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Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

Game Review | December 30, 2008 11:10 am

It seems simple enough - don't open the box, but if you are a high paid thief who doesn't have any idea what you are opening you will do what you are paid to do.

In Legendary, Charles Deckard does just that; he opens Pandora's box unleashing a multitude of mythical creatures on modern society. He wasn't trying to cause the destruction of mankind, just make a couple extra bucks. The head of the Black Order, a Mr. Lefey (good luck remembering his first name as they only mention it once), has you open the box because he thought you would be killed when it opens. Unfortunately for him, he was very wrong...

You emerge from the experience not only alive, but with a strange signet on your hand that grants you power. Exiting from the museum where Pandora's box was located, the city is in utter chaos. Your first experiences with the mythical creatures are griffins munching on random people and a massive golem which was created mainly from vehicles strewn about the street.

If the whole game was as incredible as the first level or two, this would be one of the better games this year. The first level and first part of the second were exciting, if a bit nerve-wracking. Your first encounter with a werewolf makes you feel as if you aren't going to survive. Its a shame that the werewolf becomes the "standard" monster you encounter throughout the rest of the game.

This is one of those games that you feel can be incredible, but the developers just didn't flesh out the story, or even all the graphics, as well as they could. Most of the graphics were very good, the most of the monsters were very detailed and looked quite real. In an encounter with a griffin (body of a lion, head of an eagle) while blasting away at close range with a shotgun feathers and blood came out upon impact, a nice touch. However the human characters looked as if they were made with older graphics design (circa 2005) and the werewolves looked more like giant hairless rodents.

The story was so-so, with only decent voice acting, but the worst part was you can not skip a cut-scene. This wasn't horrible, but when the checkpoint was located before a cut-scene, this feature became annoying quickly. The story could definitely use a little more meat on it, although the basic "release hell on earth and pit two secret societies against each other" would seem meaty enough, it just leaves too much to the imagination and makes you feel as if you don't really know anything. The game also finishes with a bit of a twist and leaves many more questions unanswered, plus the feeling that the developers were planning on making Legendary 2 from the beginning.

Deckard's "amazing" power really only consisted of stealing the lifeforce from dead critters and using it either to heal himself or a kind of weak Jedi Force Push that only was helpful when surrounded by monsters and needing to run for cover. The non-action portion of the gameplay was also lacking. Apparently everyone from New York to London uses the same numeric keypad for security and Deckard happens to be awesome at hacking them: bust open the keypad and hotwire the only two wires that aren't touching. Aside from that, turning a wheel, and an occasional switch, open all other obstacles in your path.

Another so-so feature on the game was multiplayer. I truly felt this could have been better than any of the other multiplayer games that have come out (COD, Halo). The fact that there was only one mode, four maps and requires 6 people to start playing immediately killed it. The premise of not only having two teams but a third "monster" team in the mix was just freaking awesome. The couple dozen matches I have played were just utter chaos with the occasional time I fought alongside the other team killing werewolves until I realized that my enemy was right next to me! The inclusion of only this one monster with the one mode, which played somewhat like a capture the flag mode, felt like a quick throw on to the game. Multiplayer just for the sake of multiplayer should never be included on a game.

Overall the game was interesting, but not enough for a second playthough. I gave the game a 5 out of 10 mainly due to the unique story and decent gameplay - everything was mediocre but not really bad. However if you are a waffler the score is massively different...

Wafflers:

DON'T BUY THIS GAME UNLESS YOU WANT TO SCREAM (or it has been patched)

This game is terrible for achievements, the difficulty achievements don't stack - requiring three (yes 3) times completing the game. The other fun item to note is that the difficulty achievements are glitched. After spending 12 hours or so beating the game on the hard mode I got the wonderful achievement unlocked sound showing I completed Episode 8, but did not receive the achievement for completing the game on the hardest difficulty. After playing the last level again (which was the most difficult) I still did not receive any achievement. After some research online - this has affected quite a few other gamers, with no real correlation as to why. Maybe they will fix this with a patch, but considering how many people out there care about the achievements you would think they would have checked this a bit better before releasing the game. I certainly don't want to play the game all the way through just to NOT get an achievement. Consider this article a notice that anytime someone mentions the game Legendary I will be bitter and rude until I get my achievement points.

Moving on to the multiplayer achievements.....About 250 points are from ranked multiplayer matches, some of which require 8 people instead of the 6 to get a ranked match started. Be prepared to wait for hours at times for a match if you aren't boosting/playing with friends. As stated previously the multiplayer is a blast, but with only one mode and four maps it gets old quickly. Many achievements seem near impossible without total game mastery - three different achievements require you to kill so many people, werewolves or both WITHOUT DYING THE ENTIRE MATCH. Yes, you can not die once. Good luck on those!

As for the waffles out there I give this game a 1.5 out of 10. No one should have to play a whole game through on hard wondering if the achievement will unlock. If they fix the glitch I would bump the rating up to a 3.5.

I do have a suggestion for the sequel should they release one: Legendary 2: Why did I open that *!@$@#$ box?

Reviewed: Legendary

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

12/30/08 8:40 pm | #2

Well done man!

I do like the idea and the story, but I have heard that this game is pretty flawed!

I thought about getting this for cheap, but I don't think that is going to happen now!

I appreciate the heads up and well written, Thanks Minioger!

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

12/30/08 8:47 pm | #3

I got it so if we can get a group together lets bust it out some night!!!

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

12/30/08 8:49 pm | #4

Yeah I heard that this game wasn't really good

Good review

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12/31/69 7:00 pm | #5

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

12/31/08 12:32 am | #6

good review!! badder game!! :confused:

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

12/31/08 1:35 am | #7

This game had such potential. An awesome idea... wasted. Well, not wasted, more like shoved to the side.

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

01/03/09 7:24 pm | #8

I just played the demo.... Horrendous. So many bad games coming out lately... I just don't get it. Honestly, and no offense to the kiddies, I blame the children. I remember back in the day when a game could not have glitches and bugs before it shipped because there was no way to fix it, now they release half finished games that are untested and the kids eat this crap up. I've been hugely disappointed in pretty much every one of the 6-8 games I've bought in the last 6 months.
I think companies should be held responsible. Think about the lemon law for cars... You buy a car, it's got problems, you bring it back and get a full refund, you don't go get it patched up. I think video games should work the same way. If a gamer runs into serious glitches they should be able to send it back to the DEVELOPMENT studio who then refunds the full purchase amount, including tax, and the shipping amount for sending it to them. The stores should not have to refund, losing money, since it's not their fault the game was broken/half finished/untested/whatever. After only a short time companies such as EA and Ubisoft (they both use in-house devs) would be really hurting. Lionhead would be out of business right now probably after all the Fable II BS.
Hold the devs responsible for their garbage, this is what needs to happen. It's the only way the gaming world wont continue to decline.

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

01/05/09 3:39 pm | #9

In case anyone cares: As of Friday night I was ranked 6th in the WORLD at this game for online multiplayer - and still don't have all the online achievements

Just stating how awesome this game is for finding people on multiplayer

(insert heavy sarcasm here)

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

01/06/09 2:16 pm | #10

This game is not as bad as some of you are trying to make it seem. In fact it's probably better then a lot of games I've seen some people playing lately. The achievements are also pretty easy and the game is only 29.99. I would say it's worth at least a rental.

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12/31/69 7:00 pm | #11

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12/31/69 7:00 pm | #12

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Re: Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

01/07/09 8:07 am | #13

Just wanted to thank everyone for commenting on this one - whether they agree with me or not

I would like to point out that I thought the game was ok if you weren't a waffler. I just wouldn't want to waffle a game and not get the difficulty achievement.

As a side note I have a theory on why the difficulty achievements glitch - it seems that anyone who plays and earns an online achievement before they finish their solo mode doesn't always get the difficulty achievement in solo mode. Its just a theory but based on others I have on my friends list whose achievements have glitched - it seems to be the only thing in common.

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Legendary: Don't open Pandora's Box!!

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