the encounters hard to move away from. But what I will say is that I played on normal – or “Intended” as the game puts it – and it felt as though the enemy’s aimbot was a little absurd.

I would duck out of cover for two seconds and they would easily deliver a headshot that would often be a killing blow. I didn’t like the lack of a real cover button, instead reliant on either the dash or crouching behind the cover (this was fine but made it difficult in certain situations).

The driving was much rarer than expected but that was probably for the best. If driving had been this game’s selling point, sales perhaps would’ve been far less. It is serviceable but I didn’t like the tank-ish movement in driving and how restricted it often made me feel as a player. This was evident in the Slovakia chapter but I grew to accept it and even tolerate it in later chapters (I really enjoyed driving the Valhalla to cause absolute chaos in the Q-Lab).

The hacking and resource collection of electricity and chemical components was nice to see implemented, reminding me of Watch Dogs (particularly Watch Dogs 2 with the botnets resource). The gadgets I could use as Bond were very fun, but I stuck to 3 main ones: Laser Strap, Dart Phone and Missile Pen. I don’t think I can put into words the power fantasy one finds themselves in when acquiring the Missile Pen. Truly phenomenal stuff.

Stealth was good but I found myself often getting into fist fights, with the “Situation Contained” header at the top reassuring me that I was in the clear. I did find it odd though how slightly forgiving it was when reinforcements would be called and only three extra people would partake in the brawl. I suppose the others would much rather stand around than risk being beaten up by 007.