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- Reviewed on: 11/10/2008
- Updated on: 11/11/2008
- Released on: 11/04/2008
- Originally published on GameSpot: Legendary (Xbox 360) Review
When a first person shooter bungles moving and shooting, what does that leave room for? Great reloading? A potent save system? Awesome menus? Legendary is not a good game nor is it a so-bad-it's-good one. Its premise is sound enough: let loose a myriad of mythical brutes into our modern-day world and throw in a diabolical tyrant intent on ruling the earth. You at least have potential for a fun camp classic in the Clash of the Titans mold, but instead of delivering anachronistic thrills, Legendary piles poor gameplay mechanics onto overused shooter cliches, drying up all the juicy possibilities and leaving a dull, lifeless husk in their wake.
If you want to get the most out of Legendary's story, it's best not to think too hard: It's pure frivolity. As professional art thief Jack Deckard, you're hired to steal the mythical Pandora's Box from a New York City museum. But, as an entry on Murphy's Law in Jack's own PDA reminds us, what can go wrong will go wrong. Soon enough, griffons clog the skies and a gigantic golem constructed of cars and concrete is terrorizing a panicked public. Meanwhile, the incident brands a mysterious signet on Deckard's arm, which lets him absorb the life energy, or animus, from fallen creatures. The next step is obvious: Discover the truth behind his employer and kill some werewolves and minotaurs in the process. The concept has potential, but the story is insipid and doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. Why would Pandora's Box unleash such a limited collection of creatures? Why are the subways still running when the city is under siege by winged beasts? How does a mercenary, in one of many scenes featuring Legendary's cringe-inducing dialogue, forget that he's looking for a minotaur?
But coherence doesn't matter when the whole thing's just an excuse to grab a few guns and take aim at the nefarious beasties. To developer Spark's credit, a few of your mythological encounters are mildly fun, such as a boss fight versus a gigantic kraken that feels appropriately epic. Even some of the regular enemies have a strong concept behind them: Werewolves lithely jump from wall to wall, and the ghostly Nari can possess inanimate objects and use them as weapons (for example, a Nari uses a soda machine as a weapon during one of Legendary's more hysterical encounters). Some of the ensuing battles are legitimately fun; this is particularly true when werewolves are involved because their behavior is so unpredictable. In another interesting scenario, a Nari steals a handle from the wall just as you are about to turn it, forcing you to go retrieve it. Unfortunately, most of these scripted scenes are simply annoying, such as one in which you have to shoot the blades of an industrial fan before you're carved into a bloody pulp. And every battle--the good and the abysmal--are absolutely littered with design elements so atrocious, it's amazing that they could have made their way into a modern-day shooter.
The problems start with simply moving from one place to the next. Deckard can only hop a few inches off the ground, yet when sprinting, he leaps forward as though he's competing in the long jump. With such terrible jumping mechanics, it's a wonder that Legendary would even include platforming sequences, let alone the awful one thrown at you early on in the game. Should you even find a spot you think Deckard can easily hurdle, you'll discover countless invisible walls, or even worse, you'll get stuck on the various objects littering the cramped levels. The ease with which you can get hung up on the environment is rather astounding, and it's a big frustration in such battles as one in which you fight off a minotaur in a crumbling graveyard.
This is also one of many examples of Legendary's poor level design, which is not just highly claustrophobic, but also overflowing with ridiculous cliches. For a good half of the experience, your objectives consist of going some place (like the ever-popular sewer) to turn a handle so that you can go some other place (like the ever-popular warehouse) to open a door. Every closed door in the game that you can open is controlled by a security panel, and opening it is as simple as touching two wires. To do so, you dutifully hold a button down for six seconds or so; you don't need to enter a code, find a keycard, or perform a minigame. Why not just let the player open the door without the unnecessary padding? As for the handle-turning and lever-pulling tasks, even other shooters lend these mechanics some type of puzzle elements. Unless you count the few occasions where you glimpse a green-glowing object above or below you (hint: shoot it), there's nothing thoughtful about Legendary's non-puzzles.
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