Proof that Pandora’s Box should not be opened
Legendary tells the story of Charles Deckard, an art thief who is duped into stealing Pandora’s Box. When he inadvertently opens it, he releases hordes of beasts thought to be fictional – such as werewolves and gryphons – into an unprepared modern world. A full scale war between man and myth begins, and it is quickly complicated by the actions of powerful secret societies. As the person responsible for releasing this terror, Deckard’s unwittingly becomes the only person capable of containing it once more and saving civilization from being destroyed by the terrifying creatures.
First person shooters flood the console market year after year. A few great and some good help set the standard for the others to follow. Then there are the awful ones that never should have been created, shipped or bought by anyone. Legendary is unfortunately, the latter.
You start out by trying to steal Pandora’s Box and big surprise, the world is in danger after he accidently opens it. The plot is hardly original as the whole Pandora’s Box story has been around for ages and been used by countless games and films in the past. The story isn’t that bad as it sets the tone for the game, although they really shouldn’t have bothered since it has some many issues.
The first problem the game suffers from is incredibly dumb AI. I could stand still and turn around, shooting the enemies who try to kill me and I survive every single time. There’s no challenge to it, you don’t have a reloading health meter like in Call of Duty/Halo but you do get energy from each enemy you kill and you can replenish your health with it or use it as an attack power. It’s all rather silly if you ask me.
You are given a jump button but the jump is pathetically weak and also you can’t jump on small objects like boxes unless the game is scripted for you to do so. One example is that I’m trying to jump up on a ledge by going on a small box and then leaping, but it wouldn’t let me…instead I had to shoot an object that is flashing for it to come down and for me to get up on the ledge. It’s just far too linear and straightforward, there’s no variety involved.
Simple things like strafing and firing your gun feel incredibly poor and awkward. They couldn’t even nail the basics of an FPS, instead making it handle terribly and not much fun to play. Enemies are detailed enough but their patterns never change, you can guess exactly what the enemy will do before it does anything…it’s that predictable. The game even has a waypoint that shows you where to go if you get lost by clicking in the left thumbstick, while it was needed in a game like Dead Space…there’s no need for it in Legendary since it’s linear and straightforward.
Levels repeat a certain cycle, enter a room…kill enemies, find their spawn point and put it out then move on. It just becomes increasingly repetitive and very quickly, I was bored of it after the first level or so. There’s just nothing original or fun about the game, it lacks anything that feels or looks good. After the horror that was Turning Point, you would have thought that the team might have learned a thing or two and not repeat their mistakes. I wish I could say that was true, but it would be a big fat lie. Instead it just seems like they have replaced Nazi’s with Griffons and Werewolves, sure I know it’s an entirely different game…but it still lacks the same quality that Turning Point had.
The game’s visuals are probably its strongest feature as it uses Unreal Engine 3, yet it still looks pretty poor in places. Character models especially look bad and don’t look like they belong on a system as powerful as the PS3. It’s just one minefield of disappointment with Legendary, it never has a fun moment and feels like a chore to play. This isn’t how games are meant to be, they are meant to be fun, original, quirky and have some small gimmick perhaps. Legendary lacks all these essentials and you can tell within the first 10 minutes of playing.
The Verdict
Legendary had potential to be great, but so did Turning Point. Sadly the team haven’t learned from their mistakes and have produced this god awful FPS that will literally bore you to death. Avoid at all costs.
