007 Legends
What We Liked:
Beautiful graphics, brilliant sound and functional gameplay, with plenty of respect shown to source material.What We Disliked:
Doesn't push any envelopes, the inability to move downed bodies.007 Legends 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the human suave-machine known as James Bond, Ian Flemings Bond has existed for this long, kicking, shooting, and shagging his way through the hearts of the world. Ladies want him, guys want to be him, he’s James frickin Bond, he gets the job done, he [...]
007 Legends
2012 is the 50th anniversary of the human suave-machine known as James Bond, Ian Flemings Bond has existed for this long, kicking, shooting, and shagging his way through the hearts of the world. Ladies want him, guys want to be him, he’s James frickin Bond, he gets the job done, he gets the girl. To commemorate this occasion Eurocom have brought out 007 Legends, a game in which you play your way through some of the most memorable moments in Bond Movie History through a first person shooter perspective, a la old school Golden-eye.
The game itself is perfectly functional, there are no glaring issues with its gameplay system, 007 Legends plays it quite safe, you pull the guns, the guns go boom, the peoples go ouch and fall down. The game is played through a mission structure on linear paths, with additional optional objectives on harder difficulties. The main campaign takes you through 5 bond films, at their integral points, and do a fantastic job of revisiting them, such as the famous Goldfinger, “Do you expect me to talk?” scene. It’s clear that wish to bring the older movies into focus here, to really give fans an idea of what the older bond films were like, each of them have a good amount of action. For example the beginning of “On her majestys secret service” you start the gunning down enemies while skiing and dodging in and out of trees, that was definitely a standout point.
The only gripe we did have was with the checkpoints for the game, if you’ve spent ten minutes fighting my way through enemy after enemy to be taken out by an RPG shockwave I didn’t see, having to fight through 10 minutes of enemies all over again isn’t really our cup of tea. There are times when the game forces you into stealth mode, these moments are bitter-sweet. Stealth is one thing, but the inability to move a body after you twatted someone around the chops makes stealth a thousand times harder. This is made harder still by the fact that you have one radar in the bottom right that only shows enemies you can directly see, and to sense the positions of others you need to put down your gun and use your wristwatch sonar.
This brings us to another point about the gadgets in the game, espionage is handled via investigations a la detective mode in the recent Batman games, hunt for fingerprints to find hidden locations and safes and documents. This is all handled by Bonds Smartphone, which is packing tech that Apple are still a long way off reproducing. You also have gadgets such as your watch and a pen that doubles as a blowgun, this we felt was the only real Bond Gadget in the game. You can also upgrade your weapons through an XP system in the game, and go out of your way to complete challenges with certain weapons to earn more, upgrading is possible several times through a level.
An interesting point to note about the Storyline is that it allows you to play through in two different ways, ‘Modern’ mode where health regenerates, and ‘Classic’ Mode where your health does not and you need to find body armour to stay alive. Take our advice, play it on classic mode. If you know your health is going to regenerate, the temptation to run out of cover and elbow someone in the face like a British Tony Jaa is a very strong one indeed, that’s not what Bond is about, if you want that shit, go play Call of Duty. Alongside the storyline missions is a Challenge mode, this drops you into the role of other characters, for example the tiny asian boots of everyones favourite henchman, Oddjob. In this example, you accompany a bomb that is going to be placed in Fort Knox on it’s journey, which is definitely a nice touch as it does not break the storylines of the movies they are based on, it actually adds to them. Challenge mode allows you to take everything one step further in terms of becoming a total Bond Badass by giving you the ability to change variables in the mission, your health, enemy health, accuracy of your guns, their guns, paintball mode, gadgets, etc, and even has a helpful difficulty indicator to show you how badly you’re about to get your ass handed to you if you screw up.
In terms of visuals the game is definitely pretty, the textures are brilliant and you can make out every wrinkle in Daniel Craigs face, oh did I not mention this is a Daniel Craig game? It is, every Bond that you play as regardless of whether it is Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, or Timothy Dalton, are all played by a Daniel Craig impersonator, which makes sense in the grand scheme of things. And while you can really see that the voice actor has put every effort he can into recreating these lines, he is no Sean Connery. Alongside that, enemy types seem limited to 2 or 3 in different outfits, there is no variation between them other than the weapons they carry.
After the visuals come the sound, which is absolutely brilliant in this game, the themes from the old films are used well, they even do their best to pay homage to the iconic Bond movie intros at the beginning of of the storyline, a really nice touch.
The game goes out of its way to pack itself with extras for avid collectors, bond fans and perfectionists alike, it encourages exploration through the levels to find hidden targets, items, objects and secrets to unlock more about the characters and more about the history of James Bond in general.
In closing there is really nothing wrong with 007 Legends, it does its best to show respect to all of the movies contained therein and still provide an entertaining experience, the multiplayer is just fine too. Nothing about in particular really wowed us though. It’s a safe bet and a good game, it deserves a place in your collection, and is a must have for any Bond fan, nothing wrong with it, and a lot right with it. There are a ton of collectables to unlock, and enough to keep you satisfied for a good long time.
As an afterthought, Casino Royale may have been a nice side game in 007 legends, maybe a poker game to gain more unlockables, if you lose the game, you could re-enact that bollock knocking scene with the rope and the chair!
Keep Grindin.
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