Legendary

While the formula feels a bit dated now, the result is a shooter that is still incredibly fun. [Dec 2008, p.90]

This could well be a surprise hit for those willing to invest the time. Despite a lack of polish, there's a relatively deep story for fans of mythology.

Now that I’ve beaten the game and stand back to surmise my feelings, I can honestly say that although there were a few times when my blood boiled and I was tempted to reach for the teabags, cups and saucers(because of cheap moments); Legendary is actually quite compelling and solid fun.

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.

Legendary is sure to be lost in the shuffle this holiday season, which is sad because it's actually pretty good.

Accept that Legendary won’t wow you with the gameplay polish of a budget-busting title, and you’ll likely have a good time fighting to shut Pandora’s precious package.

When I first heard of Legendary I was honestly very excited for the concept of shooting mythological creatures and monsters with guns because it is a rare concept. The final product has me on the fence with is it a worth while game to recommend for first person shooter nuts like me, or to leave it be and forget you ever saw it. As a person who enjoys Clive Barker’s Jericho for its unique first person shooter story and gameplay mechanics I would say this is an easy rental.

Everything about Legendary from the story to the set pieces screams epic proportions and honestly I really wanted to like the game a lot more. However, the small setbacks really take away from the experience and cause the game to go from legendary (pun highly intended) to just plain decent.

Legendary isn’t the most involved or technically excellent shooter to come out this season—Left 4 Dead and Gears Of War 2 outclass it. But it’s a fun change of pace with some extremely satisfying combats.

Legendary is an acceptable, sometimes frustrating game, a simple entertainment until the great first-person shooters of the year are released.

Spark has produced a shooter that crams as many fun monsters and insane action packed scripted events as possible into one game and lets gamers shoot them to their hearts content, which makes it perfect for a weekend rental.

Legendary is by no means awful — it’s just about as vanilla as first-person shooters get. It all wraps up with a completely unsatisfying “wait for the sequel” type cliffhanger. We’ll see.

Legendary’s problems would be easily forgivable if the rest of the package came together well enough but it doesn’t. With only four different enemies to fight for most of the game (one is a second breed of Werewolf), a mostly useless selection of guns and annoying bosses paired up with a story that doesn’t go anywhere the game fumbles its execution totally.

Beside some drawbacks in graphics and speech the idea around Pandoras box - for itself really great - cannot get off. The world isn't really interacting with the player, the gameplay is very sterile.

A frustrating mix of good and bad - we'd take it over "Blacksite" and co though. [Christmas 2008, p.63]

The problem with this is that Spark is relentless at throwing a huge number of beasties your way, crowding you into a corner and ripping you to shreds. There's not enough breathing space for you to heal yourself and absorb energy to use it effectively as a defensive measure. To say this had us throwing the controller at the telly and cursing is an understatement.

Spark has made a better game this time around than its previous attempt but it still isn’t on par with the elite of the genre. In the end, Legendary is a cool idea wrapped inside an average shooter.

There are just way too many better shooters available to make this game worth your time and money.

Even though this game is built on top of a great mythology, the one about Pandora's Box unleashing chaos onto the world when opened, developer Spark never manage to make the actual game interesting in any way. The game structure is linear, the presentation is bleak at best and the gameplay is rather poor. This sums up to one mediocre experience.

Though it brings gusto, wit and a sharp eye for horror cliches, Legendary is still at its core a clunky, mediocre first-person shooter that’s likely to vanish under the mountain of topnotch actioners shipping this month.

The Minotaur says with his sad cow eyes glistening “Don’t worry guys, everything will be alright”, but the Minotaur knows it’s not going to be alright… it’s not going to be alright at all.

The only reasoning I can see behind playing Legendary is to see the awe-inspired mythological creatures in action.

The dev team has an eye for spectacle – a towering golem comprised of cars and other metallic detritus is a visual highlight – but these moments mostly serve to illustrate how dull your actual actions are by contrast. [Dec 2008, p.98]

A game that simply doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Constantly spawning enemies. A lead character with no hands. Unskippable cut-scenes you must continually sit through. Solid walls that light can leak through. NPCs that can be shot at, but not harmed. Action sections that feel like a movie you just happen to be walking through, and not interacting with.

What we've ended up with is a shambles, a game that looks boring and plays badly - a game that feels as ancient as the mythical beasts that you must vanquish.

Every hour, you are presented with the ideas that the developer had but simply couldn’t afford, and that only serves to make Legendary’s unrelenting run-and-gun approach harder to swallow. [Christmas 2008, p.96]

The overall experience left us with a bad taste in our mouths and an almighty “WTF?” resonating from our lips. Sigh.

So many cliches, so little time. [Issue#40, p.103]

Constantly spawning enemies… Solid walls that light can leak through… A bad first-person shooter experience.

This frustratingly bad first-person shooter is not the stuff legends are made of.

All together, Legendary had a decent idea behind it that's been marred by some poor design decisions. Shooting and controls feel ok, but everything you shoot at, interact with, or run through is lackluster, broken, or just plain boring.

All things told, the game reeks of derivation.

The gameplay comes across as messy and incomplete, the arrangement of hazards and threats from monsters is ineffective at best and boring at worst.

By the time I'd defeated my 10th werewolf, I was already tired of needing to cut or shoot its head off so it didn't regenerate. By the time I defeated my 200th, I just wanted to turn the game off.

Legendary is the gaming equivalent of cheap supermarket own-brand beans, but instead of costing eleven pence it costs the same as a prime steak cooked by a top chef. It's a bad, bad game. One of the worst I've played on this generation of consoles, in fact. In that regard, at least, the title is surprisingly accurate.

The basic ideas behind Legendary were quite sound. Unfortunately it seems they were never properly realised, instead cobbled together with the digital equivalent of shredded newspaper and masking tape.

Legendary is something of a marvel. While I've played a lot of terrible first-person shooters, I never realized that there would be one that missed the mark so completely.