It starts with a cold-open setpiece leading into a semi-erotic music video with accompanying theme by Lana Del Rey - IO Interactive clearly understood the assignment.

The sneaking is fun, but the combat is kind of a slog. Too many enemies, too tanky. I guess they want you to use gadgets and environmental damage, but it always feels like you are cheesing things.

It ends up having some pacing issues. Just a bit too long, a bit too much padding. Very AAA, "Well we wouldn't want to get review bombed for having less than X hours of gameplay" energy. If it were an actual Bond movie it would be like watching one that lasted 4 hours.

That said, if this were an actual Bond movie, it would be the best one since at least Casino Royale (2006). Simple but effective characterization. Evil villains with gimmicks and an evil scheme both moustache-twirlingly evil yet with relevance to real life. Bond girls. A fresh cast of faces for the usual suspects (M, Q, Moneypenny, etc.) but all with takes very authentic to the formula. And the Bond portrayal itself pulls the Roger Moore/Daniel Craig trick of looking entirely wrong for the part and yet absolutely winning me over in the end regardless.

The only thing I'm even mildly nervous about is the ghost of an implication of some "continuity" to follow up on in future games, but as long as it's just "SPECTRE is a thing" I can deal.

I'm a man that likes a formula. For me, the fun of a Bond story is how you riff on the familiar beats. I don't want to hear one word about "subverting expectations". Go make something original if you think the formula is stale. But like I said: IO Interactive understood the assignment.

Four Stars.

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007 First Light is the:

• 6th greatest Video Game of all time.
• 9th greatest Thing of all time.