Legendary Review

Here’s the deal with Legendary: I simply forgot I had this game.  This is a terrible example of professionalism, I know, but this game was so rote and so boring, that I quite literally forgot that I was supposed to play and review this game.  Legendary is not particularly bad – it’s just insanely boring.  It’s hard to recall anything that happens in this game, because it’s so forgettable.  Really, if there is one thing I will remember, it’s that Legendary is arguably the most boring game I have ever played.

So, you’re a mute thief by the name of Deckard, and you’re asked by a mysterious and clandestine group called the Black Order to steal Pandora’s Box.  Thanks to your awesome thief skills (elbowing security panels and then attaching two detached wires together, which are detached when you first bust them open for some reason), you gain access to the box.  Deckard follows the visual instructions on the box, for reasons completely unknown, which leads to his hand getting punctured by a knife.  He then winds up getting powers and stuff.  He also unleashes griffons and minotaurs upon New York.  Go him.

The first few minutes of Legendary are asinine, inane, and very dumb.  It doesn’t make sense and goes against all degrees of common sense.  A few minutes later and Legendary starts to show shreds of promise.  The mass panic that ensues in the streets of New York looks incredible.  Hundreds of cars are abandoned, hundreds of people are running for their lives, and griffons rain down from the charred sky, tossing vehicles and munching on unlucky souls.

And then, for the better half of the game, you’re tossed down into sewers and subway tunnels, keeping you away from witnessing cataclysmic, catastrophic, and, most importantly, cool things.  Instead, you’re condemned to shooting things that are uninteresting to shoot at, with a plot that consistently does a great job of getting in the way and souring the game.  Plot holes are immense and plenty; why is it that the only two military organizations are third-party mercenaries?  Where are the marines?  Army?  Navy?  How come Deckard never speaks his mind, even though he writes every little detail on his PDA?  Give me anything, please.

Yeah, the story blows, but at least I remembered how bad it was.  Once I was given a gun and given things to shoot, the gameplay immediately became forgettable.  There is absolutely nothing about the shooting that was particularly bad, fun, decent, horrible, unbearable, good, and so on.  I kept shooting something until it died.  I might have tossed a grenade.  I don’t know.  All of the firefights just lumped themselves into a pile of mush in my brain.  You’d think that a game with minotaurs and werewolves would result in a game that’s more than just functional.

Every once in awhile, there was the arbitrary puzzle.  Twist a valve here, push this button here, or elbow some security panels there.  They do nothing more than act as an intermission between the shooting.  Really, they’re just that – intermissions.  They’re insultingly simple and lack any kind of creativity.  They’re just more boring things on top of a pile of boring things.

This boring, tedious quality also extends to the game’s presentation.  Graphically, Legendary looks decent.  It runs on the Unreal 3.0 engine and that’s quite evident – everything’s awfully gray or brown and there’s a lot shiny stuff going on.  The monsters are definitely the highlight; they animate well and look damned and ferocious.  The game doesn’t really push the engine, nor does it do a disservice to it.  The same can be said of the audio.  The music’s direction is interesting.  Instead of what you’d expect – a blaring orchestra, an epic chorus – it’s more low-key, and the developers opted for something along rock and light metal.  It’s a decent listen if you’re looking for some understated background music while going about your day.  Voice-acting ranges from good to hilarious, and the weapon sounds range from punchy to puny.  As a whole, the game’s soundscape is inconsistent and ultimately average.

There is a multi-player mode, but I have yet to play it, because no one’s on.  Seriously.  So, really, what you’re getting is a single-player game that’s ten hours long, and that is approximately 8 hours too long.  If I was forced to choose between Legendary and a bad game, I wouldn’t know what I’d go with.  On one hand, a bad game will at least provide me with something to remember, while Legendary is just so boring that it completely disappears as an existing product.  Whatever the case, just forget about this game.  I know I did and I didn’t even need to do anything.  That’s nice, I guess. 

Oh, and if you’re wondering, I used the word “boring” 7 times throughout this review.