Legendary Review – Unique Creatures and Level Designs Do not Go Far Enough

Legendary

Score: 6.3

Systems: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Genre: First-person shooter
Length: 8 hours
Difficulty: 5
Developer: Spark Unlimited
Publisher: Gamecock Media Group
Release Date: 11/4/08

Pros
– Enemies have weaknesses and require unique ways to fight
– Levels have basic puzzles and some different requirements
– Interface includes cursor to guide you through levels so you do not get lost

Cons
– Not enough types of enemies
– Most tasks are very simple
– Poor sound effects
– Only one multiplayer mode

Far too many first-person shooter games, such as Resistance 2 and Left 4 Dead, devolve into repetitive levels where you repeatedly kill the same basic creatures for the game's entirety. There are sections of Legendary that fall into this pattern of boring, unimaginative gameplay. However, the game attempts to create a varied experience by including varying level designs and enemies with unique weaknesses that require different approaches to defeat. The main problem is that these efforts do not include a great deal of depth. While it is not a spectacular game, it does provide some interesting gameplay that will keep you engaged more often than not for the campaign's duration.

The story starts with your character opening up Pandora's Box, which releases a horde of mythological creatures that start wreaking havoc on the world. In the process, he also gets injured by the box, which grants him the power to use enemy's life energy, or Animus. Each creature you kill will release Animus that you can gather. Then you can choose to heal yourself or strike enemies with a pulse attack that stuns them. This system sets up a minority risk and reward system where you must decide if it is more valuable to increase your health or strike an enemy to help deal a brutal killing blow.

The creatures you fight are not just novel because they follow a mythology theme. Many enemies have unique weaknesses, which you must exploit to defeat them. It is fun to have to approach these enemies differently, but the creativity portfolio is not broad enough to ensure you will not face the same creatures too many times. You may approach the creatures in various ways, but the game begins to wear on after you initially fight each creature a few times.

One of the first enemies you encounter is the firedrake who spews flames from his mouth and throws flaming boulders at you. You could wait to shoot them when they pause between attacks to defeat them, but you can also release water from fire hydrants or a building's plumbing to extinguish their flames and kill them. You can also go one step further and wait amid the flowing water for additional firedrakes to approach you and watch them crumble from the water that extinguishes them.

Werewolves are ferocious fighters that will regenerate unless you decapitate them. There are the plain vanilla freshly shorn lycanthropes that attack in packs and the hairy versions that are much tougher. Applyingly putting hair on their chests means a lot more than just drinking beer. To stand a chance at surviving an encounter with a minotaur, you need to avoid their charges, and follow up by shooting them in their vulnerable backs. There are also ghosts that will throw objects at you and are only vulnerable when they briefly materialize to attack you directly.

While these creatures stand out among the crowd, there are also some boring enemies that you'll want to dispose of as quickly as possible just to avoid getting bored. While the griffons are huge and put up a good fight that would make their ma and pa proud, fighting them is not particularly memorable. Just keep circle strafing and Animus pulsing them to keep them at bay while you put as much lead in them as you can. There are also some enemy soldiers that are pretty simple to dispose of. Just hide behind cover and peek out to cap them one at a time.

Level designs provide some variety with simple puzzles and interactions with the environment. Some of these tasks provide some much needed variety to the shooter, but they are all very basic and require little thought. A few of them occur so often and are so mundane (you only need to hold down a button to proceed further) that they are hindrances rather than contributions to the game.

You'll often need to clear your path through levels. Some areas require you to open a gate by climbing up a building, dropping down behind the gate, killing some enemy troops and pressing a button to open the gate for other troops to follow through. One level includes a brief platforming section that oddly was not anywhere else in the game. There are also some devices you can charge with Animus energy to temporarily trick monsters to attack enemy soldiers. These interactions help to break up the action, but none of them are complicated enough to make you marvel at the game's design and complexity.

At times the game presents a great sense of scale as you fight to stop a golem the size of the Empire State Building. This level is quite unique because you need to set up some EMP pulse machines to stun and tear the metallic creativity apart. You'll run around the level and charge up these machines with Animus energy you gather from killing the level's many creatures. Giving you a purpose in addition to killing everything in sight helps to keep the experience fresh.

While those interactions can be fun, other sections feel like they are included to simply break up the game's action. Almost every door you run into requires you to bypass its security controls by holding a button down. You clear away boulders that block doors by simply holding down a button. Flames that block your path are quickly doused by slowly turning a crank. Numerous sections require you to just shoot an object, such as a rope or wooden plank, to clear your path. These basic interactions do very little to make the game more interesting and only slow down the game's pacing. They might as well just ask you a key to unlock a door.

Another problem is that many of the environments are not very interesting. You'll combat enemies in cities, underground tombs and bases, but none of the locations are very interesting. If there were more preset interactions, such as large conflicts or explosions, or if you had to use the environment in novel ways against your enemies then the levels would be more interesting.

The game's multi-player game is limited to only one mode. Two teams of four players must kill werewolves and collect their Animus. Then they must race back to their base to recharge some generators. It's actually a somewhat novel idea, but the fact that there is only one mode is a bit absurd. There are also only 4 maps, which makes me think that they did not have sufficient time or interest to make the multiplayer offering more compelling.

Overall the game's graphics are above average. The game utilizes great textures and has a solid framerate. However, there are also quite a few awkward animations that appear to be missing some frames. People also frequently give distracting blank stares. The game's sound is disappointing with many of the weapons and explosions lacking convincing sound effects.

Legendary includes unique creatures with distinct weaknesses and attack patterns, but more enemy types are needed to avoid redundant encounters. Some levels also include basic tasks to change the game's pacing from its run and gun action, but none of it is very complicated or interesting. It seems that the developers understood that they needed to include some level variety to keep your interest, but they just did not take it far enough. Legendary could have been much better if the developers spent a few more months further delving into their ideas to ensure the final product was more memorable.

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