Legendary

Written by Jason Young  on August 05, 2009

Review: More like Legendary garbage.

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On paper, the concept for Legendary is an awesome one. Secret societies, mythical creatures, and an object that people have been vying for for ages: Pandora's Box. Playing as art thief Charles Deckard, who accidentally opens Pandora's Box under a New York museum, players are assigned the tasks of discovering why mythical creatures are being released after he receives a mystical curse on his hand for opening the mysterious box and eliminating them, with the ultimate goal of resealing the box. However, therein lies the problem.

Being limited for the most part to New York subways, museum hallways and New York streets, most of the game's environments feel the same, lending a redundant feeling to the game. As a result the scope of the game feels awfully limited and not as epic as the title makes it out to be. While Legendary may have been set up to a series of games, the game's ending is so lackluster and predictable that you pretty much know what's going to happen every step of the way.



The next problem with the game is the its use of mythological creatures ranging from werewolves to firedrakes. While some of them are from Asian lore and others from European myths, the game never explains why they're there. They just appear and you shoot them. End of story. While this may work in some games, with the its supposed epic scope it definitely leaves you wanting more. Another misstep is the monster AI. Unlike a game like Dead Space, where every monster not only looks different but have their own behavior, only the werewolves in the game appear to have their own unique behaviors. Another thing is that the game never quite explains how to defeat each monster properly, leaving a lot to trial and error for the player.

That said, one of the game's sole positive features are the sheer number of crates, shelves, etc. that can be destroyed in any single level of the game. However, thanks to the game's environmental triggers even the the feeling of chaos and destruction that is going on around you feels limited. Monsters won't attack you unless you meet prespecified conditions and it's easy to predict what triggers what, avoiding monsters in the process. This easily ruins the game's atmosphere and prevents it from ever feeling truly chaotic. For the most part you won't have to worry about running out of ammo at an inopportune time or that monsters might attack you while you're completing a puzzle.

Additionally, Deckard never gains the ability to level up items or abilities in the game. You're pretty much stuck with what you start off with other than the number of weapons you can use in the game. Once you defeat a creature, you're able to drain them to heal yourself, make immaterial objects solid, repel objects or power different devices. Abilities never get stronger, which is truly a shame.

With all the negatives, you would think that there's absolutely no redeeming factors in the game. However, some of the visuals are pretty sweet. Creature models, most specifically griffins, rock and there's plenty of particle effects to sweeten the pot. Unfortunately, like with all things in the game, even the positives become negatives. Slowdown is rampant, even with the mandatory ten minute installation on the PlayStation 3 version, and there's plenty of texture ripping seen throughout the game.

Audibly, the game is just as dull with barely passable voice acting and redundant guitar riffs. The main problem I had was that the music would start playing before you're attacked, so you pretty much know what's in store for you at any given time.