Because I am no longer capable of playing video games like a normal human being, when I fired up 007 First Light earlier this week to ostensibly play as a globe-trotting secret agent, I instead quickly found myself poking around its kitchens and break rooms looking at how everyone in the game was making their coffee.
And I'm pleased to report that, for the most part, everyone in this game is doing just fine! Maybe better than fine. Cast your eyes on these excellent espresso machines:
There are two variants of the same espresso machine found throughout the game. On the left is the home/office version, while on the right is a bigger, three-grouphead machine used in cafes and restaurants
That's a good espresso machine! It's got fictional in-game branding, and with buttons along the top in logical places, and a big lever for the steam wand. It looks very functional as well. The portafilter looks great, having cups on top being warmed by the boiler is also a nice touch and, with a hot water dispenser present and a pressure gauge on the front, I get the impression that whoever worked on this actually knew how an espresso machine worked, unlike those found in some other video games.
Coffee expert Jesse Raub helpfully tells me that the machine appears to be very closely based on La Speziale's Mini Vivaldi II, which might explain why it works so well. One of the biggest issues with so many other games’ coffee machines is that they're often nonsensical, collections of random buttons and visual cues that might present something that looks like an espresso machine at a glance, but which up close reveals itself to be something that simply wouldn't be able to make coffee. In this case, by just seeming to base First Light's machine on a real one, that problem is easily avoided!
My only criticism, then, is down to either the art team or, more likely, the game's inhabitants themselves. What's the big bag of coffee doing there if there's no grinder? If those are beans, you're not going to be able to use them, and if it's pre-ground coffee, purchased with the intent of using it in an expensive espresso machine, you have fucked up. THAT SAID: I have seen too many workplaces and homes where people have splashed out on an espresso machine and then had no intent on learning how to use it properly, so while having a 1kg bag of ground coffee is a very bad idea (not only will it not extract properly in the machine, but it'll go stale REAL fast), it's also something I can absolutely see being included in the various homes and offices you see this setup in throughout the game regardless.
Those who prefer their coffee dripping all morning and tasting like an ashtray are also being looked out for, as the game also includes good old-fashioned drip coffee machines. Presumably the above is for use by the same character who has the blender and protein shakes everywhere, because for them, the joys of taste and flavour are secondary to crunching numbers and maximising gains (in this case, caffeine intake).
Below is an example of another one of these 'cup of Joe' stations in action; not only does it feature a different colour scheme on the machines, which is a nice touch, but we can see the pots themselves as well, along with some sugar. This looks exactly like you'd expect a workplace coffee setup to look!
Actually, while we're here looking at screenshots from kitchens, can I quickly mention how nice the kitchen is in this safehouse? Architecture in video games is nearly always prioritising space and level design, and so rarely comes across as being something "real" or even liveable, but this kitchen looks exactly like the kind of kitchen you'd expect from an expensive London apartment. The scale of it, the amount of storage, the bench space, the appliances; this absolutely looks like something you'd see in an aspirational architecture or interior design video, so good job!
Wonderfully, the game doesn't just make a couple of machines and call it a day. There are more! Not too far into the campaign Bond finds himself in a smuggler's marketplace in the Mauritania desert where the locals, short on amenities in the rusting hulks of old cargo ships, are brewing themselves cups of coffee (and tea, more on that soon) on stovetops:
Later in the game, situated in the dystopian corporate offices of a military arms manufacturer, we have an example of an automatic coffee machine (which grinds, stores milk and produces loads of different types of coffee at the press of a button), the ideal coffee solution for a company that values aesthetics and perceived cost over the actual quality of the coffee being produced. Again, this looks real and workable, a sign that the art team knows their coffee, or at least cared enough to do some research on how coffee machines worked before making some for the game.
Note that these cold, glistening halls aren’t just home to expensively terrible coffee machines that are pretending to make passable coffee, they’re also home to even more terrible coffee machines that don’t even bother. There aren’t many of these to be found in the game, but when you find one of these 7-Eleven-ass units, you just know the security guards and cleaners on this floor are having a very bad time.
All of which is leading me to my favourite device in the game, and the one that shows IO's artists really knew what they were doing when it came to making First Light's coffee: Q's manual espresso machine (below). Every other unit in the game (outside the desert stovetop kettles) makes coffee electrically; it's either got computer programming or, at the very least, needs power, circuits and/or motors to work. This lovingly-maintained antique relies solely on physics and that big lever, which is used to push pressurised water through the coffee. To have it in the game at all is neat. To have it belong to Q, a man whose job is literally building the latest gadgets, while trapped in a game whose story centres around the dangers of adopting and trusting in modern technology, is a very nice touch.
I love all of this! The reason I like peering into this one particular subject of set dressing over and over is not just that I've become an insufferable coffee weirdo in middle age; it's that checking out how closely the art team pays attention to coffee can serve as a window into how they feel about decorating the rest of the game. If, like me, you find yourself spending hours poking your nose into a game's quieter corners, admiring the craft and the work that's gone into them, it can be so rewarding to find that world to appear real and lived-in, full of secrets and flourishes, especially when it concerns something you're interested in! For me that's coffee, but I can also tell that 007 is full of detailed stuff for all kinds of sickos, from audio visual nerds to book collectors.
I'd be remiss to let this blog end without an acknowledgement that, while there's plenty of coffee to go around, the game is largely set in the UK, and so there are still lots of options for tea-drinkers as well. A particular favourite of mine is this office setup at MI6, which aside from the 'Your Nan's House' decorations on the teapot and cups is again very fully realised. There's multiple varieties of tea, there are spoons, there's some sugar, a kettle (not sure where it's plugged into, but whatever) and, most importantly of all, some bikkies.
All in all, a great job! And testament to a level of detail that you see throughout First Light. As you'd maybe expect from the folks who made Hitman, the entire game is full of quiet spaces that are begging to be explored, and I've been having as much fun checking out newspaper headlines and listening in on fake radio broadcasts of the Manchester Derby as I have knocking dudes unconscious.
