007 Legends – Review
To celebrate the 50 years anniversary of James Bond, Activision decided to release a game for us called 007 Legends. The game can be bought for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Will the game actually end up to be legendary?
Story:
The game starts out with a scene from the newest James Bond movie, namely Skyfall. It’s a scene where one of the other agents of MI6 accidently shoots James instead of the enemy. Thanks to this James falls down the water and this triggers memories as if his life is flashing by.
From this point on 007 Legends guides us through 5 key moments from the James Bond movies. For fans of the movies Goldfinger, O.H.M.S.S., License to kill, Die another day and Moonraker will be quite familiar when playing through the game then. Each of these chapters will take you around 1 hour to complete which makes the overall storyline a fairly short one.
Your character will always look like the current James Bond actor, Daniel Craig. It’s amusing to see him fulfill the roles of his predecessors but it would have been a lot more nostalgic and true to the name ‘legends’ if they actually used models of the actors who played in the movies the chapters represent. The overall story parts have been adapted quite a bit aswell seeing you run around with your smartphone during the ‘memories’ of the old 70’s movies. In a way it’s understandable seeing otherwise the game would imply your current James Bond would be around 80 years old or something. The sad part however again is that it’s not really a ‘legend’ when too many changes are made.
Overall the story is fun for those familiar with the movies. For those who nevers saw the old movies, the story won’t make that much sense. It’s only parts from the old movies and there is no connection between the different chapters. (The movies wouldn’t be connected either but there isn’t that much story value for those who don’t know the movies.)
The current story ends with the notion that there will be a free mission pack coming out soon. (Not sure if this is a spoiler or not.)
Graphics:
007 Legends offers us mediocre graphics at best. The main characters themselves don’t look too shabby but not really what we expect nowadays. The environments look as if the game started development a year or 2 after the release of our current generation of consoles. During the missions our opponents are recycled over and over again and even though some areas might be filled decently they feel empty, perhaps because of the lack of detail. With the lack of detail I mean things like plants who are visibly flat or the fact that every box, pc and such looks exactly the same.
Killing your opponents will occasionaly end up in seeing bodies fall through a wall or sticking through closed doors.
Overall you will feel like the game is old enough to be legendary – the quality however is quite lacking.
Sound:
The quality of the effects, voices and music are decently done. The game received voices from a decent cast and the music stays true to the original James Bond soundtrack. Sometimes the people you need to escort aren’t really the smartest out of the bunch however. For instance during one of the missions my escort claimed I had enemies on the right for over 10 times whilst there was not even an option to go right or there were never and I mean never – ‘enemies on the right’.
Gameplay:
As stated above the campaign contains 5 chapters (divided in smaller portions) each based on the movie they are named after. The overall time to complete them all is around 5 hours which is quite short for a game called 007 Legends. It’s hard to pick from 50 years of cinematic history but more than 5 hours would have been a plus. The game ends with the promise of a free set of missions (DLC) during november.
Overall the campaign is pretty straight forward and this means just kill everything in sight. For those amongst us who like a more peaceful approach, some portions of the game can be played stealthy. (and some HAVE to be played stealthy) The stealth mechanic is nothing to be proud of however. Crouching will make your steps more silent but there is no real cover system and James is incapable of lying down. You are offered some ways to silently kill guards but if someone discovers the body of the knocked out/killed guard they will sound the alarm. Normally you’d expect to be able to drag the body out of sight – well sadly you aren’t able to do so. I think all these limitations have to do with James not wanting to get his suit dirty – A true gentleman indeed.
Call of Duty.. I mean Call of Bond.. James of Duty.. 007 Legends feels like you’re playing another game by the same company but just way less detailed. The shooting feels quite the same and you are able to add parts to your weapons like scopes, silencers, grenade launchers and so on. Most weapons in the game are based on realistic weapons but we get treated to several James Bond weapons to at least give the impression we are playing a 007 game. You can pretty much ‘Rambo’ your entire way through the game when taking cover from time to time to heal up. This will be harder when you decide to play through the campaing on ‘classic’ mode. Classic mode will give you a fixed amount of health points and when getting hit you will need to find health packs to recover the lost HP. A bigger challenger for those who played the old N64 Bond game.
007 Legends also has it’s fair portion of some weird QTE melee combat. Basically a weird version of a punch-out game. You will see your opponent right in front of you like he’s a professional boxer and he will always leave 1 part unprotected, which you need to attack with pulling your left or right stick down or pulling it up. If you miss you get punched. This kind of combat goes hand in hand with having to parry against a weapon, getting rid of it and then punching him to oblivion.
The amount of gadgets feel quite limited when you think of James Bond. We are equipped with a smartphone (which was obviously sponsored by Sony and not even subtly), a watch and a pen. First of all the smartphone is to be used when taking photos for evidence, hacking in to devices to gain access to something or make something crash and a fingerprint scanner to identify certain villains and locating secret switches.
The hacking system differs between 3 modes. The first one is trying to balance 2 bars in a colored section to make it progress fasted. The second is simply matching colors on connecting surfaces and the third one is simply cracking a good old fashioned safe by turning a puzzle like wheel to connect each of the inner circles. All very basic and simple to use and nearly always you’ll get an indication on the screen on which you’ll need in the specific area.
When using the watch you’ll be able to see enemies on your ‘watch radar’ and you’ll be able to fire a laser to destroy camera’s and other electronic devices. However for some reason you’re not able to fry the electronics of small sentry guns on the cealing.
The pen is able to shoot 3 kinds of darts, namely tranquilizer darts, shock darts and distractions darts who speak for themselves.
Sometimes you’ll actually have to do something else than just beating people up shooting wildly. Yes you know it we get to drive a few vehicles or even ski down the mountain. The controls for these parts however are awful and the settings around it feel like you’ve gone back a generation consolewise. Luckily these don’t take too long and won’t annoy you that much.
007 Legends also works with a experience system that will reward you with XP when completing objectives and using several weapons in a row. This is quite a decent motivation to switch weapons from time to time to gain more experience points.
To end the negative part of this review there is one really great part about 007 legends and that’s the multiplayer mode. Because of the likeness to another shooter the multiplayer has been kept in mind as probably the most important part of the game. You’re able to play against or with each other offline to up to 4 players which makes sure you can have so good old fashioned pvp action in your own home with friends you actually know. The online mode will treat you to matches up to 12 players. The game consists out of the basic types Conflict (Deathmatch), Team Conflict, The Golden Gun, … Each of these are very amusing to play but you’ll have the most fun if you can actually find 3 friends to play with or when you play online. In your multiplayer mode you are able to pick from a fairly big amount of characters and you are able to preset different ‘loadouts’ to start with. This means you can save a few specific builds that you are able to start out with the weapons you fancy to play with and the perks that suit your playstyle.
During the game you are able to find some unlockables which are amusing for the fans.
Conclusion:
007 Legends isn’t the worst game you’ll find out there but it’s not nearly the best either. The multiplayer mode makes up for a lot of the flaws the campaign mode has – something you’d expect that would be decent in a James Bond game. Maybe with some friends you might be able to create some legendary moments.
007 Legends - Review,
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