First Impressions: Legendary (PC)

The other day when I uploaded Steam, they had one of the daily deals that looked pretty interesting.  It was a game called Legendary (originally released as Legendary: The Box) created by Spark Unlimited, both I'd never heard of despite the fact that it had come out back in 2008.  The concept for the game is pretty simple: you mess with Pandora's Box, a bunch of mythological creatures come out and start wrecking shit up.  Oh, and it's a first person shooter.  I've been playing Legendary now for about two hours so I thought I'd give my initial thoughts on the game.

Admittingly (new word), the first thing I noticed was that the cinematics in the game are in wide screen, but the game play is in a full screen ratio.  That doesn't really bother me since it seems that the game was designed that way, so who am I to be upset that the game doesn't fill my entire screen.

Now on to the things that I like about the game.  The monsters, most of them anyway, look pretty rad.  And I probably say that now because they're the monsters that haven't interacted with me and, at the moment anyway, are just background/set decorations.  I'm referring to the Griffins and the Golem.  The Griffins are these huge bus sized things, flying around the scene grabbing victims and nomming down on them, occasionally screaming some hideous eagle cry as parts of the city explode.  Like any sane person, I've tried shooting them and they didn't even notice, which is not a great thing when you realize that you're carrying a sub-machine gun and these creatures are like "I don't notice what you're trying to do to me, so piss off."  

The Golem, singular thank god, is a self propelled mass of city wide debris and wrecked (and probably not wrecked) cars.  The Golem appears very early in the game and as you're watching this monstrosity putting itself together, I was thinking "Dear fuck, I don't want to fight that thing!"  Especially since I only had a fireman's ax for a weapon.  As the giant turned away from me and down a side street (through some buildings mind you), I quickly realized that I would probably have to face this thing later in the game, but for the moment I was safe.

Again, I've been playing for about two hours.  And, and, and!, I don't think I'm at the end of the first level.  Yes I've died a couple of times, and thus restarted from checkpoints.  Thankfully I'm able to continue from the checkpoints even after I turn the game off, otherwise I'd be a little upset.  Additionally, the shit just keeps on coming.  I'll get through one area, catch my breath as I'm running down a flight of stairs, enter a warehouse and.....fuck.  Werewolves.  The Werewolves look a little odd, but the game explains that these "early ones" are somewhat starving and are therefore thinner than......shit, the larger ones I'll be facing later in the game.

At the moment, the only thing I'm not a fan of, is the jumping ability.  Not only does it seem like you can only jump maybe a foot off the ground, but when to give yourself a running start, it's very easy to launch yourself well over your intended target at sub-sonic speeds.  Granted you're only a foot or two off the ground, but the forward momentum carries you another 10 feet.

So right now, I'm having fun and I really like the world (both atmospherically and how the world looks as a whole in that there's stuff going on that I can't do anything about).  And since I only paid $1.49 for it, if the rest of the game isn't as good/fun/interesting, then I still won't consider it too much of a loss.  And that, is kind of my whole point here.  That for under $2, it's like when I used to rent games that I only thought "looked" cool.  Except now, I don't have to return the game if I'm not finished by the end of the second day.

I think, at this juncture, I'll go ahead and recommend the game.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Thank God Pandora Never Owned A Wardrobe, Or We'd All Be Fucked.