This is technically the first big budget PS5 game that I've played, I started Oblivion Remastered but never finished.
I feel like there's a disconnect between what everyone says and shows with the game because there's the trailers, fans of the source, fans of the developers, then the reviewers who don't fit into any of those and it's all a little mixed so instead of spoiling anything, I'm just going to give you a more accurate representation of "what" this game actually is.
The title is 007: First Light, which means that this game serves as an origin story for James and how he got brought into MI6. So, you won't bust out of the gates with "I'm the suave Bond character that we all know and love" think more along the lines of how the Survivor trilogy is to Tomb Raider. You might do familiar things like move through a crowd at a party but with the context of "this is his first time."
I like the idea of an origin and having multiple '00 agents at first but they give off a more frat-like culture than expected and are just like "Bond, you're too headstrong" and then he ends up being right every time. It also takes place in today's day and age so it can be strange when they mention stuff like "Yeah. I went to a wedding in '22" like- 2022? That's surreal. It'd be an interesting piece to go back to the 60s but hey whatever. The way it presents itself makes it sort of predictable. I kept asking myself "Okay, when's the James Bond game going to start?"
But don't judge it too hard in those first few chapters. I get it, they're a few hours and games shouldn't take that for granted- but potential qualms such as "he talks too much" and the frat culture get remedied, it's just a bit shell-shocking at first in comparison to what we're used to. It started ramping up in Chapter 4 and made me enjoy it a lot more from then on.
With ioi interactive, does that make it more like Hitman? Not necessarily because I didn't like the more recent Hitman games quite as much because it felt like it was more about separate missions than an overarching story or any setpieces, basically giving you little contained sandboxes to play around with and see how to puzzle solve your way through an assassination. This isn't quite like that, it has similar degrees of gameplay such as sabotaging, distracting, and eavesdropping on conversations to find out extra things but it's a more linear experience.
It's not like any sort of open world or sandbox, so I guess maybe I was hoping for just a piece of the Hitman formula as a lot is scripted. Disguises are scripted, QTE's are scripted, not as many interactables to start out- A lot only has one way to go about them (there are instances but not quite as much as I would've liked) therefore no real reward for doing it a certain way other than gameplay preference (stealth vs. guns blazing), it's always the desired outcome.
I didn't watch every trailer, nor should I have to, but that first one showed Bond shooting at a couple targets, it's a quick little segment but it got me excited because of the snap targeting and slick transition from sliding to shooting, I watched that part over and over again and it looked like a cutscene but I couldn't help but get excited for something like that. It has a quick cover mechanic but the shooting didn't quite snap the same I wanted (I wanted something more akin to MGS5).
Speaking of MG5 though, this game has the quick dark to light mechanic where you step inside from a bright outside and it's dark and hard to see and then has what I assume are the character's eyes readjusting to the brightness. Which by the way, the brightness has no toggle. It's not a bad looking game by any means but I felt like certain areas like suits and jacket can leave a radial blur all over the texture (particularly the back). Now "radial blur" was no mistake of wording as there's a toggle to turn that off (as well as other various blurs) but the look on the jacket is still there. Nothing bad or totally distracting but noticeable. I've had it where James leaves an afterimage after moving, upraised behind cover so I can't move then teleported to another location and all this I'm sure will be patched eventually, it's not a buggy game, I just like to point out the few things I notice. The seizure warning also shows every single time and you can't skip it which is a little time consuming but all in all a fun game that left me wishing it dived in just a tiny bit deeper.
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