Like a good spy, 007 First Light is always one step ahead of you

Image source: Gamesplanet

I’m at a nightclub. My phone rings. Surprise assignment from MI6 just came in. First order of business: find the contact — I’m told they'll be dressed in red. And as it so happens, there’s a bombshell standing by the bar right in front of me wearing a red dress designed to draw eyes from a mile away. I approach her and say the passcode.

She doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

Her boyfriend tells me to take a hike. So, having thoroughly embarrassed myself, I look elsewhere. Turns out, the contact was a guy in a red shirt closer to the end of the bar. A guy the game did not draw attention to, perfectly setting me up for a heck of a subversion.

Pleasantly subverting expectations is 007 First Light’s favorite trick to play, and it’s a winning one. Right from its opening seconds, it took my expectations and threw ‘em out the window, what with the game starting Bond not as a spy but as a Navy aircrewman. He just happens to land on MI6’s radar after he gets caught up in one of their operations.

Image source: Gamesplanet

007 First Light threw me for a loop yet again when it initiated an MI6 training scene that I swore was going to turn into a tedious tutorial sequence, like in so many other games. Instead of that, the game hit me with a wildly cinematic training montage that just so happened to sneak in tutorials along the way. It was narratively organic, incredibly high octane, and beautifully scored, making me feel like I was directing a Bond film rather than learning fundamental controls of the game.

Not long after came the nightclub sequence with that dame in the dress who fooled me good. I wouldn’t want to spoil more of the tricks 007 First Light has up its sleeve, so I won’t. But it’s clear to me this is a game made by people who understand, love, and yearn to play with both Bond and video game tropes in general. And the way IO Interactive has seamlessly married gameplay to what is essentially a full-on Bond movie is incredible.

I was particularly impressed with how cinematic the combat is. Every animation is meticulously crafted to mimic the visceral nature and choreography of a Bond movie fight. When enemies knock Bond into a wall, he pushes off it and comes back swinging with a kinetic flow other game protagonists wish they had. When a fight breaks out in a bathroom and Bond knocks a guy’s head into a urinal, I practically feel the impact myself thanks to the incredible camera angles and sound design. In that sense, its cinematic prowess is essentially another 007 First Light subversion — it’s not just a game. There’s a kickass film bundled in here, too. The action does an impeccable job leaving me feeling in control while still quietly guiding me forward with style and grace befitting of the Bond brand.

Image source: Gamesplanet

All that extraordinarily detailed cinematic action requires a real gaming rig to run flawlessly, and my ROG Zephyrus G14 delivered on all fronts. 007 First Light isn’t the kind of game to be played at minimum settings; it’s a visual treat that deserves to be played with eye candy and a silky smooth framerate. The latest Zephyrus laptops deliver that cinematic experience with ease, wielding GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs and powerful processors that ensure Bond’s latest, greatest gaming adventure is a blast to play through. It helps that these laptops look like something ripped right out of a Bond adventure as well — they're sleek, svelte, and visually subdued enough that it’s easy to imagine 007 slipping one under his arm as he abandons his post to tail a target.

As it so happens, we’re bundling 007 First Light with the aforementioned 50 Series-equipped ROG products from now ‘til June 10^th, so if you want a free copy of the ultimate spy movie-game hybrid, now’s your chance. Whether you want a 50 Series graphics card, prebuilt gaming desktop with a 50 Series card in it, or just about any ROG gaming laptop wielding a 50 Series GPU, we have 007 offers available across the board. So find the powerhouse hardware that suits your gaming needs and score James Bond’s latest interactive adventure in the process. For everyone else, you can pick up 007 First Light on Gamesplanet.