I'm initially going to review
the first five episodes of this game, ignoring
the last episode. I'll get to that later. Legendary
was a game I was really looking forward to in
2008 from Spark Unlimited. Then reviews came;
IGN a 2.5/10, Gamespot 3.5/10, Eurogamer 2/10.
The game was completely rubbished and, as such,
barely sold. How could this happen when the
graphics and monsters all looked so great in
the promo material? Clearly, Spark hadn't paid
the top review sites enough for positive reviews
because this is the single most under-rated
game I've ever played. In fact until the final
episode I was looking at scoring it at least
a 7/10. Same as what I recently scored STALKER,
although I enjoyed Legendary much more.
Legendary isn't revolutionary.
It's an old skool shooter, with no unique bells
and whistles. You do get type of special ability
in your arm (named Animus) that you can use
anytime to push enemies away or heal yourself.
You charge it up by collecting monsters' souls.
And it's a great little idea, but not really
enough to get brownie points. Spark needed to
give upgrades during the game and have this
arm do a bit more. Most of the gameplay is spent
with two weapons, mostly machine guns that get
more powerful through the game and a shotgun.
They're both very effective and great to play
with - Spark were spot on with the weapons,
and there's tonnes of ammo through the game.
Probably too much.
There aren't a lot of monsters
in this game, it really could have done with
some more, but all those that are used are good.
Werewolves and humans are the most common, with
werewolves really fun to fight. There are also
Minotaurs and Griffins that look fantastic,
but aren't in the game enough times sadly. They
do take a lot to take down so perhaps Spark
considered them more mini-bosses. But I would
have had them in the game a little more often
with less health.
Their behind the scenes videos
of bosses and monsters look amazing, such as
Golem, a giant beast as tall as a building completely
made up of cars and debris lifted all around
you. Or the Kraken, a huge water monster with
tentacles sprawling into the sky. And they were
both really impressive once you go up against
them.
IGN complained that the monsters
are all random, although they clearly didn't
pay any attention to the story because it's
all explained. Besides, Painkiller and Serious
Sam had completely random enemies and didn't
take themselves too seriously. Legendary does
take itself a bit more seriously and features
quite an interesting storyline.
The game begins with Pandora's
Box being opened and Griffin's attacking New
York. You're on foot running through the debris
and chaos as people and cars are lifted all
around you. Then the giant Golem appears. It's
an absolutely epic beginning to a game, one
of the best starts I've played. It felt like
your latest cgi-rich blockbuster. After mulling
around in the underground of Ney York, which
was quite creepy, the third episode takes you
to an English Cathedral with an old town built
around as you join your team-mates in trying
to reach a hidden laboratory. Then you return
to the British Headquarters as it's under attack
from Griffins and Werewolves, before returning
to New York. All the levels look great and you
can tell it's the Unreal Engine 3 with it's
heavy post processing and dirty colours. I've
played much worse looking UE3 based games.
85% of the way through this
game and I simply cannot understand why this
game got panned. The gameplay is fun, the story
is interesting, the graphics and settings all
look great. The typical problems of no quicksave
exist, but this is a console focused game so
typical console-crap is to be expected. It does
have mouse movement issues, being very jumpy.
So jumpy in fact the game gave me motion sickness
a while after I turned it off. But nothing major
- it's a simple shooter that does nothing new
but provides a fun experience.
THEN, you get to episode six
and it falls apart. The Kraken boss, right before
episode six, I tried so many damn times and
was a very frustrating trial and error boss.
Cheats are needed. Then right as episode six
starts I get constant floods of yellow light
and can't see a thing when I use my ability
or get struck by a werewolf. I play on with
god mode enabled and make damn sure not to get
hit by anything. Then the final level has an
elevator that you fall through on the PC version.
And it's not just a bug some people get - EVERY
PC version has this bug. No patch. Game cannot
be finished. There is an easy workaround in
the config settings, but that's not the point.
Clearly Spark didn't bother to do a single playthrough
of this game on the PC, and a really simply
patch would have fixed it.
Overall, I'd probably give
the game 7.5 without the final episode bugs.
Rating: 7.5 without bugs, otherwise
6.0/10
Review
by [Kona]
To fix the elevator
bug:
Open the PandoraEngine.ini (\Documents\My
Games\Legendary\PandoraGame\Config-Folder) and
search for "MaxSmoothedFrameRate=300"
and change the value to 30.
