007 First Light Review

The movies of the James Bond franchise have always struck me as something like camp for heterosexual men. The ridiculous, cartoonish villains and scenarios. The hypersexualized, silly-named Bond girls. The cornily suave one-liners uttered by the too-cool-for-school protagonist. The way the films don't take themselves too seriously, until they do, and then you're left guessing whether that one absurd moment was truly meant to be that cheesy. In a way, it's not completely unlike watching one of my own favorite films, Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls.

As it turns out, I can't recall the last time I played a James Bond video game. I think it must have been 1997's GoldenEye, back in the good ol' N64 days, karate chopping my friends as a conspicuously block-headed version of Natalya Simonova. Perhaps it has taken me this long to return to the gaming world of Bond simply because I didn't feel like returning to it. I'll be the first to admit my inveterate skepticism towards playing games based on existing blockbuster franchises. Why spend your precious time in a world you've been in so often before? What story will the game tell that hasn't already been done to death in the films and books?

But then I was drawn to 007 First Light anyway. It looked like a swashbuckling adventure. The trailers and early previews reminded me of Naughty Dog's Uncharted franchise, one of my absolute favorites. This is, of course, a tad ironic coming from somebody who places such emphasis on freshness, since Naughty Dog's franchise itself is heavily indebted to existing Hollywood properties. It's a bit like switching from eating Pringles to eating Prongles.

007 First Light depicts a 26-year-old James Bond (Patrick Gibson) who is not yet a 00. He's flying over Iceland on an important military mission as part of the British Navy, when he's shot down and left as the only survivor of the crash, an appropriately spectacular cinematic opening. Ever dutiful, Bond pushes onward and completes the mission against tremendous odds, albeit with unconventional methods and the guidance of an MI6 spy agency intelligence officer.

"Hey, this guy is pretty good," MI6 thinks. And thus begins Bond's recruitment process.

The game progresses as a series of missions, just like GoldenEye. Those missions will take you to opulent hotels in Slovakia, the slums and shipyards of Mauritania, and even the frigid wasteland of Antarctica. It's a globetrotting adventure that befits a larger-than-life character like Bond. And it's all served up with a perhaps too-hefty dose of Bond's trademark, hit-and-miss British snark.

The game's charm is undeniable, as is the excitement generated by some of its more over-the-top cinematic action set pieces. Did I enjoy smashing my way through the streets of London in a garbage truck? Or throwing myself into the cargo hold of a departing airplane, as it wobbled precariously through the air? Why yes, yes I did. Even if it's all a bit familiar, the game has such style and panache that it doesn't much matter.

The gameplay is at its best when it offers you some of the stealthy, sandbox freedom of the Hitman series. You get a sense of this early on at the hotel, which you can approach in a variety of ways. Can you stealthily negotiate your way through, or will you have to do it the hard way? As the game progresses, you begin to see how limited the environmental cues and distractors are, which dampens the stealth experience, especially as the game ramps up the frequency of the more generic action sequences. 007 First Light is at its worst when it thinks that throwing repetitive waves of shoot-outs at you is thrilling rather than tedious, a pitfall of many other action games, including the first Uncharted game.

Bond comes equipped with a limited number of quirky and useful gadgets that you will choose before each mission. My favorite was the dart phone, which slyly fires a nauseating dart at an enemy, causing guards to leave their posts and rush to the loo. Smoke pods can be used to generate a smoke screen. A laser strap allows you to zap the weapons out of enemies' hands and burn the locks off of doors. There are many others, and it's all good fun.

007 First Light mostly seems to discourage hand-to-hand combat. That's what I'll say, anyway, even if it's more of a skill issue. Unless you're quite good at blocking and dodging, you may find yourself struggling to take on more than a couple of foes at a time, even on normal difficulty. You're really supposed to make good use of all those gadgets they provide you. But then the fistfights are undeniably exciting, as you avail yourself of nearby objects to fling at enemies or smash over their heads. There's an appealing franticness to it.

Patrick Gibson plays Bond with just the right mix of swagger and vulnerability. This is baby Bond, after all, a neophyte to all things spycraft. Particularly affecting is the development of his relationship with John Greenway (Lennie James), his hard-assed drill instructor and MI6 mentor. Together, they work through each other's past trauma. It's a story about trust as much as it is anything else, apposite for a spy game. Less successful is the bizarre inclusion of Lenny Kravitz's whiny African warlord, Bawma. That section of the game is further worsened by boring fetch quests for money.

The game takes its fairly predictable twists and turns to arrive at a disappointing third act that feels simultaneously rushed and overblown. The main villain here is simply too silly to take seriously, although in that regard he's in good company within the Bond franchise. I liken the very last battle of the game to fighting a regular-sized version of Apocalypse from X-Men, if he were devoid of mutant powers. I suppose it's sort of the way he looks, and the general comic book feel of it.

Even the disappointing final chapter and rushed denouement don't totally ruin the experience, however. 007 First Light is still a well-crafted action and stealth game with some mighty fine moments -- one that I suspect Bond fans, a species far different than I, will gobble up.

Image: IO Interactive