GSY Review
PS5
Xbox Series X
PC
The release of 007 First Light this week is a bit of a milestone for all the reasons we mention in the very first paragraph of this new in-house review, but for us, it’s above all the immense satisfaction of having been able to finish the adventure just in time to share our detailed impressions with you. It was a real marathon that we don’t regret at all, even though it was intense. So without further ado, we invite you to discover our verdict on James Bond’s return to video games, knowing that we’ve taken great care to reveal almost nothing about what awaits you.
Verdict
By intelligently blending their past work with what Naughty Dog has achieved in the blockbuster video game genre, IO Interactive kept us smiling from start to finish. The production may not yet match what the Californian studio is capable of (though we’re still waiting for their first true game on this generation of consoles), but in our opinion, the Danes’ expertise allows them to deliver combat sequences that are even more satisfying than what we found in the Uncharted series (or even The Last of Us, albeit with a radically different approach). Not everything is perfect; the AI is still a bit too passive for our taste, and the game sometimes handles checkpoints in a slightly odd way—for instance, when James dies in the middle of a firefight at the Slovak airfield, the game has us restart right after that failed firefight, just as we have to catch up to the plane on foot. But aside from these minor details, it’s truly an excellent showcase of what the blockbuster TPS genre has to offer. Some might criticize it for being too traditional, even though certain scenes managed to surprise us with some pretty unique moments, but for us, James Bond finally has a game worthy of his legend, because it doesn’t overlook a single element of what made him who he is. Needless to say, we’re really looking forward to seeing what happens next in his adventures, which get off to a great start here. Patrick Gibson and the rest of the cast are excellent—so much so that we feel they could easily take over from Daniel Craig and his co-stars on the big screen. But beyond that, what we want to remember most is the immense enjoyment we got from playing First Light over the course of the nineteen hours it took us to complete it. Just like in any feature film, the end credits close with the promise of the hero’s return, and we certainly hope that the game’s sales will do justice to the work of IO Interactive, which is clearly no longer just a studio with a single major franchise.
- On the upside
- A fast-paced adventure
- The most faithful adaptation of the James Bond films
- Spectacular staging
- Thrilling combat
- High-quality production
- A well-cast cast of characters
- Good variety of situations
- Classic and effective, but also imaginative at times
- DualSense used effectively on PC
- The unlikely guest star had us laughing
- On the downside
- No path tracing or ray tracing at launch on PC
- AI response time
- We would have liked more variety in approaches
- No French audio
- Waiting for the next installment
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