Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Been there, done that"

First Persons Shooters are literally flooding today's video game market. Mostly set in Military/War settings, it's refreshing to hear of one that attempts to break the typical conventions of the FPS genre. Then we get games like Legendary. It tries to add a different mix of enemies and mechanics, but in the end all it adds are typical shooter cliches, poor control, bad level-design, and a story that makes as much sense as "1+1 = potato"

The game starts you off as Jack Deckard, who is hired to break into the more secure levels of a museum to steal Pandora's box. As you approach you awaken the evil inside the box and instantly the skies of New York are flooded with giant griffons and literal anarchy has reigned upon the city as earthquakes and tremors leave buildings and cars destroyed in their wake and the box has branded you with a signet on your arm as well. You then seek out your this mysterious employer to discover what his true ploy was. The story, starts out decent enough, but the game never actually picks up, and basically falls apart on itself in the end. It also does not help that the dialog in the game can be noted as cringe-worthy at best. When playing the game it's best to not think to hard on the story, because in the end, it's going to disappoint.

The game sets you up on what could be something truly unique. You are confronted by a slew of different mythological creatures and each one needs to be disposed of differently. Werewolves are methodical, climbing walls and spontaneous in behavior and need to be decapitated to truly die. Minotaurs charge at you with ferocity and must be successfully kited, to wound their vulnerable backside. Each of the creatures that were unleashed have different weaknesses and is a nice touch to the game. Also you combat your employer's private army, which is only a ruse to stock up on ammo they drop. Enemy A.I. for these soldiers for most part is pretty stupid. Walking into your gunfire, not taking a cover spot that is directly in front of them, etc. It's pretty sad hows soldiers will demolish your health without effort, but you are able to shrug off 12 swipes to the face from a werewolf.

But, one would think they would have some out of this world weaponry, gadgets and/or skills to dispose of your adversaries, no? Prepare for downer, Legendary only offers 8 typical weapons that are seen in just about every FPS title before it. Pistol, Shotgun, SMG nothing new here, not even some type of secondary fire. Then there is the signet on your arm. Something that could've been very interesting, is dumbed down to two functions. Healing yourself and a knock back move, which I used probably 6 times only because I needed to. As you kill the mythical enemies they drop Animus essence that recharges your Signet, which will probably be used solely for healing since there are no other means to in the game.

Limited weapons and missed opportunities on your arm are the least of Legendary's problems. The game suffers from poor level design as well. Every area is a constrained singular path to your next goal offering little in the sense of exploration, not to mention invisible walls blocking your path every which way. Most of your objectives, to no surprise, involve moving to the next area or hitting a switch in one area and backtracking to the next. Also the game is littered with control panels that MUST be hacked, which only require you to hold down a button for 7 seconds. In another effort to truly dumb down the player what you have to shoot or activate is usually highlighted bright green, so if you get stuck, you only have yourself to blame...unless you're stuck in a wall.

Yet still there are a number of questionable flaws that litter Legendary such as Flame Throwers able to decapitate werewolves, aiming sensitivity is completely off, and how aiming down the sights is more inaccurate than hip fire. Atop of that the awful control of your character. The fact you can jump makes no sense, seeing as you only get about 2 inches of hang time. Also the poor level design and control will make you get stuck in the environment plenty of times during those annoying minotaur battles.

Graphically Legendary can be described as "muddy." Textures of your surroundings are very bland and lack character and your weapons like downright flat. Pop-in bears its ugly head as well. Sound on the other hand is decent enough but you weapon's own distinctions are off.

Once the game is complete, which will take no more than 6 hours, the game ends with the idea of a sequel, but its been four years and due to this game's poor sales, that ain't happening. There also is Multiplayer, but I cannot comment because it is a ghost town.

Legendary gives us a few things: and Interesting start to a story that has yet to be told and interesting enemies. But what it actually leaves us with is Poor A.I., Limited weaponry, Muddy Visuals, Confined and atrocious level designs, and a short uninteresting campaign. Do yourself a favor and avoid buying this game, rental should be the only option for games like this.