Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - 007 First Light FINAL Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

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start clicking faster than the competition. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Friday, June 19, 2020. Of course, I'm your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by Andy Cortez. Hello, Tim. Blessing at E.Oye Jr. Good day, Tim.

And making a rare appearance on the games cast. This is Nick Scarpino. Happy Friday. Happy Friday to you, too. Remember, if you're watching live, be part of the show by super chatting on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. And we couldn't do this without our producers on Patreon. Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, Delaney, the Somtwining, and Lax Nomad.

I was going to jump into the Let's get into the topic of the show I'm going to see Kev's here adjusted cameras No it's fine It's fine just a bear it's not here Kevin his One man doing two man's job A skeleton crew today

Skeleton crew For now Let's begin with the topic of the show There it is There it is It needs the graphics everybody It is James Bond First Light final review

What does that mean? Well a couple of us already gave reviews back when the embargo dropped. I forgot who did that, actually. They were all reviews in progress. Everybody? Yeah, Bill Bear gave a full one. And we had Jordan Midler who had finished a review.

That's right, that's right. But then Greg and you were still in progress. I had not even started yet, I don't think. Maybe I did. I don't remember. It doesn't matter. The four of us have not given a score yet on the kind of funny scale to James Bond First Light.

And that is what we're going to do today. The first half of the show will be giving our final review, our thoughts on the game. and then after the ad break, we'll get into full spoiler mode so we can talk about any of the fun, specific things that we might not want to ruin for people that haven't played yet. So without further ado, we've already gotten a bit of Blessing's thoughts in that first review.

So let's start with Andy Cortez. What would you give James Bond first light on the kind of funny review scale? I really, really enjoyed this experience. One of those type of video games that you play, and I know the pedigree of I.O. But I just, I didn't know they had it like that. Writing-wise.

About the amazingly acted, super well-written, fun. It's what it needed to be. And I wasn't sure they'd be able, I knew they'd be able to pull it off gameplay-wise. I wasn't sure about everything else. I would give 007 first light a 9 out of 10 on the kind of funny scores. It's an amazing game for me. It is going to be way up there in my sort of, you know, top 10 of the year.

Well, we'll see what happens with September, but it's going to be up there, man. I really, I really dug this experience. I thought, again, brilliantly acted. James Bond was fantastic. The could have done with a bit more improvisation and a bit more options when it comes to the actual sneaking and greeking and gadgetry and things like that, but I still think that, you know, if this game didn't have like a compelling story and characters and and plot and cool story beats and moments that I would have felt a bit lesser about it. But I knocked it out of the park in that department. So,

awesome job. I. Oh, bless. Yeah. During the review and progress, I think I said I was sitting around a 9.5 or even a 10 out of 10. I'm going to settle in on a 9.5 out of 10. I'm going to settle in on a 9. I agree. This game is amazing. I think there's room for improvement, but not meaningful enough to where I would look at this experience as not complete for me, right? I'm a big fan of I.O., I'm a big fan of Hitman. You know, I forget if I said this on the previous review, but, you know, I kind of had a

moment while playing where the way that I would compare it would be to say that, you know, Hitman for me is like dark chocolate, where that is acquired, it's an acquired taste. It is for people who really love this genre of video games. It's a great, you know what I mean? But like, 007 for a slight for me is milk chocolate. It is something that is a bit more easier to take in. You know, everybody loves milk chocolate, right? Especially, you ever have their own favorite kind of milk chocolate.

But for me, this does it for me as far as what I'm looking for for this style of game. The acting is there. The action is there. The presentation is great. The, you know, like Andy mentioned, the story, the writing, all that stuff that I don't really associate with IO. Interactive is done spectacularly, in my opinion, in this game. and they also give you the moments. You know, we'll get into it during the spoiler cast,

but there are moments even late in the game where I'm like, I wouldn't even have thought of this for a set piece moment, but there's so much creativity here. The open sort of like stealthy moments that Andy's talking about, I adore it as well. I love how much it feels like I am playing like a Deus X human revolution

or any other sort of immersive sim where I can kind of choose the way I want to tackle any situation. like it feels like the choice is there, even if sometimes it might be the illusion of choice. No matter what, I feel like I am choosing how I'm solving this predicament that I'm in. And for me, that's one of the most satisfying feelings that you can get in a video game. And so I absolutely love this. I'm excited to see, hopefully them continue to figure out what more of this version of Double 7 looks like,

because I think you have such a great foundation here. Mick Scarapino, I loved this game. I think for me, this is a perfect game, near perfect game, I should say it for me. I think it's a great combination of, you know, Uncharted meets Hitman Light, which, you know, I've had some issues with Hitman in the past as far as me being able to pay attention and really kind of have patience with that game.

And in this one, I didn't need patience 99% of the time. You feel like you're in, I think the highest mark for me of this game is that you feel like you're in a Bond movie and a good Bond movie. And I think that this property is elevated, and I hate to compare it to it, right? But as a licensed property,

sometimes you go in and you go, I don't think this is, you know, let's see if they can hit, anywhere close to the mark of a good Bond movie. And I think they've gone beyond that. I think this is, this, this story needs to be counted amongst the top, I would say top 15, maybe top 10 bond stories of all time. Just because it's so, it, it pays homage to everything that came before it,

but it feels new and it feels unique and it feels modern. And they've struggled with that so hard with Bond in the past 10 years of making it feel like it's something that's accessible to newer audiences. And I think this absolutely nails it. I think it's beautiful. I think the acting is for. fantastic. The only thing that I would say counts a little bit against it, and we'll get into that

is some of the license to kill missions, I think, were just, I don't like whenever I feel like I'm taken out of the story, and those I really felt like I was banging my head against the wall in certain circumstances, so that would rank a little bit lower for me. But I would give this a 9 out of 10. 9-10, amazing from Nick. Before I give my thoughts on this, Nick, I want to double back to

some of you were just saying about this being top 10, top 15 of James Bond stuff. I'm not holding you to get into actual facts 100% right here, but there's what, like 23, movies? I think 25, 26 movies at this point? Yeah, I'd have to have have Google that. How many books are there?

Oh, fewer. Oh, fewer? Yeah, there's fewer than that. I think a lot of the, a lot of the movies are based off of short stories or not a lot. A lot of the books based on full movies. Okay. But then, uh, full books rather, but then there was a couple short stories here and there that they, they based them off of. But yeah, there's, there's far fewer books. Okay. So like top 10, top 15 doesn't sound that that high praise. Like, really think about

just a little harder. I don't say top 10. Yeah? Yeah. Okay, cool. Top 10 Bond stories of all. Yeah. I'm a lot less familiar overall with Bonn.

I haven't seen every single one. I have seen a good amount. I haven't read any of them, but seen a good amount of the movies. I would put this very high for personally. Like, I put this probably. I think it's my favorite Bond thing.

I'm not like, I'm also in the minority where I don't love Casino Royale like everybody loves it. Like I enjoyed it, but I wasn't like as high out. So this is probably like my favorite bond thing, legitimately. Yeah, it's debatably my number one. I think, I think at the end of the day

I still put Skyfall above it just because I just really love Skyfall. But you know what? Maybe that's not even true because this is way more entertaining to me and this is a world that I want to see so much more of. When we were doing our review in progress, I was saying that I was kind of around at 8.5

with the first six hours or so of the game. But the further I got into it, the higher it would get and I was like, oh, wow, I think this is going to actually end up being a nine for me. Like this is an amazing. amazing game. Coming out of it, it's a 9.5. I do think that this actually, it as a full package really gave me everything I'm looking for with the hitman light. I don't need hitman to go too hard. I also get kind of frustrated with that stuff. And I don't find joy from that. Um, the more run and

gun just, yeah, you brought up hotline Miami, which I think is such a great way to explain some of the license to kill stuff. The struggle of just, just keep moving, grab a gun, shoot people, run out of bullets, grab another gun, throw it at somebody like, just the frantic nature of It all feels like you're playing a James Bond movie with the action set pieces of he's just trying to survive. He's just trying to get through this. And like it's a very different style than like a John Wick where it's like, oh, you're this utter fucking badass like that is going to destroy people. This is a bit more just like, is he going to survive this hallway as he runs on this boat or whatever it is. And they translate the feeling of watching the movies into gameplay so well.

and the acting is phenomenal, the way that they present the game is very unique. And I think that to me is what ups it from a nine to a nine point five is the look of the game. No games looked like this before. Like there's like,

I don't know, there's like a color filter to it. There's like something about the way that their character models all look. Like this stands, every single screenshot looks like a pre-rendered cutscene to some extent. Like you might be able to help me

like put this into better words. of like what that is. When you're in the club scene and you see all the colors, all of the characters. This is, we're not going to get into spoilers too much, but there are certain,

there's one specific moment and it's a license to kill moment when you're walking through and the visuals in that, I had to stop and I was like, who came up with this and can you give that team a raise? Because this is the coolest mess.

It's like messed with my reality of what I was doing. And that's so rare for me especially in the game where it's just like a straightforward story. Yeah. And everyone's beautiful. And you want to talk to everybody. You want to get all the lines style because they are well written.

They are well performed. And shout out to the story, man. I can't believe between this and replaced. I got two stories about AI that are actually fascinating in 2026. Like I feel like we're at a time where we're experiencing the real life version of AI happening. And it's just like, oh, man, it's Terminator 2. It's like it's the stories that we used to love Happening in real life

And so tackling that from a fresh perspective I think is such a Not as trite as you would have expected This was not at all man I thought I was like really riveted by the AI story Going on and I think that they got to an end That I'm like that didn't feel cheap at all So I'll tell you I mean there's two ways to do the AI story

And we'll get into spoilers a little bit As far as the intricacies of this one But like the one that I'd like least Is the dead reckoning I was gonna say Yeah, it's an impossible dead reckoning And it can do anything. And it's such, at a certain point, you just go from a writing standpoint, this is such a cop-out and so cheap.

Because you can't have a thing that listens and can do anything and can mirror it. It's just boring. You have one man fighting against this. And you can't fight against this godlike thing. And so I think they found a really interesting angle that's actually very, very, very, like, relevant to what's happening in AI right now that a lot of criticisms are happening with AI right now. that. I mean, it was just like perfectly timed that the story came out right now, perfectly timed. I would say the only thing I like about the Mission Apostle of Dead reckoning is the requirement to go analog and to be, like, that's the only part of the story that I love,

the fact that like everything has to be like no non-digital, you know, like, that's the one aspect of it that I love about that sort of like all-powerful God AI that's always listening, always watching. But I think this is just a much better done story. Yeah, I mean, you could you could push them to go all analog for this, but that wouldn't be Bond. Yeah. The thing about Bond that I love most that I think this story really kind of nailed is that is that it's rooted to a degree. But then when it needs to go bonkers and needs to have fun, they go, we're going to

have some fun. And there are moments in this game that I was like, oh, people really love James Bond who made this game. There's a couple moments that you're just, you're playing missions, and there's no point to them other than it's a ridiculous spectacle that somebody came up with, that it's not hard and we'll get to that when we get spoilers but like there's certain missions there's certain just moments where you're like they just did this because they knew this was going to be a really fun moment in the movie but it's not a movie you get to play this and it's awesome and that shows a love

for the property that i just don't think you see that much and a love for the property but also like a great understanding about pacing in cinematic video games like i think that the balance between playable and what you're just watching and then kind of that beautiful blend between it is so well done here and again think that that is that magic that like makes this like stand above other similar games, where the set pieces that you get, I feel, are always coming at the right time. Like, it's the right amount of more open gadget stuff and then more streamlined setpiece thing and then the amount of boss fights they have. All of it to me felt just like so purposeful, but also the set pieces themselves and the locations, it's kind of everything I would want

from a James Bond. And it's like the game goes on just the right length. And there was a point towards the maybe like four-fifths through the game that I'm like, I don't know that I need to be doing this right now, but it was just setting up like the finale where I'm like, okay, I really do. Like they they gave me a lot to care about here from the James Bond perspective because like one thing I love about this is not only is it a great James Bond movie, it's a great video game and thinking about it like from the video game perspective, the video game bosses, video game bad guys. There's something about that. This game has so many video game bad guys. But then you think about what is

a video game bad guy? What is it based on James Bond Bond villain? So it's just kind of like beautiful full circle thing and I just think that I owe they knew the assignment and they just they did it man. They really like a plus for the work there. Yeah. Agreed. There's bad guys and there's also baddies.

There's a lot of baddies in this game as well. I mean in that Q was a bad guy. Don't like don't look at my screenshots man. Dude. You know honestly though but that there's such a delicate thing to do in this day and age and I think they did it well and I think it felt good and I think it felt fun

and I don't think, you know, for me that was one of the, that's, there's a lot of hallmarks of bond, right? There's gadgets, there's the fun dialogue, but there's also like a sexuality to it. Yeah. That, you know, most bond properties have that in the movies they've shied away from a little bit in the last couple iterations of the films.

They have it. Sexuality. They have it. Bonn has not been so much of a, I guess, player for a lack of a better word than the last couple, right? Like in no time to die, he was very much about the relationship with him and Liasido. prior to that, Skyfall, really had,

it was the relationship, the bond, the love was actually, if you remember correctly in Skyfall, wasn't the woman, it was them, right? It was the more motherly thing.

And I think that was, oozes sexuality, though, man, and it's arm. I mean, like, that might be the most sexuality I've ever seen on screen.

But prior bond, bond properties would have had them. Yeah. And so I think, I think they struggled a lot with that in the last two decades of trying to bring bond in, you know,

have there be a level of, of sort of 1.0 mass, masculinity that we've seen in the bonds from like the 70s, 60s, 70s and 80s. And then bring that into the modern era where it's like, hey, that's just, that doesn't, that's not entertaining anymore. That's just kind of caveman thinking. For this, I think you have a, you have a character that's, that's charismatic. And it just seems okay that he flirts with other people and they're sexy and he's sexy

and everyone's power. You got the iconic, you know, femme fatale. We have got that kind of rolling around here. And it's fun. And it doesn't seem like it's problematic. in any way. Everybody feels empowered. I think that's the important thing.

And that's such a hard thing to do in this day and age, but I think they nailed it. I want to just go off on a little tangent right now. As Kevin had the gameplay up, suddenly popped up an image of Greg doing an ad read. But I thought like, oh no, what did he do? I thought he was pranking. I thought he was going to pop up on the screen and like say some shit.

I got very, very worried right there. That is terrifying. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's horrible that he's done this to us. Tim Yogi Bert in the YouTube chat asks. Quick question, is this a full on spoilers? You almost have said, and I just was not paying attention.

No spoilers until after the ad break, and then it will put a thing on the screen that says there's spoilers and that'll be full spoilers. But until then, it's just our review of the game. Ty and Josh says so did I, Andy. I was very, very worried. I was like, oh, God, what is he doing right now? One thing that came up in our first review that when Jordan Midler reviewed it

that was one of his critiques was the boss battles and how they kind of aren't as good as the rest of the game in terms of just like, sure quality. And I agree, I do think that it is like the least, like, perfected thing. But the note that I have down is the boss battles, what do we want them to do? They tried. Like, I kind of appreciate the attempt

because it's like, sure, some of them are like, we've done things like this in other games and it's never quite as fun as you want to be doing the weird cat and mouse thing running around. I kept thinking of the last of us where, You're playing as Ellie. Yeah. What's his name?

David. David, that's what it is. I think for me, it boils down to the evolution of combat in the game, but I think that's where it starts to fall a little short for me. In that, like, we're seeing combat here. This is one of the spoilers. This is a training. This is just training in the game.

This is just a tutorial, basically, which I think is very well done. We should talk about the most amazing thing about the game. Very, very cool. But, you know, I was a little. I was about Cressida. I was going to go with you. Oh, I mean, yes. I was like, yes.

First off. Creseda. No disrespect. No disrespect. No disrespect. But Teresa. Come on. And we're going to talk about that because I don't know if you guys understand. Oh, no, I don't.

The broader implications of that specific name. In spoilers. We're going to talk about that in spoilers. And it's a huge spoiler. But I was a little disappointed when I got to the end that I felt like the combat itself hadn't evolved beyond, you know, the yellow prompt or the red prompt. And I was thinking to myself when you think of like Arkham combat,

where you get to the end of it and it they ratchet that up in a way where you feel like you have actually gotten better at hand-to-hand fighting and I just don't feel like we got there with this specifically I don't think we got there with this or I don't think the license to kill sections evolved that much either although by the end of it I was like I see we're going with this and I see that I should be better at this by this point but I just don't think the game holds your hand enough for yeah I definitely I agree on the con like hand-to-hand combat side because it just got stale towards the game you start off in pretty much in the same place as you are when you finish the game as far as that and there's yeah there's yeah there's

There's no upgrade path there. And like, even though, I think the way they make it more difficult might just be, like, throwing more enemies at you or, like, fine. In the boss fight, they change up. They change up, you know, like, instead of three punches, those, there's people that would come at you with five punches. You're like, oh, I didn't see that one coming. But, I mean, in my brain, in my dumb brain, I'm like, at some point, I'm going to hit,

I'm going to hit two buttons and I'm going to fly across the screen like Batman did. And I'm like, eh. And the balance is, that ain't what this is about. In this kind of game, I think the balance is really tough, too, because you have so much that you're doing, you know, Tim was listening off. you have the set piece stuff, you have the license to kill stuff, you have this walk around, you know, play a character kind of stuff. So it's like there's only, there's only so much complexity you can add to the hand-to-hand

combat before it's like, okay, this is just too much for the player because we don't do this enough overall. Like this is a game about combat necessarily. To be fair, and Greg played this game completely different than I did. So when he played through a lot of these sections, he didn't get spotted one time. I don't think he did any hand-to-hand combat. And so there is that, I mean, there is that to take into account. I'll say this.

the evolution that I experienced was my own skill. Like, that's what felt cool to me was that early on I was very, very rough at the combat and not awesome at it. And by the end of it, I felt like I was a bond that had learned a lot of lessons and figured out the pacing of the combat and found myself, like, dominating so many of these melee fights and feeling awesome because of it. And getting the combo in, doing the parry, fucking throwing a bottle at his head, going in for like throw you against the wall like I really really enjoyed the way that that sort of and that's a very

way more of like a personal like not every was going to have that your mileage may vary but the um i felt that way i felt the way i feel like a lot of the panel feels here about the license to kill missions when i did the stream with gregg when i played uh on controller on the tv and then for the rest of my playthrough i played all the game on controller and when a license to kill section happened, I would bust out my keyboard mouse. And I just switched right over to keyboard mouse and it fucking ruled. And you mentioned that. I think you mentioned that when I was doing my playthrough and I was just too far

too far to start on PC. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had just gone too far in like seven hours. Dude, I can't read it. I would have loved to play those sections. It became like the coolest third person shooter. Like I the different like weaponry that you're finding finding and then granted, these are consumable things. you're getting that have very, very limited ammo or whatever, but when I'd get my hands on like the SKS sort of like one shot, precision rifle or whatever, I felt so fucking awesome. And because just aiming was a lot easier on keyboard mouse, so I really enjoyed license to kill sections

after the first one. I felt that with on controller, right? Like I played through the entire game on PlayStation and I still, I love the license to kill stations. And I think it's, once you start to see the matrix, I think it's a couple of things. One, I was doing all of the like regular missions, stealthy, so I wasn't running into that just in like real time. Unless I hit like a forced license to kill section, that's where I would do that. But then also, it's the hotline mainly thing that Tim was referencing earlier where I think once you start to think about your full tool set, it starts to open up, especially that's, for me, that's where the evolution does come in because you're unlocking all the stuff for the queue watch. Right, right. And so like,

once I got the missiles, oh my God, like I'm fucking shooting and they're hiding behind the thing and I'm like, bet, hit the button. Yeah, yeah. And the amount of times looking up, seeing a crate, oh, shoot that, drop it on you guys. I want to explode that tank. Like, it's not just this, I think the combat, but I need to give it more credit than just shoot the red thing to explode. Obviously, that's the tried and true thing throughout gaming.

That's always, you're always going to see red barrels and red explosive devices. And it's satisfying in this one too. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. But there's a lot more past that if you just like keep your eye out. And if you bust out your little key watch and you see all the interactable things in the environment to then affect the enemy, it rocks. Like, I had such a great time with it.

And I'll fully recognize that the license to kill sections, in certain, I would say 90% of the time are a me problem, not of them problem, right? Not a game design problem. By the end of it, I did start seeing that. Like, there's one level where you have to kind of sneak past a couple snipers. And I finally, I was like, I'm just, I've been playing this wrong the entire time. I have a tendency to want to brute force these things. Specifically, I got, not you, name.

No, never. I've never noticed that. But the game, I think, kind of works against itself sometimes Because it wants you to have a concept of action momentum When you're doing these things, it wants you to keep going. Like they have a brilliant mechanic built in Where you hit the triangle button And when you're out of ammo, you throw your fucking gun at someone

And then you can charge them, beat the shit out of them, Take their gun and get back in hiding. The gun like flies out of their hand and lands into your hand. Right. It's so hard for me to want to do that And not keep pushing forward as Bond. I think to myself, okay, this is obviously an homage or obviously like a Daniel Craig Casino Real moment

where you even run through drywall at moments and that's straight out of the beginning of Casino Royale and so to me to stop and then hack something with my Q watch just seems completely wrong. I don't like that. It means, oh, you're playing a video game. You're not in this interactive experience. Yeah.

For me, I think on the video game side, that's something that worked so well because I'm somebody who, like I mentioned, love Hitman, all that stuff, love Miller's Solid Five, love dishonored. I love so many stealth games, and the thing about stealth games is that once you're caught outside of stealth,

it kind of ruins the game a little bit, right? Like you then are in Hitman, it's like, all right, if I get into a gunfight, I'm plugged. Because you're not meant to... Well, I'm shooting mechanics terrible in Hit Man. Yeah, right? But purposely so, because you're not supposed to be shooting in that game.

And that goes for a lot of other stealth games. I think here they strike the balance to where I wouldn't call this a stealth game. It's a game that has stealth as an option. And when you have that evolution of the scenario you're in, in where it is. All right, I'm sneaking. I'm on a boat and like, you know, I'm hiding behind things. Take this guy out with my watch. Snipe this guy down. All right. Oh, take this guy out from behind. Somebody sees me and it's like, fuck, I got to take this guy out before other people see me. Cool. I did that. And like, oh, shit, somebody else saw me do that. Now it is a firefight.

I had to take care of this real quick. And like, I, the way they ramp things up in those situations for me is feels so, feels more natural than in any other stealth focused game that I've ever played. And even though it breaks immersion, I kind of like that they're all contained to one room essentially. If you're able to like figure things out in a room, you've got like 10 guys and then the next portion of it. Yeah. I like how gameified

they made all of that. I think to me the only just the disappointing aspect of it is when when things do break into a firefight, I didn't look forward to that. I didn't look forward to the shooting mechanic. I didn't look forward to the feel of that because I just felt like, it reminded me a lot of like the first earlier

levels of like modern warfare where you play the single player and they're just throwing hordes of enemies at you and you're just trying to get through it. And I don't like that feeling. I like the feeling of I'm Bonn. I'm a 007. I should be able to kill all these people whenever I want and just have a moment to breathe. And you had to kind of fight for that. I don't know.

It's a minor criticism. I totally. I get it. I like the monster closet type stuff. Like I'm a big fan of the uncharted games because I feel like they, specifically the earlier ones do this very well that I think that we just move past as from game design philosophy. but like so much of that game that isn't the cinematics or the platforming was just here is a open area that you have to kill a bunch of guys and then you get to another cutscene and then you get to a similar area with slightly different cover they have slightly better weapons and then just like rinse and repeat as you just kind of get more advanced of a maze and more armor on the other guys and you have stronger guns and just like that's kind of the build I feel like the same concept here is a lot better done and there is a modern version. of it to the point that fairly early on one of the license to kill things you're on one side of a giant ship essentially and you have to get to the other side of the ship and the moment we got in I'm like there's about to be hundreds of bad guys on this ship yeah and I could not be more exciting this is about to be so great because it's just you see the kind of level design of oh I'm here and I need to get all the way over there and there's not one path I'm going to have to go up a ladder and down this thing and through this little like a hole there's no hole in the wall there I'm going to need to make one like I don't know I'm going to make one like I don't

thought that the design of that stuff of the where we're fighting the hordes of enemies was just, that was the kind of like cherry on top. And you don't need to kill all of them either. Yeah. So many of them you can just you can just fucking run. Yeah. I see three people, I see three people over them on the right side and one person's

sort of walk cycle is eventually going to get him close to that big group and that's when I hit them with the thing that's going to affect all three of them. They're all going to like, you know, get blown away or whatever. I really enjoyed how these sections also could be very puzzly. Yeah.

You know. Yeah, it also feels like those are the sections that I would want to go back and replay. Because for whatever reason, I always, I stick to the same route, but I'm like, what if I went left? What if I went that way? There's so many different routes you could have taken for that, specific, the boat level where I was like, this could be so replayable. Yeah, like, you know, Tim's describing the uncharted monster closets.

And like, I love that we're in a place. Not that this game's not the first to do it. In fact, Uncharted 4 made so much evolution there as well. but like seeing the verticality of oh I'm finding people on my level but there are people up top I need to worry about I'm the cover that I'm behind

is breakable cover again that's like an uncharted I'm sure maybe even three probably did this as well but having having the moment it's like oh shit it's breaking down in front of me I need to get from this thing to this thing I like that if you just tap R1 he does like a little mini like jog

into cover thing yeah people were Greg goes criticizing that he was like I understand the concert of this I really like this I really like it too yeah because like one if you're in stealth it's just a quick way to be like all right, let me fucking do a quick job and not making noise or whatever.

And then, yeah, if you're behind something, you just fucking jock to the next thing. I don't know. I found it to be like a nice little convenient mechanic that I'm surprised hasn't been done until this game. Yeah. Can I give a shout out to one more thing? Yeah, yeah, go for it.

I remember I brought this up before on shows every now and then when the game, Oni comes up. Because on the back of the box, for ONI for PS2, launch not I believe. No. Developed by Bungi.

Only I think it was close to launch, but not launch. Okay. but developed by Bunchy, published by Rockstar. On the back of that box, I remember when I was buying it, I was impressed because it mentioned that its levels were made by real architects

or designed by real architects. And at the time, I was like, that's the coolest thing of it. And I look back and I'm like, but the levels weren't that good, though. There are moments in this game where I'm just looking at the design. Like Kevin had brought up the chapter three

where you're going into that room and they're doing the auction and just the layout of it. there's so many moments in this game where I'm like who made this? What? This is crazy how good this looks just as far as building design. Good shout. Interior design.

Like, well, they've been doing this since Hitman, but like the way that it shines in this game is so good. The level design here is fantastic as well. But I will say that on top of that to build on that, the locales. Just,

you know, when you have a Bond movie, look, it's fantasy fulfillment. It's you're traveling around the world. You're going to places that like, let's be honest, none of us are going to go.

we're never going to go to a crazy corporate mansion in the middle of freaking Antarctica or whatever it is. That's so Bond. And everywhere we go in this, I get, like, they have beautiful chapter breaks and you see where you're about to, you know, play around in. And the locales are just so cool and interesting. And it's, they're very well, uh, chosen. Yeah, absolutely. All right, y'all. This is the end of our spoiler free thoughts on James Bond First Light. We're going to take a quick break for ads. And when we come back, it's full spoilers for every single. thing first light. This episode's brought to you by Video Game Town.

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The end of this game rocked. Like, it really, really, really rogged. Like, when you start getting in there, you're controlling all the AI robots and stuff. I'm like, they're going full bonkers bond. like I did not expect this final kind of crazy set piece, but just the entire car stuff. Dude. Yeah.

Just being in, in like, I afraid, well, garage or whatever it was. The Q Lab. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. What was the name for it, though? It was all like, the VALAA. Valhalla. Yeah. That was so nice.

You know, somebody on that, I think people are like, well, we're a little disappointed. You can't take the asses and Martin out. And I was like, well,

of course, sure. There were some driving levels in this. And I think, I think if, spoilers, if they make another one of these was really well. We will have an Aston Martin portion of it where you get to use gadgets and shit like that. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was a whole other built out section of things that you can do.

But to me, this reminded me a lot of, I want to say it's either Golden Eye or the next Pierce Brosom movie that he did where he has to remote control his BMW in a car and parking garage. So like hit a bunch of guys and then come pick him up and he jumps in. And that it being self-contained like that, I'm like, you guys, this is the most fucking 90s bond thing. ever seen in your entire life. I was, I smile from ear to ear when we played that section. For sure,

man. The standout level for me, though, was the LED level. Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. That,

the silhouettes was insane. The statues there where you're like, are those guys? Yeah, I didn't, that was, oh,

that person holding a gun, shit ever, dude. The destructable environment of it where, like, you'd shoot an LED well and it would go that crazy, like,

you know, RGB kind of fucked up wonkiness with Moray. That I was like, we got a game here. We got a game. Yeah. What's the highlight moment for you?

Highlight is tough because that is actually one of the ones that came to mind for me, mainly because of the way it panned out for me where I had pretty much snuck through that entire LED room, got to the end, and one person saw me, and then it broke out to a firefight, right? Like felt like a movie. Is this the crane part? Yeah, right? Oh, no.

No, this isn't the crane part. This is the beginning. The crane part is one of the highlights for me. Oh, when you smash the crane down and have to go off. to the guy. Because that was the moment where I played that during the preview and that was like a, oh, this game is going to rock. Like I can't believe how much they're pulling off here. That's in London, right? That's what you have to go after the assassin in London. Yes. That's where we had to go out for the assassin where it starts off at like the little like house home area.

Yeah. You're a little training. All the doubleos we're hanging out at. And then, you know, Bond gets there. And then there's a man he reads the note that's like a suicide note from him. And he's like, that's not good. And the guys is right behind him. Yeah. Fights both those guys. And then there's a sniper. and then you have to get across the roofs as the sniper is firing at you, get in the crane, crash it, chase that guy,

and now you're into this open sequence. I think that's just, that's just beauty, right? Like, in game design and level design and progression, yeah, that did something for me. That section was so fun and didn't, and obviously the crane being a little bit of a, a little bit of a reference to like Casino Royale has to have that amazing fight on top of that crane.

To me, I'm just like what, every single moment we got into that. And then, of course, following that, I don't know if you guys remember this or not, I think it's that section where you just escape in a garbage truck. Yeah. And there's no point to it other than it's really fun to drive a garbage truck in London. That's it.

Yeah. There's no, you're not, at no point you think to yourself, I'm going to have to replay this because this is difficult. You're just smashing into shit. And it, again, reminds me a lot of when Bonn had a tank in Golden Eye. And it's, he's just smiley because he's like, I'm driving a tank around St. Petersburg. It's fucking awesome. When you guys did the mission prior to that where, um, the multiple double o's are involved and you are playing as the bond is the driver in the scenario

yeah yeah yeah well that's a great another great little easterig there too when he goes into the q lab to pick a suit and they give him he was he has these amazing like tom ford suits that are just hanging there and he's like no no no you're not going to get that and he has to wear the drive the chauffeur outfit yeah and it's a cut and it reminds me a lot of like if you ever watch casino royale there's a wonderful moment where he's about to get his car for the first time when he lands in nassau and it's this beautiful tropical environment and it's the Bond music and the camera pans over and you think

you're going to see an Asthmard and it's like a forward focus and it's just this is Bond right here he's not a double O yet this is where he's doing he's the chauffeur right now I love that level for multiple reasons one being the like all the comms that you're having with the crew like I had a moment where one of the other double O's saw me exploring

when I shouldn't have been exploring because you're supposed to be in the car and then there's a moment where you go back outside and it's like I'm back at the parking lot and they're like cool and you go back inside. I like that dynamic stuff. I also liked it as a reference to Hitman because the people or the person

that you're chasing, one of the twins, that keeps changing outfits. Immediately I was like, oh, that's Agent 47. Like they're doing an Agent 47 thing here because he keeps constantly going into changing into different outfits and blending in his different characters. I thought that was really cool. See, to me, I think that section was

what I've always wanted Bond to be, which is a little closer to Mission Impossible. That reminded me a lot of like, Ethan on comms with like Simon Pegg and all those other people and they're all in the environment together doing their various things. You have that wonderful cinematography where they're passing stuff off together.

That to me I think was really well done in that section. It's also just another reason I love this game so much. It was like years and years ago I mentioned that I won a Mission Impossible game made by Nottie Dog and that's pretty much what this game is. This is the closest that we're going to get to that game. Oh, for sure. Speaking to that. This is a question for Nick. Sure.

Towards the very end of the game I think it like I don't, there was a couple weeks or month ago that I did this so I'm a little hazy on it but one of the notes I wrote down is a woman recognizes Isola saying who are you and they reply Kittrich Kittridge Special Intelligence Task Force

Oh just throwing it out there But isn't Kittridge? Yeah, from Mission Impossible That someone was like let's throw a little I mean there's so much of Bond and Mission Impossible are so close to each other. Mission Impossible was just basically bond for America back in the day So yes they just said let's

throw Kittridge in there for Schittig's in my opinion. That name is so Mission Impossible. There's a lot of those little Easter eggs. There's a great moment to when he goes to Vietnam, which by the way, one of my other favorite level. I could have spent way more time in that just because again, Bond, you arrive and you think

to yourself, I'd like to visit there. I would go to this little exclusive place and like have a custom cocktail that they offer you when you sit down to check in. I would do all of that. But he checks in, I think, in that section as Sinjin Smyth, which is spelled St. John Smyth. That is another reference to another alias that he's he did it was a view to a kill with roger more that was a that was

what his character was called in that like first like hour of that i was like that's hilarious another hilarious thing is i don't know if you guys caught it or not but in a lot of the when you when you finally walk out of m i 6 it says universal exports which was bond's cover it's always been bon's cover he always worked for universal exports it was just his way of going around the globe and they go what do you do he goes import export things that's fun he always did um and then of course teresa teresa is the big, a giant Easter egg. And I don't know if you guys really want me to spoil this for you or not. But yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So Teresa was in the name of Bond's first and only wife, I think, up until no time to die. And she, they get married and then she's killed right afterward. And the last words they say to each other that they said prior. No time to die. We have all the time in the world, which is the name of one of the first chapters where you meet her. So the first, when I saw that, I was like, oh, she's going to fucking die.

And that's going to break my heart. And she doesn't at the end of this, which is great. Are we talking about Teresa or Isola? Teresa. The girl he meets it in Vietnam? Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. This is a, it's a complicated thing to talk about in a respectful way. So just, I just want to preface it with that. Because I do mean it respectfully. Sure. I've never seen something digitally look that good. Yeah. Like, there's something about it, that, that entire scene where it's just like,

I think we can all just like, as a people, just agree respectfully. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah, really, really, well, like the art department just pop the fuck off with lighting. And I pop the fuck off. God damn. You could not be mature here.

I want to know who made that. Yeah, I mean, I have so many screenshots. Not only like, you know, I'm not just doing like the, you know, creepy perverted sort of jokes or whatever. What I say it that way. But I have like the art department popped off so much with the character art. Lenny James' character, right? Yeah, James' actor. Greenway, yeah.

Greenway. Greenway. That is, I think, one of the best-looking 3-D models, like, ever, like, holy shit. I was just so impressed with the art team on this one, which is, again, going back to what I mentioned about the story, like, I didn't know they had it like that. I didn't know they had character art like that either. Yeah. You know, I think hitman's always looked good, but it's never been this, you know, holy shit. You've got to look at the way these characters look. I, so much, there's so much expertise and like just massive work being done here art wise.

And going beyond that, going back to somewhere between Bless and Nick, I forgot who brought up the architecture of everything. Like, whole man, the, and I guess I'm combining, you brought up architecture, but you brought up the Moray on the video wall. Yeah. Like, there's just, uh, it's just good art version. We know what being close to a video wall looks like in a way that not many people do. Yeah. And they nail it in this game in a way that I'm like, like, I wanted to call you when that's, that's what. I was going to say,

I was like, I don't know him, let him know I'm doing this. It adds so much texture and just like, like it just, again, adds that unique vibes to what I was talking about

the look of this game. Like, I haven't seen a game look this way before. And you go to the, the club level and I was just, I was, I had to put my controller down because I'm like,

what the fuck? How is this possible in a video game? I haven't felt that way since Cifu. For real. Oh, yeah. Where, like so many of the levels in Cifu

have their own art hook. Right? Like it's that that's it's the gimmick of that area and like god damn. I was just so blown away by everything by the setup and the lead into it with the just the mannequin standing next to that hallway. I have so many screenshots of just that red hallway that you're walking down before you get to that area. So that area. I mean,

I think that is the visual highlight of the game for sure. I'm not talking about the club. Like I'm talking about when you walk in and the fucking DJ like and you're just the like dance pit and everyone's dancing and like. You end up walking above a movie. But when the lasers like come up at you and it's like, I've never seen lasers like that. And the sound design, like I played this in my home theater with the Dolby Atmos surround sound. I am so blown away by how immersive at all was.

Like that club scene, like when you walk into like the room next door, it sounds like you're in the bathroom at a club. Yeah. With the walls and the directionality of it all was mind blowing. And all of that to say, great sound, great visuals, great. design of the LED walls and all these like little things that add up great bodies architecture is so mind-blowingly good the perch when you get to the big evil CEOs like building right so yeah it is such a beautifully designed building

that feels real it doesn't just feel like video game platforming whatever I felt like I was in control well for that stuff um but going through the hallways of that and that's is more of a it's you and Lenny kind of sneaking through and it's like such a great character moment between the two of them. So you're, you're getting good story. I feel like they do the perfect thing of y'all are together.

Y'all are split up. You're sneaking through vents and doing all that stuff. But by the time you actually get to the guy's office. And it's just this like so, Bounting looking thing. And then they hit a button and a spiral staircase comes up. Yep. I had to put my controller down.

And it was a physical reaction for me of like, oh my God. Yeah. They cooked here. And you, and they earned that moment. You earned the moment where you go up, yep, that is a Bond villain's layer. It's not an office. It's not a hideout.

It's a fucking layer, man. And that, it's so extra, and that is exactly what Bond should be. You should get to that. And he, I think there's even moments where he was like, what's going on here? Like, it's perfect. It is, man. The, I would say my secret delight of the whole game is the really, obnoxious bro dude who asked you to get drinks for him in Vietnam at the at the oh my god the guy's like he wants to unlock the cabinet

his writing was so good and it's so hard to write a character like that without getting eye rolling and being like they're trying to like do this type of character and you know it's just a really tough kind of thing to nail and everything this dude was saying especially when you finally finish the mission and then he's sitting there like talking to two girls and he's like yeah I could have done that if I wanted to but you know I forgot what he was talking about he was like trying to get into the into sports or I forget what the writing on that dude was so fucking good I again

I didn't know I oh had it like that and with they really impressed me with that I this was a game that I mostly played downstairs and G was upstairs but there was one bit of overlap where I forgot what was happening but we had to both be in the theater she was like kind of doing work on the computer while I was playing the game and it was that section and so she was kind of overhearing it and like she was like dude this is like actually really good writing and performance and she's like you've

showed me a lot of video game stuff but like this seems like a standout it's this fucking guy yeah i want to step back okay because i think that to me is why i loved this game so much i think they paid so much attention to the writing and the acting and the chemistry of the actors that you know i i lose patience with with games very very quickly and very i don't pay attention a lot to what's happening with the stories because they don't draw me in like a movie does. I want to get to the core game mechanics. I want to play. I want the fun aspect of it.

And unfortunately, a lot of times, other things just take me out of it. And I go, well, this is not. This is a lesser property for me. For me, the casting of Bond, the casting of all the actors around him, who's the actress, Patrick Gibson, I want to say? Yeah. Phenomenal. Great job with him.

But when you get to Vietnam and you have that flirtation happening with Teresa, that to me is the sign of like everyone made smart choices here because I have never been really attracted to a video game character before. I've never looked at a digital you know a character before I've been like oh this is gonna be hot but when we get to that scene

where they're flirting with each other I'm like I am very invested into this and I had to stop and ask myself why and it's just because they're really good actors acting opposite from each other and they got heat. They got heat. And everything, every and that you feel it that but every

it emanates it does but every single thing and a lot of people don't understand this but when you're watching movie everything you're seeing or hearing or it all goes into that feeling and from the second you land in Vietnam and you're walking around that cool resort you feel sexy you feel cool you feel like you're in a place right Nick everyone's gonna fuck I felt sexy

and it's good I love Nick being like I was so attracted to a video game character I had to pause and ask myself why but I did, right? What artistry went behind this to make me feel this way? And that's really at the end of the day what we want. And kudos to them for doing that because I was like, I mean, Jesus, these two have heat together and they're digital representations of human beings.

It's fucking great. 100%. I want to give a shout out to towards... That's so sick. You know what that reminds me a lot of? It reminds me a lot of the layer from Blade Runner 2049, 100%. Where he watched in and Jared Lettos and all. all the and there's

yeah it's so cool dude I have so many screens this game just looked amazing on PC like it was fucking crazy looking it was crazy because I was playing on base PS5 and then

it's crazy because I was playing on base 5th and going back and forth on PS5 pro and that it's a shame how it looks on PS5 it still looks good on PS5 I had the same thing with the I'd say

70% of the game I played on PS5 pro and the rest on PlayStation 5 and I'm just like man I can't believe I look at this and think it looks bad because it looks amazing it runs great

but then you see the reality. PS5 Pro. Oh my god. Man. I, uh, I, I, I started playing it on Greg's PS5 pro and I don't have one at home. And I was like, Greg, can I please take this home with that? I just shoved it into my back.

Fuck yeah. Hell yeah. That's how you doing. I'll give a shout out to the final boat chase, which just felt so right for a James Bond game, right? You need to kind of end with this like unnecessary boat chase. But they play the Lana del Rey theme, but the orchestra version. And I'm like, yeah, y'all fucking earned this shit. Let's head somewhere high as hell.

And the music in this game is great. In just a crowd across the board. The live performance in the AI conference thing that they were doing was so good. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Which live performance thing? There's like, they were singing like the old timey, the song that everybody likes that I just remember the name of. But, um.

I forget, but yes. I know I, I know what you talk about. Before they go to the CEO's like office, they go to the big conference in the like, oh, you mean the thing you have to, the little party of a sneak round? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like lounge singer. Oh. like in the center of the whole thing. I really dug the, the ball mission. The ball mission was controlling all the big balls and crashing into the robots. So fucking cool.

And I, it kind of pushing the envelope later on in the game when I thought maybe it would lose steam. Like, it really impressed me in those moments where like I was expecting, I wasn't, you know, the game starts off with the thing we saw in the demo where you make the airplane turn and the physics

you're inside of the airplane and the you know you're controlling the airplane on your watch and you're making all the shit fly all over the place and the enemies are hitting the wall and all this stuff and it's like that's a really cool hook for this level and then once you control that ball I'm like oh my God I hope that they have something

centered around this as a concept and they did and it was awesome yeah the robotics lab too when you walk through and you have to learn all mechanics of that I thought was really well done as well I want to give a shot just the general story of the game. Because I'm so burned out on AI taking over the world stories. I did not like it in Dead Reckoning Part 1 and Part 2.

I thought that was the weakest part of that and it bog. And it has, it's so quickly can bog down the plot of a movie where I just stopped caring because it becomes this thing that is so powerful that it's just inconceivable for anyone to really get their heads wrapped around it. And they did a really smart job here where they started doing, they started doing, they started like building it up, just like they're building it up in today's society in real life, where AI is this and it's coming in it and it's inevitable. And then you start to see it like, oh, it doesn't work.

It's actually not that good. And that's the whole point of this. It's that it's someone trying to hide that and it's fucking awesome. It's subverted my expectations so well because as soon as they introduce it, it's like, oh, okay, so that's the thing that's going to get into the bad guy's hands. And this is going to be a story about how we're going to have to figure out how to shut it down or whatever. and for you to get to that point of the game where it is, no, it gets things incorrect

and this guy's using his son to cover up all this shit. It's so fucking good. And yeah, to your point, yeah, like I think does such a good job of reflecting like, oh yeah, this is a story not about AI, the technology, this is a story about what people with power

are willing to do to make sure AI is successful because they have so much money invested in it. Yes. And that's such a smart... Which is exactly what's happening now, right? And also that, from a story standpoint, takes it down from 100,000 feet up into the air to something Bond can actually overcome. Yeah.

And in the best way possible, where I feel like they do that so well on the grounded level of this is a man going up against another man and the man has a very rich father and he's like doing all this like stuff. They handle that story very well. And then towards the end, they're like, okay, but what if we did the fun James Bond stuff? And then they had the guy come back seemingly from the dead. What if we did the Metal Gear version of this? fucking Metal Gear Badman.

I was so confused. Incredible, man. That's the point where you go, I don't give a shit, it's the third act of a Bond movie. We've got laser cars that are invisible. The twins are so good. What a great reveal.

The fact that there were twins. Let's stop about this, right? Because you see the blonde guy and you go, okay, this is obviously an homage to like stamper from like the world is not enough, right? Blonde, whatever. And then you see another one of them, you go, of course there's a twin.

Of course. Why the fuck wouldn't there be a twin? Such fun moment. If the guy, one of them would come out with diamonds in his face, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. It's a James Bond movie. But just in terms of, like, fun visuals and keeping things, like, interesting. When you get to that fight in Vietnam, and the dude lights on fire, and you're fighting a guy on fire?

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. It's so sick. It's so cool. Super nuts. The performance from Lenny James in the moment when he realizes how his pass is not what he thought it was. And he's looking at the files.

And he just sort of, he's just sitting in the back of the, like, It was just such great, like, subtle acting from him just, like, in shock, like, oh my God, I thought my life was one thing this whole time, and I was just like to. Been chasing up in 006. Been thinking 006 was one way, and then you learn about what 006 was actually doing. Performance of the year. First off, you know, I'm just, I'm such a sucker for old double O's. And the history of the double O's and the fact that when one dies, they take the number and they give it to a new one.

I love all that shit. I love in Golden Eye how there was a 006 and there's a 007. And they have history and they have beef and there's a whole, I mean, all that shit to me is so fun. And the fact that like, the fact that they were like, you start this game. They're like, you're not a double O yet.

And I'm like, but I fucking will be. I fucking will be by the end of this. Oh, James Vaughn will return when that hit. And then they're like, we're starting this over. Do you want to be 001? And he's like, well, I was actually the seventh recruit. So how about double. 07 and I'm like

Yeah They said the thing Fuck up That's so cool Self correction Double O9 Yeah I was gonna say Which I don't know

How many double O's there are Because can you have 0010 That doesn't make sense That doesn't work Yeah That's not good No

I love it What else we got here I mean I've had something I lost it The dueling AIs Thea and the Greek Sisters

Thea and whatever The fact that there's another one The fact that they're Basically just stealing The knock list of all of these operatives How cool is that. And then as you're still in the knock list,

that's when you get the Kitra's reference, which is fucking hilarious. Like, all of this is just headed up. It's brilliant. It's really stuff. What I want to say is, I love in video games, and sometimes this moment happens

and you're just like, fuck, I hate this. And other times you're like, I'm so happy it happened. Where you get to what you think the end of the game is, and it feels like, wow, that set piece was the,

they blew their budget there. Like, that's the end of this. And then you think credits are going to hit and that's going to be the end. But when you hit something like, oh, I see where the sequel's going to go, and I can't wait. And then they're like, no, Tim, you stupid fuck. You're getting that right now.

Yeah. When we go back to the office and everyone there's learning that, like, they're just going to kind of cover it up and just keep on. And you're in jail. And yeah, exactly. All that. I was like, I thought it could be the sequel. I can't believe they're letting me play this right now.

And I think they did it in such a fun way, like, to escape that, that whole sequence, but then also storytelling-wise, like, I think that they just tied all the knots up in a, and what I just say, you get one. fucking time. Yeah. It's beautiful. Tad all together. But they do something fine.

Again, somebody somewhere was like, we just need every like couple hours. We need to have like a bond thing happen. And you get to that section. What don't you have? You don't have your cue watch. So you got to sneak around like an old school person. And then what do you get? You get Q's Q's Q watch.

And it's so dumb and so fun that I'm like, that's the one level I want to go back and play through because all the stupid little things that you can like interact with. And like, there's just fucking gatling guns everywhere that can kill people. The drones that are flying to people. So dumb and so fun. What's up with Isola? She's going to come back. She's going to be our...

Is she like part of an organization we know? So... What's her name? What's her fucking name? Rebecca Ferguson. She's going to be our Rebecca Ferguson. I think she's that, but I think the people were... A lot of people were saying that she maybe works for Specter.

That's what I was... Which would be awesome. I mean, well... Yeah, right? But they never really... They never... Does Spector come up in this? I don't think it does.

If it did, I missed the reference. But she works for an organization of people that are super powerful and maybe have bad motives. It goes all the way to the top. And so you're like it's probably Spector, I would imagine, or quantum. It felt like they're teasing something that's a reference. At some point, you're going to fight Spector. Chloe. Chloe's who I thought you were going to say from uncharted.

Oh. Chloe Rebecca Ferguson. Yeah. Yeah. We're always at odds, but we're always sexy with each other. You want to kiss each other. Okay, but question, did they bang? No.

It was a moment where they were, where she was, it looked like they were about to bang, but then she gets a call, and she's like, give me about 20 minutes. They're banging on the boat. That's what I thought. That was on the boat. I got to assume. Oh, really?

Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah, I think they bang. But I also love, like, I love the suspension of disbelief we have with, with any sort of consuming of media where they're on this boat. And it's not like James Bond. just teleported there. There was a lot of moving parts

to get him on a boat with her. And then we're on the boat and he's like, so who are you? And what do you? Like, what are you? And it's like, that didn't ever come up. You're three hours out in the middle of the ocean.

Submaries don't just come on to land. Yeah, that was true. That's funny. That's such a bond thing too. That reminded me a lot of, uh, there's a great opening for a bond. You guys probably never seen this.

There's a movie called Living Daylights where there ain't, it starts with a training mission of the double O's, but then someone starts really killing the double O's. and the last one alive is 007 and it's like the first time you see him it ends with him crashing onto a boat that looks exactly like that and there's a beautiful woman there

and he calls in to headquarters and he's like I'll be back in an hour and then she pours him a glass of champagne and he goes better make that too. Yeah I was gonna say I think I got the line wrong where it's like give us 20 minutes make that an hour. Yeah make that an hour

and there's that reference I'm like that he's got good stamina well you feel like he's probably no some of worship or maybe he's just pumping multiple times you think he's pumping? Do you think he's like... Okay. You think she's pumping?

I don't know who's pumping. 2026, you know what I mean? Anything possible. Anybody can be pumping. Yeah. Um, the meta... Anyway, back to the Metal Gear suit. I love that whole mission.

I love that we got the actual third act. And I love that. I mean, the only level that really kind of was me banging my head against the wall, but it was because I was streaming and I didn't, it wasn't really occurring me. It was like the, the Century Gun moment. where you have to hack the gun and shoot back at the Metal Gear Solid villain.

It's basically the last couple. No, that fucked me. Yeah. I did not care for that. But yeah, I mean, leaving this open-ended, having the list get out, the hard drive get out. Cool, man. Now you got to chase after him,

and now who are the new villains is very, very cool. And I'll also give him a shout-out. We gloss over it. We did talk about it a lot while we were streaming, but I will give a shout-out to the first level and just the setup of... The theme song. Him holding the detonator up.

And he's like, you're not going to pull. And he just pulls it and everything explodes. And we go into an actual, honest to God, fully fucking formed Bond theme song with the title treatment, which is the hallmark of James Bond. Yep. And they did it. And they knew they needed to nail it. And I'll say this. They didn't need to go that hard.

But they did. They freaking did, though. And that every single bond. The transition of the like, you think it's the gun barrel, but it's the freaking chandelier with all the like the glass things. It's so hot. And at the end, we actually get the gun barrel, which is great, right? And that's cool. Shout out to the first few hours of this game.

I know everybody's talked about the training montage and how well done that is. But the fact that you don't really get into a bond mission until after a few hours of the game, that's a risky move, right? Like, that's something that I was expecting to come in here during the, I guess, the first review and be talking about pacing like, man, I can't believe that it took that long. But every single thing you're doing up until the first bond mission is so entertaining. I love the training missions. The training missions are great. Yeah. And I think they're great also because you have two or three,

you have two people around you. What's the, what are their names? Cressida. Cresceda and the other guy. Maurice. Maurice, perfect. They're great.

The acting's great. You have that nice cat and mouse like, are we going to like each other? Are we competing with each other? And everyone likes the origin story. It reminds me a lot of the Kingsman. You guys ever watch that movie? Yeah, I love the Kingsman.

Yeah. It reminds me a lot of that. And I was like, I'm getting Kingsman vibes here. And I like it. And it's fun. Who doesn't. doesn't want to see how you get to trade to be a double-o.

Oh, and get to play. And just the right amounts, too. Like, I think, like, it's funny because we keep, I keep seeing people and I think I've even fallen into this of calling the training montage, like, a tutorial. It's not a tutorial. That part's not a tutorial. That part's just, like, showing off a bunch of training montages and making it playable. The tutorial is all the training missions.

Yeah. And, like, they do such a great job of, like, having the, hey, this is kind of how you use parkour and punching together, right? Here's how you do just the combat arena stuff. Like I really think that they knocked out of the park. Do we think we get more parkour in the sequel? Do we think we get more movement styles in the sequel? Ooh.

Because that was the one thing I was a bit disappointed on. I was like, okay, you've got, I just felt like Bond was, could have moved a little bit better as far as like his ability of parkour. I could see that. When I came out of the preview, some of the people I talked to didn't really like how he moved. And I was like, well, this reminds of Hitman.

So I'm sure they're kind of using some of the walking animation they had from that. But like that isn't the smoothest game as far as movement. Yeah. So I can see him entertaining that. Yeah. I want to read a couple of super chats before we head out today. I'd have slab says I'd give it a 9.5. It was an epic bond movie I got to play.

Jordan Deeb says I didn't play the game. But right in to say I just landed in San Francisco for the first time. I'll be here for a few days. Do you have any comedy shows this weekend? Nick? I do have comedy shows. I'll be it cheaper the therapy tonight and tomorrow night at both shows. if you guys want to check that out

but a cheaper than therapy check out Nick's Instagram yeah I'm sure they'll be in for there if not just Google maybe just Google cheaper than therapy you'll come up there's only one San Francisco Sandy says the level where you crash the web

gala they do this thing where you're on the hunt for the twin where they mix in the brass of the bond theme with the end of the world it's so subtle but so fucking amazing yeah end of the world that's the name of the song yeah yeah okay uh jbc says if I had one note to the game peaked halfway

at the uninvited and ever so slightly coasted to the end. Uninvited. I don't know. Was that the web gala? Probably. Yeah, it must have been that party. That was like beginning of the game, though.

That's like the first real mission that you play there, right? Oh, I think. That's the chess thing. Yeah, that's the chess thing. The web gal is like when you're chasing the guy and then you end up there. Right. A lot right. That's where the LED wall mission is, right?

I think that's later. Shit. Is that a? Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's in there yeah because it's like a gal it's like a

because that's the one we're escaping in the garage in the garbage truck yeah that ends with a garbage truck yeah and then I think you

go home after that and that's where they try to kill you or maybe no they try to kill you first and that's how you get there yeah that's right

Andy Brown says the scene where the Damien where Damien Webb tries to saw Bond in two is an Easter egg to the Goldfinger

book of course not the movie it's in the movie well the the saw as I'm assuming the saw is from the book but

the iconic and it has been made fun of and like Austin Powers is no Mr. Bond, I expected to die with a laser going right up his, yeah, his crotch. Gerald says, I was hoping that Greenway's number would have been 007 and that Bond would choose it to carry on his spirit.

I love their relationship. That'd have been kind of cool. Greenway dying was tough. That hit. They did a really good job there. Was there, am I crazy? There wasn't a Felix lighter character in this, right? Felix was mentioned. It was mentioned, okay. I don't remember where, but I remember being like, oh my God, Nick's going to pop off.

So that's why, okay. Yeah, I wanted to just quickly touch on that. They have to have the Felix Ladder character of the next one. It's Bond's like counterpart in the CIA in America, played by Jeffrey Wright in the movies right now. It was like postcard. Okay, that's great. Oh, postcard reminded me of this.

One of the missions that I was a secret delight for me was the cruise ship with all of the invisible lasers. Oh, yeah. And the sprinklers off. Which I imagine is like way more like, Hitman type gameplay that I'm like, I don't normally like this type of thing. I'd play through it. I think that in terms of fun, it was probably at least fun I had in the game.

But I was like, I like this a lot. This feels very James Bond and pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I hated it. Yeah? I hated the lasers.

But I think I was just not thinking about it right because I died so many times. I could not figure out how to like do it the right way. Once I figured out that you could miss the lasers. I was like, this is created. It's pretty cool. And dumb. Yeah. And the fact that you have to at one point.

I mean, again, it's a smart level design at one point. I'm like, how the fuck do I get around this? I'm like, oh, I got to hang just for like one second and come back up the other side. Yeah. OMGLX says, do we think Isola LaVale is one, part of Specter and slash or two, actually Vesper Linde? No, she's not Vesper, but she's probably part of Spectre, yeah. Vesper was like an accountant for a bank. Let me tell you.

I watched Casino Royale for the first time recently. What did you think of that? I loved it. Yeah. I don't want to spoil it. I was going to say, spoilers, but man, it's a good movie.

I think people, we can spoil the casino right. When he's like, whip my balls. I got to tickle on there. Andrew Brown says, the trophy at the end of the level where you chase Isola

is called Ritings on the Wall, which is the theme song for Specter. That's kind of a fun little thing there. That's good. Okay. Well, everyone, this is our final review of James Bond, first lights.

Are we excited for the Lenny Kravitz deal? see that's coming. Very excited. We didn't talk about letting me. We talked about him in the first review. Definitely, I think, the worst performance of the game and a major letdown because I was real high on the craft being in this game as a

villain. I thought that was going to be awesome. And it was a little less than awesome. Everything else about where he was in the story and stuff, awesome. Yeah. What do you think, Andy? I mean, I just I expected him to have an accent or just like and it's like, man, it's going to be cool if you put on a show like, all right, we have Bond here.

James Bond It's like when they hire me to do a panel at ComicCon I'm like All right Uh I'm like that's so funny I like this like right hand man or whatever The guy like for him Yeah

When they were doing the auction I thought the auction was awesome That was all I did I failed it the first time Because I didn't realize You had to like hack the guy's thing In order to make it seem like he was lying I thought that was such a clever mechanic

Yeah I will agree I think the voice acting that they surrounded him with Was so good that it makes him feel a little bit lesser but I also I will wave that away because it is again another hallmark of bond

that you just of course Lenny Kravitz is a bad guy of this Yeah Of course It's great Yeah If he popped up in the movie

You'd be like yep That makes a lot of sense Totally Why not? Last thing I want to say here is I do think just from a sheer numbers perspective

There's a good chance That this is kind of funny's game of the year I say that In a pre-GTA world And Ocarita remakes The thing

But it being a remake I do think kind of might put that lower on people's list for expectations there. You think I'm crazy? No, I think the amount of people that played this and really, really like it means that it'll be up there for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. It's my game of the year so far. I don't expect to be number one by the end of the year, but right now, if this ended up our game of the year, I'd be very happy. Yeah, I wouldn't be mad at it. Yeah. Let us know in the comments below if you'd be mad at it.

Or if you agree, that's what I want to hear from you. We have more stuff coming at you today. specifically we have a gameplay stream. It's a party mode. Frog Squad. You excited for that, Nick? I'm always excited for the party modes. I'm always excited to see which one of us

is going to be the one that gets dunked on. Which one will it be? I'm not on this one. Thank you. I've got dunked out enough this week. I'm so over it. I'm so fucking over it, everybody. But anyways, I love you all.

Until next time, goodbye. Bye.