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List Price: $59.99
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The Good Things
*Darn awesome story (Pandora's box opens, and monsters come out to invade New York; I got to wonder why nobody made a movie out of this first).
*Characters are okay (they remind me a little bit of the characters in "Resistance" though. Heck, the whole thing is a bit like "Resistance.").
*Excellent production design. The creatures are wicked (but without being overly scary or gross). The environments are big, detailed, and well-designed.
*Even though the gameplay is simple and straightforward, the levels are very well-designed. You can expect all sorts of crazy stuff to happen as you move along; it's very cinematic without relying on cutscenes.
*There is some interactivity in the environment. Enemies throw stuff, and you can solve some puzzles by moving/altering/destroying things.
*Aside from the usual range of weapons, you also get to use a few superpowers.
*Includes some online multiplayer games.
*Excellent graphics quality. There are loads of details in the textures, and there are lots of objects in each environment. Particle effects are great. One part featured a textured glass wall, and it looked surprisingly realistic. Character renderings are just okay, but everything else looks swell. This is all presented in either 720p or 1080i resolution.
*Sound design and quality are terrific.
*Excellent music; lots of good rock and metal tracks to accentuate the atmosphere and action (ala "Max Payne"). I'm gonna have to find a soundtrack for this game...
The Bad Things
*AI is not the greatest (ever see a soldier shoot a wall before?).
*Not for kids; rated M for bloody violence.
The Questionable Things
*Gameplay is extremely straightforward. You simply follow the waypoints and kill enemies along the way. Some puzzles are challenging, but it is still very linear. It's good if you want something straightforward, but after playing "Farcry 2" and "Fallout 3," it seems overly simplistic.
Wow, the first few minutes of gameplay blew me away. As soon as you start, you are immediately immersed in a world where all heck breaks loose and monsters sprawl out everywhere. From then on, it's a typical FPS. But for the most part, it does have georgeous graphics and a smart premise of a story.
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I myself, as a gamer, find myself able to enjoy any game I play. Alpha Protocol was claimed to be an incredibly buggy game, with last-gen shooting mechanics. I found the game to be a work of art, with respectable shooting mechanics and a fantastic conversation system. Fuel was claimed to be a terribly boring game, with very little reason to explore it's huge open world. I found the game to be one of the best racing games ever, and thought the immense open world full of things to explore and unlock. Blacksite: Area 51 was claimed to be a buggy, run-of-the-mill shooter, with a bland story, and brain-dead AI squadmates. I found the AI to be incredibly dependable, and the story to be the most unique and engaging plot-line in the history of first-person shooters.
Now we come to Legendary, a game that was claimed to be an overly linear and bland shooter. The game had incredibly mediocre review scores, and was claimed to play like a last-gen game. Even with these bad reviews, I wanted it. The story sounded awesome, and slaughtering werewolves sounded absolutely amazing. So I picked it up for $10 at Gamestop. I put it in my PS3, intending to play it for a brief 15 minutes to test out the gameplay mechanics.
One hour later...
I was immediatly hooked on the game. The game was a work of art as far as I was concerned. The introductory sequence was one of the most jaw-dropping gameplay sequences I had ever witnessed, right next to Uncharted 2's introduction. Once the intro was over, and you got to slaughtering werewolves and fire drakes, the fun never ceased to stop.
Let's start with the story. Charles Deckard, an international art thief, has been hired by a mysterious employer named LeFey, and his associate, Vivian, to steal a box from a museum basement in New York. Unknown to Deckard, the box is actually Pandora's Box, a box said to contain all the worlds evils. Deckard accidentally opens the box, releasing mythological creatures into the world, and burning a mysterious signet into his hand. Once Deckard escapes the museum, he finds giant griffons flying through the streets, werewolves feasting on human corpses, and fire drakes taking over the subways. Deckard then finds out that he and Vivian have been double-crossed by LeFey's and his private organization, the Black Order. On the run from LeFey, Deckard and Vivian must find a way to recontain the creatures before all of civilization falls.
The story is incredibly unique and engaging, thanks to some interesting characters and creatures. However, the best part of the story is in it's cinematic polish. As stated earlier, the games opening sequence is stunning. Deckard is escaping from a museum that's literally falling apart around him. Once he escapes, he must run across the street, while griffons are hurling cars at civilians (or vice versa). The game is a cinematic tour de force, and is right up there with other titles this year. Couple this with the fantastic script and the immense variety of creatures, and you have a game that impresses.
The gameplay is also impressive, with unique and varied gameplay that keeps you engaged until the end. Spark Unlimited has done a fantastic job of varying the enemy types throughout the lengthy campaign. There is a huge amount of creatures you'll have to face in the game. There are werewolves, alpha werewolves (stronger and faster werewolves), fire drakes, griffons, Nari (little fairies that possess objects and throw them at you), and minotars rampaging through the world. Each of these creatures take a different tactic to beat, adding to the immense variety. Shotguns are best used for werewolves. Fire drakes are vulnerable to the fire axe, as well as water. To hose them down, you can shoot the fire hydrants throughout the game. Nari can phase in and out of reality. An animus pulse (talk about it later) brings them to regular form. Proceeding this by a spray of assualt rifle bullets should do the trick.
As well as these creatures, you also have to face Black Order soldiers in fun human vs. human skirmishes. The enemy AI can be questionable at times, but only on rare occasions. The human enemies you face take cover intelligently, and you have to move from cover to cover to flank them. Even better are the three-way battles, which put Deckard vs. Black Order vs. creatures. These battles are an absolute blast to play through.
The mysterious signet in Deckard's arm brings about an interesting gameplay mechanic animus. See, the signet allows Deckard to see into another dimension. This dimension is full of Animus energy. See, animus is an energy that can heal you, and allow you to use an animus pulse. Killing creatures gives you animus to absorb. This may not sound like much, but animus changes the entire dynamic of the game. While most shooters use a regenerative health system that allows you to regain health by simply staying in cover, Legendary smartly doesn't use one. Considering that Animus energy is fairly rare, you feel like you're at the mercy of these mythological creatures. This causes you to depend on Animus energy, and make every time you run into a cloud of Animus a treat. The signet also allows you to send out an Animus pulse, which can be used against all creatures in the game. The pulse ability is a very useful mechanic. It's (in my opinion) the most effective way to take out Nari. It's also handy when you run out of ammo.
Overall, the gameplay of Legendary is incredibly varied and unique, and an absolute blast to play through. The cinematic polish and fun gameplay keeps you hooked until the very end.
Graphically, Legendary is a treat. The environments are loaded with detail, and the creature designs and animations are incredible. Seeing a griffon swoop in, grab a civilian, and eat it is intimidating, and the incredible detail in everything makes it all the more sweet. The game can also support tons of people and creatures at once, and the game handles it without a hitch. There are a few minor anti-aliasing issues here and there, but the game is still a great looking game.
The audio is fantastic as well. The weapon sound effects are great you'll feel the gunfire in your gut. The voice acting is fantastic, with a great script and believable acting. The music is kind of old school, but in a good way. It kind of reminds me of Doom. The fairly generic rock pieces actually fit suprisingly well. Overall, the audio is as polished as every other componet of the game.
The game is a suprisingly long game, covering 10 or more hours of total gameplay time. Luckily, the length doesn't affect the overall pacing of the game, which is masterful. There are little peices of data to collect throughout the game, which include information about creatures, weapons, objectives, and organizations, as well as intercepted text messages that are interesting to read. There are no trophies, but considering everything there is to do in the game, this doesn't affect replay value.
There is also a multiplayer componet, but there isn't anyone online to play with. There are approximately 0 people online 24/7. This is a bummer, but considering there is a lengthy campaign, data peices to collect, and three difficulty levels to try, I don't think you'd be missing much with multiplayer.
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Here is my review summary. The following is rated on a 10 out of 10 scale.
Story: 10
An absolutely fantastic story, with interesting characters and diverse creatures. The cinematic polish helps tremendously.
Graphics: 9.5
The amount of detail loaded into the environments is impressive. The amount of things going on at once is also impressive. A few anti-aliasing issues here and there, but the game as a whole looks amazing.
Audio: 10
The sound effects and the voice acting are fantastic. The music is old school, but in a good way think Doom.
Gameplay: 10
The immense variety, fast-paced gameplay, and the clever Animus system all add together to make a fantastic game.
Lasting Appeal: 9.0
With a lengthy campaign, multiple difficulty levels, and little peices of data to collect, there is a lot to do. The dead multiplayer hurts somewhat, and trophies would have helped.
Overall score: 9.5
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Great story, great character design, great animation, good gameplay, OK graphics that sums up this game. You play as Charles Deckard, an unlikely hero. The story starts with the Deckard opening Pandora's box unwittingly. Mythical creatures are unleashed into the world creating pandemonium gryphons, firedrakes, werewolves, golems to name a few. Your mission is to save the world and you get to kill these creatures in the process. You get a signet engraved on your hand when you opened the box and this serves as your source of power through the game. You can use the signet to acquire animus which can be used to restore health and also to do certain attacks. This also means there is no health packs to pickup as is typical for FPS. Instead you pickup the animus that is left behind from fallen creatures. The character design and animation is exceptional. I don't like the fact that cutscenes are not skippable. The game gets saved on a checkpoint basis not bad if you don't die much. The music is top class, but not everyone might like it. Subtle touches like people rescuing others and subway trains whizzing past you only to crash ahead are pretty good.
Overall a great game and a great bargain especially for the price it sells for now. Buy it!!
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I'd had heard bad reviews for this game before even getting it, but still wanted to try it out. It's a fun game to pick up once and a while, but don't expect anything really substantial. If you like shooting griffins and werewolves with machine guns, you'll have fun. Haven't finished it, but so far the story is it's premise: Shoot monsters in a city setting.
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great concept. great action. lots of great monsters to fight. problem is that i'm use to PS3 graphics like uncharted & the newer games. this is more along the line of early PS2 graphics.
