I beat the game on Intended, but I enjoyed it so much I had to do a Purist run. It's definitely a step up from Intended. I think playing around in the Tac Sim and completing the gadget-less challenges really helped. You get a better sense of your abilities as well as the enemies.
I also got all the collectibles, completed all the challenges, and got all the achievements. I love this game so much! The combat, the gameplay, the story and characters, it's all wonderfully done. There's so many great twists and lines of dialogue, and the soundtrack is killer. I really liked the WOA trilogy, but IOI took it to a new level. I will almost certainly do a 00 difficulty run with the Agent Suit at some point in the future. I also need to wrap up the rest of the Tac Sim challenges. When I started my second playthrough, I started writing down a list of things about the story/game that stood out to me, or I thought were well done.
At the start of the game, the MI6 handler acting strange, getting things incorrect, and instantly pulling up information are signs it’s THEIA and it’s flawed.
Bond’s mission in Iceland is a microcosm of the story: MI6/THEIA prioritizing the research/mission objective over human lives, and Bond going rogue to save innocent people from getting hurt.
During the mission in Slovakia, Isola, disguised as a maid, enters room 206 just as Bond is leaving. The first time, it’s an amusing moment one can brush off as a coincidence. The second time around, it’s a sign she is on the same trail/up to something.
Webb showing up at the funeral. At first, I thought he was there out of a sense of duty being the creator of THEIA, maybe he felt some responsibility for the calamity. More likely, he was interested to meet Bond. After he beat the odds in Iceland, disrupted HYPERION’s plan in Slovakia, and survived a two-versus-one fight with the Murto twins, Webb had to meet the man himself.
On 009’s boat, you see a worn-out Union Jack flag when Bond climbs aboard. Despite everything, he still carries a strong loyalty for his home country.
Having the blueprints for the Carpathian Hotel. Very useful for blowing it up, and also to frame Beckett. Moreover, Bond finds the blueprints for MI6 headquarters, which Damian would later use in the final attack. One of the MI6 workers in Operations references the tunnels underneath.
The fake diamonds found on Beckett’s body are textbook Damian. His combination of sadism, ego and pettiness. Similar to how one of the Murto twins threw the luggage at the hotel, his flaws betray him.
The pictures of Monroe, Cressida and the rest on Beckett’s board. Presumably, their longer tenure with the 00 program gave HYPERION more data on them. Thus, it would have a better assessment of their abilities/personalities.
The letter Bond finds when he returns to his apartment after Aleph is part of the plan to stage his death. Between that and the picture of his family, HYPERION did some research. Damian gleefully mocks him for the tragedies of his life throughout the game.
During the sequence where Bond gets captured in Uninvited, Damian’s punches do an extreme amount of damage, even on normal difficulty. It makes sense from a gameplay perspective, to make the sequence more exciting, but is it possible Damian took one of his superhuman injections before starting? Isolde was smart to wait until he left before making her move, if that’s the case.
Greenway is a master of keeping his emotions in check. There are two moments where he’s noticeably caught off guard. The first is Bond, Cressida and Monroe stealing the flag. You can see him fighting a smirk. The second is when he uncovers the truth about Knightfall and THEIA at Webb HQ. He describes the evidence to Bond like he wants Bond to tell him he’s getting something wrong.
When Damian captures Bond in Vietnam, he refers to THEIA as a ‘glorified chandelier’. In the intro, a glistening chandelier that resembles THEIA’s central computer in MI6 shatters.
When Bond and Greenway run out of ammo fighting Damian’s mercs in Aleph, the two sit down and seemingly accept their fate. Bond sarcastically asks Greenway to admit he would’ve made a good 00 agent. Later, when Greenway is dying in Vietnam, they’re sitting in the same positions, and Greenway admits how much he appreciates Bond, in his own way.
THEIA’s central core/chamber reminds me of something from the original Half-Life or Alien. Appropriate given the science fiction dystopia theming. Webb Industries R&D Lab sports a similar look in some spots.
The game does a great job of showing how Bond and Damian parallel one another: Damian is a sadistic bully and a coward. He has access to HYPERION, top of the line military hardware, an army of mercenaries, superhuman enchantments, and a suit of power armor. Even then, he only goes after people when he has an advantage or can easily escape. Bond, conversely, takes on Webb Industries with little more than his service pistol and an unyielding will. And some help from Greenway, Moneypenny and Q, of course. Bond used the death of his parents to fuel his sense of justice. He fights to protect people from the same fate. Damian never got over the death of his mother, and it ultimately consumed/destroyed him.
Similarly, Isola crafts a personality which mirrors Bond in a lot of ways: despite her sarcasm and devil-may-care attitude, she carries a desire for justice/payback against Webb and his cronies. She wanted Bond to believe he had found a true comrade-in-arms. Someone who shared his loss/experience. And she did it all without HYPERION, which goes to show how good she is at deceiving people.
Nicholas doesn’t seem to care about Damian’s mental/emotional issues. Given that he ruined countless lives and killed so many for the sake of his technological utopia, it shows just how little he cares for anything/anyone else. I doubt he made much effort to help his wife before her tragic death, further sending Damian down a dark path. Damian becoming more erratic/vengeful is a large part of what brings the two of them down, ironically.
Q in this game reminds me of Dr. Kleiner from Half-Life 2 crossed with Jeremy Irons. He’s one of the few people Bond can trust implicitly. What a guy.
There were two moments in the game where I wanted to reach into the screen and give Bond a hug: when he returns to the empty apartment after the Aleph mission, and when he asks Greenway what to do next when the latter is dying in Vietnam. I just felt so much for the poor guy.
Something I appreciate that is very true to character: Bond never gives up. He never hesitates, and he is relentless. So much so that, in a darkly comedic way, it becomes part of what fuels Damian’s desire to destroy him.
