Bonding with Bond, James Bond

James Bond is one of those figures of Pop Culture that you have almost certainly heard of, whether you like him or not. For some, he's just entertainment. For others, he is everything wrong with men. For others still, he is an ideal to aspire to.
For me, he is none of these things, and all of them at the same time.

Re-Encountering Daniel Craig's Bond

Having rewatched some of the Bond movies starring Daniel Craig, I found myself asking questions: Is it okay to like Bond, in this day and age? Is it okay to enjoy the films? Isn't Bond too much of a womanizer? Too much an icon of outdated ideas of manliness?

I found that Craig's Bond is already a deconstruction of the character, in that we get to see Bond more vulnerable and genuinely caring.
Casino Royale (2006) provides the perfect example for this: When Bond gets into a shootout on the hotel stairs, he's about to lose when Vesper Lynd comes in to help and enables him to kill his attackers.
Later, when Bond returns to their room, he finds Vesper in the shower. She's distressed by what has happened, and that she aided in the killing of a person. Bond simply sits down next to her for a bit, and when Vesper says she can feel the blood on her hands, he puts her fingers into his mouth to clean them from the blood that has long since washed off. This gesture is intimate, but not sexual. All Bond does in this scene is express concern & understanding, and offer comfort.

Craig's Bond has all the traits we've come to associate with the character: He's charming, a bit of a playboy, and he knows how to kill and do espionage. In Casino Royale we see Bond genuinely care for Vesper, as described above. In the sequel, Quantum of Solace, Bond is almost entirely motivated by finding out who was responsible for Vesper's death. In Skyfall, we see this in Bond's loyalty to M. This is a Bond with genuine and deep attachments.

A standout feature of the the Craig movies that I really like is that they follow a larger arc. As much as I like episodic storytelling, I do prefer larger narrative arcs. While Bond is an institution, spending more time with a particular actor's portrayal as the character goes through a longer journey allows for much more development from film to film. As such, the possibility of having a larger arc for each upcoming Bond excites me greatly. I plan on watching more Bond, go back to some of the older films as well, and return to the character after I've read up on some of the scholarly work on him.

In the meantime, I've enjoyed the newest offering in the Bond Franchise: 007 First Light.

I, Oh I, Adore This Bond

IO Interactive, makers of the acclaimed Hitman series, have recently released 007 First Light. It serves as a fresh origin story for Bond, set in 2026. You've probably already seen that the reviews on this game have been largely positive. This is also reflected in the high Metacritic scores:

Slighty below a 90 is where I would place it too, if I had to give it a score. The game combines the linear storytelling of games like Uncharted with the more open approach of IO's Hitman series. As someone who grew up with Nightfire, First Light feels like a natural evolution and several steps up in every possible way.

Patrick Gibson's portrayal of Bond fits a young version of the character very well. So well, in fact, that some are calling for Gibson to be cast as the next Bond on the big screen. While I'm not opposed to the idea, I'd much prefer Gibson stay the face of the video game series for now, as I would very much like a sequel of five. Gibson's portrayal of a young Bond is equal parts charming and sincere. This Bond is young, cocky, and inexperienced. He's looking to prove himself, but serious about the work he does. In First Light, Bond, initially an aircrewman, finds himself in the middle of an MI6 operation by chance. Proving himself observant and quick-witted MI6 recruits him, and he begins his training to become a 00 Agent. Throughout the story, Bond meets a colourful cast of characters, most of which are memorable and enjoyable, if a little underutilised.

The game does an exceptional job at showcasing Bond's training, by offering players the opportunity to play through the training montage, rather than just watch it. In general, I founf First Light to strike a great balance between interesting cutscenes and gameplay. IO's crowd technology certainly helps here, and makes for impressive crowds, whether you're in a night club or mingling with the elites. While the story the game tells doesn't break any new ground, and veterans of the genre may see the villain(s) come from a mile away, the story is told well, emotionally engaging, and genuinely fun to experience. It certainly had me hooked enough to want to keep playing.

More Than Meets the Eye

It took me about 16 hours to beat the campaign on its highest difficulty. In the meantime, I have more than doubled my playtime, thanks to the game's achievements.

First Light brings a lot of replayability to the table, with an array of challenges to complete when replaying levels. There's a mix of mission specific challenges, and universal challenges. The mission specific challenges often require thinking outside the box or thorough exploration to even find, which makes you play through the levels with fresh eyes. The universal challenges include things such as not breaking stealth, or doing a pacifist playthrough of a level. All in all, they make for a great reason to replay the levels, especially paired with the checkpoint system. While the game autosaves, players can select checkpoints to load, which are labelled clearly enough to recognise them the first time around.

This achievement system. however, is also where my two gripes with the game come in. The first annoyance is that, in order to reload to a checkpoint, you have to quit to the main menu. You can't change checkpoints mid-mission, which results in more loading time than necessary. The other annoyance makes me wish we were still in the early 2000s. The achievements require an online connection, both to even be visible to the player, and to count when you achieve them; and no, First Light does not have a multiplayer mode. Why IO would design the game in such a way that single player achievements require an online connection is beyond me, and it's the one genuine design flaw I hold against them.

Other than that, however, First Light earns my recommendation as a great mix of classic Sony-blockbuster adventure games and IO's Hitman DNA.