Have you ever heard the expression,
“a man’s reach should exceed his grasp”? That should be developer Spark
Unlimited’s motto. After releasing their ambitious alternate-history shooter
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty to critical and commercial indifference in
February 08, the California-based studio continued work on their other project,
Legendary. Now the game is out, and the studio’s epic take on the Pandora’s Box
mythos is alternately awe-inspiring and incredibly frustrating.
Legendary puts players in the role
of Charles Deckard, art thief extraordinaire, who’s hired by a reclusive
millionaire to break into a museum in New York City, with the simple goal of
finding and opening an antique box deep in the museum’s basement. What Deckard
doesn’t know is that the box is, in fact, the real Pandora’s Box, and opening it
unleashes all manner of mythological creatures on the world. Now the thief finds
himself at the center of the action, caught in a three-way fight between the
creatures and the two secret societies that each want to control the box’s
power. Spark spent a lot of time and energy developing the game’s story, and it
shows. It might not be the deepest or most involved game storyline of all time,
but it’s written well and they’ve come up with a clever, unique take on the
subject matter.
Pandora’s Box itself is the focus of many
of the game’s plot points.
The developers have clearly taken
some classes at the Half-Life School of FPS Design, as Legendary resembles
Valve’s series in many ways. You’ve got the same 3-sided conflict (between the
player, the monsters, and the human soldiers) in each level; switching between
the two enemy types is nice for changing the combat pacing and style. Like
Half-Life, levels in Legendary are strictly linear paths, which may not be to
everyone’s liking, but which allows the developers precise control over exactly
what the player experiences. Again, some players might feel that this style of
game restricts their freedom, but in exchange you get some of the coolest, most
impressive set-pieces of any game in recent memory.
Despite the open-ended feel of some areas,
the player must follow a specific path
through the game. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is up to you.
With Legendary, Spark Unlimited has
proven themselves to be the undisputed master of the scripted sequence. To see
what I mean, look no further than the game’s opening sequence — Deckard’s escape
from the museum through the streets of downtown New York. This is the first time
you encounter the creatures you’ve unleashed, as a gigantic flock of griffons
assault the city streets in force, and it’s a truly awesome sequence. As you
make your escape, there are crowds of terrified people everywhere, griffons
eating people and dropping cars in your path, and the ground beneath your feet
is cracking and breaking. Eventually you witness the formation of the golem, a
towering monstrosity that pulls itself together out of cars and building debris
before crashing its way through skyscrapers. All the events are scripted, so
every time you play the level it occurs the exact same way, but it’s such a
powerful and epic sequence that it feels like you’re living through a big-budget
action blockbuster. The game is full of moments like that, but nowhere is it
more impressive than in the first few minutes.
It’s chaos in the streets when the
griffons attack, and as you run through the action you’ll witness plenty of
awesome moments.
Besides its epic scripted
sequences, the game holds a few aces up its sleeves. The monster designs are
really well-done, and each creature has its own unique way of moving, attacking,
and interacting with the environment. Many of the creatures can come at you from
all sides — some, like griffons and nari (evil fairy-like beings) can fly, while
others, like werewolves, can climb pretty much anywhere — which brings an awesome
sense of tension to the game, as you could literally be attacked at any time
from any angle. There’s also a bit more depth to the combat than simple
run-and-gun antics. While opening the box, Deckard gets a magical symbol, the
Signet, branded on his left hand, which grant you a few different combat
options. The Signet can store the magical energy (called Animus Vitae) that the
creatures leave behind when killed, and this energy can be used to either heal
Deckard or unleash a gravity gun-style blast of energy that propels enemies and
environment objects flying.
One of the coolest enemies you’ll
face is the Minotaur, who can and will smash through walls to get to you.
But it seems that for every thing
Legendary gets right, it gets something else wrong. For starters, fighting
against human soldiers is nowhere near as fun as fighting against the creatures.
The human AI is pretty good, and nothing about these sequences is done
particularly badly, it all just feels kind of bland, like every other FPS that’s
ever pitted you against special-ops enemies. While there are plenty of areas
that pit you against monsters against soldiers in a kind of three-way battle
that’s pretty fun, when it’s just you versus evil troops the game loses much of
its magic. And while I mentioned before that the game followed in Half-Life’s
footsteps, it does take one central element from a different source, the Halo
series, and that’s the two-guns-at-a-time thing. Some players love the way
systems like this force you to make strategic decisions about your armament, but
I would have much preferred the classic “walking armory” style, especially since
there are some guns that appear so infrequently that if you switch it out early
in the game, you might not see it again until about halfway through the story.
Some of the game’s problems are more
technical in nature. Clipping is a definite issue throughout; it’s somewhat easy
to get yourself stuck on the environment, or even worse, stuck between a wall
and an enemy or enemies. Clipping problems also account for some immersion-ruining
enemy death animations, like when you drop a werewolf and it gets stuck halfway
through the floor, twitching rapidly.
Other frustrating elements of the
game are due to questionable design decisions. Sometimes enemies will respawn as
long as you stay in an area, which would be understandable (still not great, but
understandable) if the path to leave the area were always obvious, but that’s
not always the case. There are few things more frustrating than being stuck in a
game environment with no clue how to progress, but one of them is being stuck in
said environment while you’re under constant attack from all sides. Also, as
much fun as the creature combat is, certain monsters’ have infuriating attack
patterns — like the nari, who are quick-flying creatures that can turn incorporeal
at will. When you’ve got six or eight darting around your head, draining your
health with quick attacks, and you’re trying desperately to draw a bead on one
while it’s solid, it’s easy to get exasperated.
With a creature as quick and hard to
hit as the nari, the spread attack of the shotgun is really your best way to go.
Legendary’s visuals aren’t flawless,
and there are certainly more technically impressive games out right now, but
they’ve done a great job of capturing the epic scale of the story. Some of the
game’s environments are a bit bland or repetitive or generic (like the sewer
stage), but others are simply gorgeous, with great design and awesome lighting.
Again, the monsters are a high point — each creature animates with a real sense
of power, weight, and aggression, so facing down a werewolf or griffon is a
genuinely intimidating experience. The human characters don’t look as great as
the creatures (especially their faces), but you’re really not dealing with other
humans all that often (except enemy soldiers, who wear combat gear and masks).
The game’s music is great. From the title screen on, the soundtrack is epic and
emotional — a mix of sweeping orchestral scoring and powerful guitar rock keeps
the energy high.
Legendary is a flawed game, to
be sure, but it does some things exceptionally well. It delivers action-movie
thrills in playable form, and it tells a pretty good story. It’s packed with
memorable scripted sequences, and facing off against mythological creatures is
exciting and satisfying. It does certain things in ways that not everybody is
going to love, but personally it’s become one of my sleeper favorites of the
year.
Gameplay: 7.6
Legendary plays pretty much like
you’d expect a first-person shooter to play, so no real surprises there. The
game’s real focus is on exciting, visceral combat against mythological
creatures, and this aspect of the game (despite some issues and concerns)
remains fun and engaging throughout.
Graphics: 7.4
The visual style of the game is
superb, and the scope of some scenes is unmatched. Animations are incredibly
well-done, and each creature feels like a real living being that wants to kill
you. There are some technical problems that drag the visuals down a bit, but
overall it’s a great-looking game.
Sound: 7.8
There’s some great music in this
game, from the rockin’ intro track on. The game’s voice acting is reasonably
good, for the most part, and the creature noises are spot-on. When you’re
walking through an area and you hear the infant-giggle sound of incoming nari,
it sends chills down your back.
Difficulty: Medium
The game’s no push-over, but the
fact that every enemy drops healing energy keeps it from getting too
challenging. There are definitely some tough sequences, but reasonably-placed
checkpoints keep you from ever having to redo too much.
Concept: 8.7
Using mythological creatures as
enemies in a first-person shooter is a great, unique idea, and seeing them run
rampant in modern-day cities is simply awesome. It sounds strange to say that
seeing a griffon fly off gripping a police cruiser in its talons is deeply
satisfying, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Overall: 7.5
The game tells a compelling story,
is loaded with exciting combat, and is chock full of memorable moments. It could
have used a bit more polish in certain areas, true, but as an interactive summer
blockbuster, Legendary delivers.
