Oops, am a little behind on these diaries. Expecct a few quickfire posts while I catch up!
IO Interactive (aka the Hitman people) making a James Bond game seemed like a match made in heaven when it was announced, and turns out it basically was.
Previous Bond games I have played have been action heavy, with the occasional extremely prescribed opportunity to do a Cool Bond Thing. Nightfire even made the Bond Sound when you did one.
Bond under IO Interactive is a canvas built to encourage and facilitate these moments in almost as many ways as you can imagine. More open than the much loved but kind of overdone ‘will you use the vents or use a rocket launcher’ dichotomy of some other games, First Light gives you a whole pile of ways to achieve your objective - and is not prescriptive about how you do it. It gives enough direction but lets you have fun getting there. It’s wonderful.
The story was quite good too. I’m hesistant whenever I hear ‘origin story’, but they nailed Bond’s one here. A young Bond finding his feet, learning the cost of the life he’s found himself in and dealing with some extremely of-the-time villainy is great fun to romp through.
This one’s a winner.