'007: First Light' could be the best James Bond video game since 'Goldeneye'

Frankly, the Nintendo 64's Goldeneye: 007 has spent the last three decades running cover for a long line of middling-to-bad James Bond video games.

Whether in mediocre pseudo-sequels that bore the Goldeneye name or other half-hearted offshoots, the world's favorite British special operative has starred in far more bad video games than good ones. Everything or Nothing from 2004 gets a pass because it's a pretty fun third-person action game where Willem Dafoe plays the bad guy, but that's the only exception to the rule.

Anyway, I say all of that because 007: First Light from IO Interactive (makers of Hitman) looks like the most compelling virtual vision of the famed MI6 agent since Goldeneye. I got to see about half an hour's worth of hands-off demo footage last week and came away a lot more excited about the game than I was after the initial trailer, which didn't feature nearly enough espionage for my taste.

007: First Light looks like Hitman but with sweet car chases

When IO announced it was making a Bond game a few years ago, the consensus reaction from basically everyone I associate with was, "Oh, hell yeah, that's perfect." That's because the Hitman series plays to Bond's strengths better than almost any other, giving players a huge amount of freedom to sneak around big, detailed levels full of NPCs whose AI you can manipulate in fun ways.

The only difference (and it's a big one) is that Hitman is about stone-cold slapstick murder, while Bond kills dudes in far more pragmatic and less Bugs Bunny-esque ways. That's why the first gameplay trailer didn't quite land with me; it just kinda looked like British Uncharted, with lots of setpieces and third-person shooting.

I'm pleased to say that the extended demo I saw (but sadly didn't play) made it clear that this is definitely a game by the people who made Hitman. The demo featured Bond sneaking into a high-class fancy-guys-in-suits party at some scenic villa (a likely place for Bond to be) using a variety of creative methods to get past guards. Bond can't don disguises with the same level of freedom as Agent 47, so instead, distraction appears to be key to success. At one point, Bond turned on a garden hose so a guard would leave his post to turn it off, picked up a lighter, and lit some hay on fire so another guard nearby would leave his post, all so Bond could climb into a window.

IO is promising a good mix of these kinds of sprawling, open-ended Hitman-esque levels interspersed with exciting Bond action stuff, which made up the other chunk of the demo. Car chases and cover-based third-person shooting seem like pretty standard fare here (though it looked like a lot of fun), but there was also a part where Bond used his fancy gadget watch to hack into a cargo plane he infiltrated mid-takeoff. At that point, Bond could actually steer the plane left or right while engaging in a shootout in the cargo hold, sending crates and enemy combatants careening around the place in a really goofy manner.

If 007: First Light actually manages to combine that Hitman freeform stealth goodness with awesome setpiece moments without either side of the game getting old, it could very well be the best Bond game in decades. The competition isn't stiff, of course, but you can only play the opponent in front of you, as they say in sports. There are other elements of the game I'm not sure about, such as the James Bond origin story premise featuring an original, younger version of the agent. It also remains to be seen if the actual driving and shooting mechanics are any good, as engaging in gunfights in Hitman was never especially fun.

But, if we have to live in a world where Amazon owns James Bond, a world that will probably include a lot of mediocre Bond movies full of ads for Prime Air, I'll take what I can get.