What Replay Value is about
007 First Light compounds several different genres of games, depending on the situation. Much like the beloved movie franchise, depending on what the mission calls for, you could be bluffing your way through a security room, pretending you’re inspecting the air conditioning, or driving a bin lorry at top speed through a Kensington shopping centre.
The game’s larger chapters involve James Bond going after a mark that’s somewhere within a lavish gala, a chess tournament, or some similarly opulent location. Through eavesdropping, exploring, and good old intuition, you can approach this target or goal in several ways. There’s a clear evolution of the Hitman: WOA opportunity system here, wherein the player is guided through a sequence which will eventually take them to the target.
This is an excerpt from a review of 007 First Light. This portion is how a lot of reviews are written. Naming a lot of what you can do, but no explanation as to why it’s good. In fact, the way this is written assumes you think it’s a good thing to have so many ways of doing things and that it’s an evolution of another franchise. It’s paragraphs enamored with the idea that video games can do things. So what I can approach the target in several different ways? Does it actually work that way or are actually forced to choose one or two ways because the other ways aren’t actually feasible? It compounds several different game genres. Cool. Do they blend together well? Or are some insertions clunkier?
There’s a good reason to write reviews this way: Many people don’t read or watch anything else. If they missed a preview, a quick synopsis of what’s possible allows readers to get a sense of what they would do in the game. But there’s no opinion behind it. There’s no standard of excellence applied.
Another review of the same game wrote:
In making First Light, IO Interactive found itself in the bizarre position of having to convince players that a James Bond game is worthier of its talents than another entry in its incredible Hitman series – comfortably the best stealth games of the last ten years. IO achieves this, primarily, by talking you around to the idea. First Light is not IO Interactive's best game. But it is by far the studio's best-written game, and like the superspy himself, it keeps you on side even in its weakest moments by sheer dint of its personality.
That’s an opinion. I get a clear understanding of how this person feels about IOI’s Bond game versus their Hitman series—it won’t play better, but it will give me a better story, according to this person. It’s already implied that the writer must think what 007 First Light does, that’s a better standard than what Hitman does. And if you’ve played Hitman, you can imagine a better standard.
I want be a person that has a high standard of excellence for games. I don’t want to make excuses for developers and publishers. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small team on a shoestring budget. Make the best dang game you can make. I care about quality. I care about excellence. I want every game to be dope.
If you want every game to be dope, and you find yourself talking about mechanics, story, music, graphics, and how all of those intertwine in various ways, welcome home. You’re going to love it here.
Our goal is to use our little corner of the internet to make games even better than they already are.
Replay Value will offer three verticals (two I’m working on):
The Daily Demo: A surprise demo in your inbox 365 days a year. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s bad. But maybe you’ll like it—or not. I briefly tell you why I feel the way I feel about it. Offered daily.
Game Analysis (name TBA/coming soon): Examining what about a game is making it succeed—or fail, with a big focus on gameplay. Goal will be a weekly offering.
Industry commentary (name TBA/coming soon): Video discussions on what’s happening around the industry. Offered as often as there are topics.
Monthly Round-up: Not a vertical, but it’s a ICYMI newsletter offered a the end of each month that is a collection of everything I wrote for Replay Value and GamingTrend. Offered monthly.
Feel free to pick and choose your subscriptions by unsubscribing from any individual vertical, but if you’re subscribed, I think you’ll like all of them.
If you to continue to see more in-depth discussions like these, and enjoy the content, or even want to support wider content-types, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
You’ll have access to the entire backlog of articles and any future exclusively paid content. Ads are the reason why you don’t see more meaningful discussions around games from the biggest websites and ad-supported independent websites. By design, they have to offer a lot of fluff and clickbait. It’s the unfortunate game they have to play. Your support helps hold developers to a higher standard, which means better games for you.
