Legendary, simple, but better than reviewed IMO.

[Frag Maniac]

I just started playing this game last night. It's a fairly simplistic game involving an art thief hired to steal an artifact from a museum called Pandora's Box that unbeknownst to him, actually IS Pandora's Box, unleashing a mythical hell on Earth after he opens it with everything from Griffons, to Golems, to Werewolves, to Minotaurs, etc.

If you can get past the cliched story, slightly value-game character movement and aim (not as bad as reviewed), and arcade-like NPC battles, it's actually not a bad game. The graphics in some ways (NPCs, cars, etc) are not extremely polished, but where the game shines, in it's monster battles and environments, it does pretty well both in graphics and up close adrenaline induced action.

It has some fairly creative and effective scares, monsters, and puzzles, though the latter more for their gore and/or potential shock value than difficulty. It's the first time ever in a game I've been assaulted by cans of pop flung at me rapid fire by a poltergeist having possessed a soda machine.LOL That may not sound overly daunting or even practical as far as shock value, but it took me a moment to figure out what was taking health from me and how to escape the room I was trapped in, all the while the ghost giggling at me. The lighting and shadows are fairly mood inspiring as well, adding to the feel of the game.

Some monsters can be a pain to deal with, like the swarms of little child-like Naris that fly around as milky white ghosts, then transform into solid bodies momentarily just before they attack, which is the only time they're vulnerable. There's an objective where you have to recharge one of three EMP generators whilst taking on such a swarm and it can be tough your first time, even on Easy mode.

You have an occult type of power you can use, which is called the "Signet". It's branded onto the back of your left hand when you open the Pandora's Box. It allows you to pull the life force from dead monsters you kill, healing yourself as it fills the Signet. The Signet can also be used to stun enemies momentarily with a pulse wave and charge those generators I was referring to, making it hard to both complete an objective AND stay healthy at times.

There's not a whole lot of weapons in the game, and you can't carry a lot at once (1 melee, 2 guns). This works though because it really isn't supposed to play like a full on shooter. It's more of a hybrid action horror/shooter game that compels you to use the melee tool (a fairly effective fireman's axe) and Signet pulse at times to help fend off the monsters. If nothing else the axe is handy for chopping off the heads of Werewolves after you down them, otherwise they spring back to life! It also conserves ammo, though there seems to be enough ammo for the most part. You also have Molotovs and grenades, which are best saved for more boss-like monsters such as the Minotaurs and Griffons, esp the Griffons.

There are also reptilian mole-like creatures that ball up and roll at you, then spit fire balls at you. These can be dispatched without even using hand held weapons by opening water valves or axing fire hydrants, which kills them with water when you lure them to it or flood their burrows. There's also Queen Blood Spiders that hatch little ones and occasional appearances of an underground monster with huge tentacles, the latter of which is the only part of it I've seen so far.

I think my favorite is the Alpha Werewolf, which is larger and stronger than it's female counterpart and has a thick furry mane. These guys can hurl heavy objects at you and are much harder to take down than the normal Werewolf. The game abounds with grisly cutscenes, some of which show Alpha Werewolves dismembering unsuspecting NPCs, jumping onto flying choppers, etc. There seems to be one annoying glitch concerning scripted scenes during gameplay however where Werewolves attacking a squad member cannot be injured whilst doing so.

Like I said, the game is worth playing. I can't say I'd pay a lot for it, but it's definitely better than most review sites rate it, though perhaps not quite as good as a couple have. I'd say maybe 70%, but I'm only 1/4 or so into it so far. I've seen it for $25 new in box at eBay. It is a bit hitchy, mainly when cutcenes, NPCs, monsters, and checkpoints trigger, but it doesn't hitch all the time like GoW. Other than that the frame rates are pretty good with relatively little to no lag, even set on High with my old single core rig.

I have read reviews saying they take off points for lots of glitches like texture flickering and no clipping, but honestly I have not had problems with that. The game does use Unreal Engine 3, which has been known to have flickering texture issues in some games, but I just don't see it here like I did in Frontlines Fuel of War.

[StingingVelvet]

Funny, I just got this tonight... I went to Best Buy for Empire: Total War and they had this for $20, so I grabbed it. I played the demo and mostly agree with your thoughts... a simple game, but fun, and in many ways quite grand and impressive visually.

I think reviewers demand some level of innovation and have no love for simple genre games, which is a shame as many people enjoy that kind of title. In movies you can give a flick a 2 out of 10 and people who love the genre or actor might still enjoy it, and I think people recognize that, but in games it seems like anything below a 7 is the kiss of death and everyone avoids the game.

[Frag Maniac]

Wow, great price, I'd have thought Frys would more likely have the better price, but once in a while Best Buy comes through. I just finished it tonight. Turns out I was farther through the game than I thought, somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 way I would say. It's a bit shorter than I expected, but challenging throughout. I can't imagine what it's going to be like to play it on the hardest difficulty mode.

[scavvenjahh]

"Ranting" like a "moron" are we ? ;) Nice review.
The pesky Nari are easy to deal with using "Signet pulse" and a good ol' trusty shotgun, but I agree that part with the EMP in the subway station seems hard the first time around.

My favourite detail : hit a werewolf's arms until they break and flap in the wind, and watch the beast try to slap you. Ragdoll fun on the living, now that's something new ! :D

Obscure stuff : sometimes alpha werewolves will grab you. An icon appears telling you to tap the right arrow. Sometimes I do, oftentimes I don't. It never seemed to make a difference. The manual doesn't even mention it. Broken feature or should I try harder ? :?:

Compared to Turning Point I bitterly regret the lack of cheat modes. Grenade action was a LOT of fun in that game, and unlimited hand grenades was a real incentive to replay at least a couple episodes. Unlimited molotovs, or railgun or flamethrower ammo, would have been a great little reward for completing Legendary. (Bots for the MP mode would've been a treat too... I don't suppose there's many folks playing MP Legendary online) :?

It appears Spark's next project will be a third-person game. I really hope they'll come back with another "shoot things in a collapsing world" kind of FPS soon. Screw "official" reviews, we need games like these :D

[Mach1.9pants]

More importantly what is WS support like? Surround gaming? This is WSGF! ;)

[StingingVelvet]

I think there was already a detailed report... other than hud stretching I think it is fine for normal widescreen... probably not for triplehead though, I imagine.

Think of it as a budget title and you should have a lot of fun with it. If it came out at $30 or even $20 it would have been received a lot better. It's fun and looks great at times, it's just not a AAA title.

[scavvenjahh]

More importantly what is WS support like? Surround gaming? This is WSGF! ;)

The game's in the MGL, y'know ;)

Native surround support, Hor+ gameplay with stretched HUD.
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15570

[Mach1.9pants]

I know, that is what the 'wink' is about! But I thought you might go 'simple but fun AND IT IS HOR+' unlike a whole lot of games that get good review scores ;)

Anyway it seems a bit like FEAR 2 to a certain extent. Those that review it looking for another ground breaking FEAR are going to be disappointed and give it a low score. But if you look at it as a FPS (from what I have seen in the demo) it is great! So I agree that there is too much emphasis on 'new features'. Something like Bioshock, which got great scores, was IMO rubbish. Yes the atmosphere etc yes cool but when it came down to it it was a corridor shooter of the old school...go here, do that, totally linear, all the same. The monsters say the same thing over and over again. And the combat was rubbish (although liked the RPG element to modding yourself). So what was IMO just a poor corridor shooter, with a nice sotry-line and some new bits, got a great score 'cos the reviewers concentrated on the new stuff rather than what the core gameplay was.

[scavvenjahh]

FEAR 2 had everything to become a milestone in FPS history and failed, ending up being hardly more than yet another next-gen shooter.
Bioshock was a mix of cutting-edge eye-candy, sophisticated design and dull gameplay.
Legendary is a short-lived underdog that's actually fun to play.

I never read a pro review that took this kind of "details" into account.

Game sites feed on artworks, sneak previews and buzz. There's no such thing as a video game critic yet. So trust your peers and go frag some alphas :)

[Frag Maniac]

"Ranting" like a "moron" are we ? ;) Nice review.
The pesky Nari are easy to deal with using "Signet pulse" and a good ol' trusty shotgun, but I agree that part with the EMP in the subway station seems hard the first time around.

My favourite detail : hit a werewolf's arms until they break and flap in the wind, and watch the beast try to slap you. Ragdoll fun on the living, now that's something new ! :D

Obscure stuff : sometimes alpha werewolves will grab you. An icon appears telling you to tap the right arrow. Sometimes I do, oftentimes I don't. It never seemed to make a difference. The manual doesn't even mention it. Broken feature or should I try harder ? :?:

Compared to Turning Point I bitterly regret the lack of cheat modes. Grenade action was a LOT of fun in that game, and unlimited hand grenades was a real incentive to replay at least a couple episodes. Unlimited molotovs, or railgun or flamethrower ammo, would have been a great little reward for completing Legendary. (Bots for the MP mode would've been a treat too... I don't suppose there's many folks playing MP Legendary online) :?

It appears Spark's next project will be a third-person game. I really hope they'll come back with another "shoot things in a collapsing world" kind of FPS soon. Screw "official" reviews, we need games like these :D

Well I think I did try to Signet pulse the Naris away, but as far as I recall, it only works when they are solid and it drains your Animus a bit, so it becomes harder to keep enough of it to charge the generator. It's also hard to get a lot of them at once with them swarming from all directions. In the end I found moving around a lot, sprinting here and there, was the best way to deal with them on that objective.

Never had that happen with a Werewolf, sounds hilarious. I have had a hard time chopping their heads off when they fall with one arm draped over their head though. As for the arrow key not working, I had one level suddenly render the quick switch number keys stop working to change weapons. Then the next level they suddenly worked again, go figure, value game quirk I guess.

There's funny moments with the NPC AI too. In one part of the game you drop down into an alleyway, I think it's where you see the Werewolves in plasma field cages for the first time. If you stay tucked back in that alleyway to shoot the NPCs from a distance they will stay back behind a parked car and chuck grenades. Only problem for them is they throw them right at a swinging sign and they keep bouncing back toward them as they stand there yelling, "GRENADE!" I don't think I had to kill any of them.

So do you have Turning Point, and have you played it all the way through? It got pretty bad reviews too, but considering how much better this one is than the reviews, I'm not sure I want to worry about that. The premise of Turning Point is very interesting. The only thing remotely similar I've played is EA's Freedom Fighters, which scored pretty well review wise despite fairly arcade-like gameplay and so so graphics. Is there a pattern here, does EA and all their clout somehow net them better ratings?

Sparks has potential. If they can just fine tune the weak spots and get up out of the value game reputation they'll be fine I think.

Oh, and Mach1, totally agree with you on Bioshock, you nailed it to a T. :wink:

[scavvenjahh]

Nari genocide : go chase them until you're surrounded by a group, launch a Signet pulse to make their bodies turn to flesh and blood again, shoot, drain animus, repeat. 8)

Yep I bought and finished Turning Point too, it doesn't look quite as good and feels awfully over-ambitious and annoyingly scripted at first, but it's got a solid and rich gameplay thanks to some excellent features :
- you can grab people and finish them in third-person view with a nice, brutal random close combat move, which sometimes turn into an equally-brutal "environmental kill" : drown a guy in his toilet or push another from atop a ladder hatch... Trying to find all "environmental kills" is a nice value-added bonus to the usual "go there, do that" objectives and classic shooting.
- WW2-era hand grenades are even more fun in the UE3, especially with all the breakable glass and electric devices, nice-looking explosions, ragdoll fun and nazis yelling "Hant Grenadeh!" :lol:
- night vision/sniper detector available when you equip a certain sniper rifle, even if you're just running around and not even looking through the scope :shock: (and it's not a glitch !)

Spark has potential indeed. This is not the kind of games you'll be playing for months, but I know I'll cherish my fond memories of Turning Point and Legendary forever... :rockout

[g00seberry]

Well I decided to try it after reading this thread, as I was previously put off by negative reviews .... and, well, colour me impressed ! Not 'best game ever' impressed, just run of the mill 7/10 impressed.
It's mindless fun and the graphics can be pretty shiny thanks to the Unreal Engine, yet still the frame rate rocks along ~100.

Not bad at all.

[Frag Maniac]

Nari genocide : go chase them until you're surrounded by a group, launch a Signet pulse to make their bodies turn to flesh and blood again, shoot, drain animus, repeat.

Wait, am I mistaken about needing to aim the Signet pulse? Does it radiate from you instead? You DID say they were surrounding you. I know the collection of Animus works in 360 degree fashion when you're near it, but I thought the offensive attack was directional, like the way you can aim it at crates to clear a path.

Yep I bought and finished Turning Point too...you can grab people and finish them in third-person view with a nice, brutal random close combat move, which sometimes turn into an equally-brutal "environmental kill" : drown a guy in his toilet or push another from atop a ladder

I've seen the 3rd person view finishing kills in trailers, it was one of the intriguing things about the game. The ability to drown an invading Nazis in his own, or should I say a toilet that doesn't belong to him, makes it even more appealing. This is starting to sound like a must have. I was already sold on the premise.

Spark has potential indeed. This is not the kind of games you'll be playing for months, but I know I'll cherish my fond memories of Turning Point and Legendary forever... :rockout

Yeah I really think devs like this with innovative ideas and unique gameplay deserve our attention. They certainly aren't getting it from the review sites and if we don't support them, they'll never reach their full potential.

Well I decided to try it after reading this thread, as I was previously put off by negative reviews .... and, well, colour me impressed ! Not 'best game ever' impressed, just run of the mill 7/10 impressed.
It's mindless fun and the graphics can be pretty shiny thanks to the Unreal Engine, yet still the frame rate rocks along ~100.
Not bad at all.

Yeah I started out with a 70% rating less then half way through the game and I still feel it's about right after finishing it. In fact 70% is the common rating I see from players, screw the review sites.

When game sites so unjustly bash a game, I feel it's necessary to let people know they've gone way overboard, which is the whole purpose of this thread. I may not spend a lot on games like this, but nabbing them up from the bargain bin with a little praise well after release is far better than over abusive remarks at launch that keep developers with sound ideas and features in their games from evolving into the mainstream and creating a more diverse, competitive market.

[StingingVelvet]

Turning Point is not as good as Legendary, though I would say it is worth the $10 you can buy it for if you like generic FPS games.

[scavvenjahh]

Signet pulse has the same area of effect as the sorceress' Nova in Diablo : point-blank range, but all around you. No aiming required. It forces Nari to materialize, freezes fire drakes, repels werewolves, stuns minotaurs and griffins, even kills tentacles... Think of it as your fourth (or primary) weapon. A sound Legendary player would use it a LOT !

[Frag Maniac]

OK, thanks, now if I could just keep that damn poltergeist from carting off the generator every time I try to recharge it! LOL

[Frag Maniac]

Well I'm about to go into the labs part of the tower in the final part of the game, and thought I'd mention a couple things. The fight against the Naris while charging the 3rd EMP generator wasn't nearly as hard the 2nd time, even though I'm playing on the next difficulty level up.

I did try the let them swarm, use Signet pulse, then shotgun method one time, but noticed it really only gets 2 or 3 of them to solidify and seems to be more directional than radial. I found I didn't really need that method anyway though, as just keeping moving and knowing where to go was plenty effective.

The other thing I wanted to mention was a curiosity my 1st time through the game, and though this time I paid more attention to the radio chatter giving me intel about it, it's still confusing. I'm talking about those little cloak field generators the Black Order setup in places like the library where 2 Minotaurs come crashing in.

The 1st recommendation on the intel report is destroying them, as they are set to cloak the Black Order from the beasts. The thing is though, if you immediately run left right past it, then keep going up the stairs further down, you can easily hide from the BO troops while they're fighting the Minotaurs.

Wouldn't that make more sense, letting them do lots of damage to the beasts while they're cloaked, so you can more easily mop up? OK, but here's the real confusion, no matter how I play it, the Minotaurs seem to see the BO guys and kill them, and then of course they come charging after me. How is that so if they are cloaked?

Also, how in the heck do you use the cloaking device yourself? I assumed all it took was feeding it Animus as per the 2nd suggestion in the intel report, which is what I tried the 1st play through when it appeared fighting 2 Minotaurs in such close quarters was going to be annoying. However they saw me as easily as if I hadn't fed the machine ANY Animus.

So what good really is this device? Seems to me they just put some talk about it in the story along with suggesting destroying or using it, just to make it look like it actually does something, which it appears is not the case. I assumed from what they say about it the cloak effect is supposed to look like it does when the Werewolves attack when you first find Pandora's Box and at the end of the game.

Anyways, still enjoying the game and really glad I got it. In fact I'm enjoying it even more the second play through. I'd even like to see a sequel of this game. One of the fun moments this 2nd play through was downing the 1st Griffon with 150 scoped rifle rounds (without the scope of course), and 16 shotty rounds and I avoided his attack the whole time. The 1st time I used up all my nades and Molotovs.

I also love how you can stand in front of a wall and sprint/strafe dodge a charging Minotaur and watch him lament after bashing his head into the wall. What's even more amusing is Signet pulse stunning a Griffon, then sprint/strafing behind him where he can't see you. I must have unloaded a dozen shotty rounds at the one on the burning roof as he wondered where the heck I was. LOL

Got Turning Point too btw, and played through once already. It's pretty good too, though the performance much worse and ending a bit lame. I had to set it to 98/ME compat mode just to keep it from freezing 5 seconds, playing slowly a second, freezing 5 seconds, etc. I still haven't found where you can drown a Nazi in a toilet, though I'm guessing it's on the Zeppelin, in which case, yeah, it would be his own toilet.

[scavvenjahh]

Well, it's not on the Zep. :)

Against griffins, my faved method is Signet pulse + flamethrower. I also love it when they can't reach you and go for plan B : shockwave squeaks :lol:

I have no idea what most intel reports say, as no texts were displayed in my games most of the time :lol: but "converting" the Animus trap thingy works like charging EMPs. Just don't rush it, the game needs a second to understand you're standing in front of such a device... A quick animus feed will turn it blue *for a limited time* during which you'll be "cloaked" and monsters will basically work for you.

I love to shoot Minos and werewolves. Everytime I see the "skinned muscle" FX it reminds me I gotta reinstall Vivisector some day :lol:

Edit: sorry for all the lulz, but hey, Legendary's a fun game in every way.

[Frag Maniac]

I have no idea what most intel reports say, as no texts were displayed in my games most of the time :lol:.

I don't know whether you're confusing "reports" with "logs" or just joking with the smiley about there being no text logs, but I clearly stated that I was referring to the radio chatter...

...this time I paid more attention to the radio chatter giving me intel about it...

I DID charge the device fully with Animus and it turned color, but the beasts charged right at me anyway.

Also, there ARE actually logs in the game you can refer to, and I wouldn't doubt if there is one on this device.

[scavvenjahh]

Yeah sorry - I was talking about the logs. I really don't know what the radio reports say :shock: I guess I never paid attention...