Review of 007 Legends
yoyoyojo
Posts: 46MI6 Agent
Well sadly I was NOT wrong. This review is what I sadly expected, another half-baked effort by Activision.
Too bad Blood Stone was not better received, they were really onto something fresh there.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/16/007-legends-review
Too bad Blood Stone was not better received, they were really onto something fresh there.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/16/007-legends-review
Comments
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/007_legends/b/xbox360/archive/2012/10/16/007-legends-review.aspx
I also have to say, seeing Craig's mug and hearing Craig's voice in re-enactments of scenes from the classic movies feels every bit as wrong and misguided as I thought it would be and it doesn't help that Craig's delivery is his typical disinterested monotone. If you're going to pay these actors to voice over your games, at least get a decent vocal director to coax some emotion out of them.
EA's games (many of which I still own) were masterpieces compared to this drek. Utterly pathetic all around.
BTW, here's a link to IGN's video review
http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/10/16/007-legends-video-review
Damn those Activision guys are smart!
http://kotaku.com/5953642/007-legends-the-kotaku-review
The observation I found most telling is the visage of Craig flashing back to Bond's previous adventures (the mechanism by which you play each level) ... even though Craig represents a reboot in which those adventures never happened.
I hate to be negative but i've just got to get this off my chest. From what i've read and seen, they've just cobbled together a hodgepodge of gameplay styles based on popular gaming mediums but forgetting to underpin them with any context or depth in the story writing to justify their inclusion. From the beginning, the concept of "007 Legends" as a compilation style adventure just seemed odd and the reviews reflect that. I expected it to just be a clone of Goldeneye Reloaded but so far it seems to have fallen short of even that.
007 gaming has simply lost its charm. Gaming developers like Activision need to realise there is more to 007 than running, sneaking and shooting. What about all those cool undercover moments where you need to question a suspect? Going to the bar, asking for a martini, having a believable open level where you can really look around and interact rather than be cut off by an invisible wall. Even the briefings of the missions feel meaningless in their dispassionate single-screen overview of the mission rather than walking to M's office, listening to the banter, seeing the office environment around you to really pull you into the story. The only good that can come from 007 Legends is a wake up call to the developers based on all these bad reviews that the fans demand something FAR MORE than the approach of late.
Need further evidence of Activision's lack of innovation? Take a look at this and tell me it doesn't replicate the bar scenes from Bloodstone and Goldeneye Reloaded:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgLeleYOvhA
"I am so tired of all these guys thinking that a woman can't run a company."
Seriously though, I was fairly shocked to realise that the first 50 seconds of that clip is totally out of the player's control. How difficult can it be to simply make the game playable like QOS, actually giving the player some degree of control?
I have to admit that the downward spiral of the 007 games actually started with the Quantum Of Solace game. In a few ways it was like Legends because it made an attempt to combine more than one plot into a hybrid story. I know, Royale and Royale were intended as "Part 1" and "Part 2" of the Vesper story, but the game just felt like a game highlighting moments from the two films. But, back to the main point, I felt that even with this game there was a lack of control. No exploration, invisible walls on the streets of Rome, linear shoot and sneak play, and short campaign. Frankly, with the exception of the middle of the road Bloodstone we got, the entire Craig era is leaving the Brosnan era as the golden age of 007 gaming.
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I am pretty comfortable with Bond being a British video game action hero with more disposable income than normal. So he should be able to hold his own (win!) in a fight with Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell Conviction/Blacklist or Jason Bourne in The Bourne Conspiracy game, or anyone else in gaming.
I'd certainly be happy to play a 'James Bond Lifestyle Simulator' as well, but I am not sure what form it would take.
And Arkham Asylum game directly copied would involve Bond infiltrating a standard issue villain volcano lair, which would certainly be fun, but might not give one much opportunity to drive expensive cars and dress up in a nice suit.
But this is precisely the sort of game I want ;(
1) The Spy Who Loved Me 2) On Her Majesty's Secret Service 3) GoldenEye 4) Casino Royale 5) Goldfinger
The Batman video game franchise is THE STANDARD for making a video game from a beloved long existing franchise. I essentially compare every effort to Batman Arkham City. They proved that a high quality game that transcends the original IP canbe done. You don't need a direct tie in with the movie either. Lets cut out that silliness right now. We just want to get our Bond on, we do not need a half baked game that is rushed to market to be in sync with a movie. Batman AC didn't do that. they just developed a kick ass game in parallel to a kick as movie trilogy. the games and recent movies are very similar but do not rely oneahc other nor even try to sync up. Who cares!
And another thing ...
Let's not start saying that Golden Eye Reloaded (on PS3) is now considered a good game. I swaer one reviewer writes it and everyone repeats it. Everythignthat is said about Legends I said about GER, bland, generic, not up to current standards. But one reviewer stated somethign to the effect that GER "was arguably the best Bond game sicne the original GE". No it wasn't! It was crap! Legends is just more of the same crap.
Quantum of Solace was linear and terrible ALTHOUGH I am not really into online multiplayer I quite enjoyed this one
Bloodstone was just awful
GoldenEye 007 "reimagining" was awful, nobody asked for it, nobody wanted it, everybody got it and it didn't work at all. People wanted a straight remake of Goldeneye with awesome graphics much in the same style as Halo Anniversary.
At least EA had a decent mix of single player and local multiplayer, Nightfire and AUF had great multiplayer. I'd sooner play GoldenEye Rogue Agent than these piles of bullcrap.
I agree with above statements, somebody needs to do with Bond what Rocksteady did with Batman, also we need cool gadgets and exploration, stealth, choices. Look at Bethesda's 'Dishonored', a great example of freedom and choice within a video game. Yeah they don't want gadgets etc. in the Bond movies anymore but if done properly they would be awesome within a new Bond game (Anybody remember the Q-Claw in AUF/NF)
I don't really know what to say except that my love of Bond video games is gone.
Nightfire was a brilliant Bond game but since the days of this and Agent Under Fire, the Bond games haven't developed or progressed as much as they should've done. I admit Bloodstone wasn't half bad but a big improvement is needed for if they ever bring out another Bond game.
(Possibly I am just old enough to think a smartphone pretty exotic in itself).
I'd like to try it but don't really want to pay top money for it
Actually, people have been asking for a remake of GoldenEye for some time, however what they wanted can't happen because Rare is owned by Microsoft now and Nintendo still has some say in the matter as to whether or not a remake would see the light of day.
To each their own I suppose, but I love GoldenEye Reloaded! It's one of my favorite games this generation along with Duke Nukem Forever and Bioshock series. I mean they kept enough of the original story to where you can tell it's still GoldenEye, but told it in a brand new way, using the Daniel Craig style of James Bond to drive the story. Gameplay wise it is an incredible game, the stealth is one of the finest I have seen in an FPS in a long time.
If 007 Legends is anything like what GoldenEye Reloaded was I would suggest not listening to the reviewers and just trying it for yourself. When I get the money, that's what I'm gonna do. Eurocom, at least from my perspective has never done a bad James Bond game; the N64 version of TWINE was good except for a few things, Nightfire was just amazing for that time. Eurocom was an unfortunate casualty of these bad reviewers for this game.
1: Brosnan 2: Craig 3: Moore 4: Dalton 5: Connery and 6: Lazenby
Anyway, we need another Nightfire. And I totally agree, we need a Dev who cares about Bond, and who will write their OWN kick ass story, not just a horrible copy and paste of a movie.
I agree that its time a new publisher was sought for the James Bond series of video games. Activision has proven time and again that they could care less about the license which is a real shame considering how much time they devote to games based on Spider-Man and other Marvel Comics characters and those tend to see a lot of sales.
Otherwise no matter who gets the license next (Rockstar, Konami or Ubisoft for a few examples) it will be molded after what those companies do best. Rockstar has been mentioned here before for a rather cool idea, I thought anyway, for an open world style game. Konami would probably go Metal Gear Solid style with it. Ubisoft would have a couple of choices, either taking the mold of Far Cry, which graphic wise would be gorgeous if Far Cry 3 is anything to go by, or the Tom Clancy games.
But no matter who takes it, it will be the same as what Activision did. Just for what their company does best.
1: Brosnan 2: Craig 3: Moore 4: Dalton 5: Connery and 6: Lazenby
About Eon making their own division strictly for gaming, I think that's a great idea. It wouldn't be the first time, either. Steven Spielberg made a division of Dreamworks known as "Dreamworks Interactive" for the Medal of Honor series. (Dreamworks Interactive later turned into EA). But I do indeed think that it would be a good way to get a good Bond game again. If not, I think Rockstar would be a good choice. It's not really like anything Rockstar has done before, which could be a good thing. I think if you used a studio (Ubisoft for example) that has done similar games in the past then they would try to make Bond their type of game, which might not work. Rockstar also doesn't push out games every year. If you look at their game library, it's not that big, but they are all really well done. I think Rockstar would be the best option, other than just getting a division of Eon to do it. Other than that, I can only think of SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) doing it, since Sony owns Columbia Pictures, which is now producing all of the Bond movies. Whatever comes out of it, I just hope it's good.
The problem with SCE doing it, is that it would only be on the Playstation as I simply can't see them openly and willingly making a game that could potentially sell really well to it's competitors.
Anyone else that's not owned by a console maker (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) would most likely go to all systems.
1: Brosnan 2: Craig 3: Moore 4: Dalton 5: Connery and 6: Lazenby
I know I will feel a lot better if I knew for certain the status the license and what Activision was planning on doing in the near future.
I am finally able to play 007 Legends and I can honestly say I'm very, very happy with the purchase. The levels are solid.....a little shorter than I expected, so there is a little bit of a let down, but overall I'm really impressed with the level of difficulty in the game. The area in License to Kill where you have to sneak through the lab and not let the alarm be set off, wow that was tough.
=Edit=
For me, I don't even mind that the other Bond actors weren't involved in the game, in much the same way I was okay with Pierce Brosnan not being involved with GoldenEye Wii/Reloaded, since it was a retelling of the story, which is how I view the levels of 007 Legends as a modern telling of these stories, and it really doesn't do it that badly. I mean there is enough there that you can tell where they are coming from but also enough to refresh them.
Is it a perfect game? No, but it does what I want it to, and that is to entertain me.
Second edit:
I would like to add now that I have finished 007 Legends and do have some negative things to say about it. To start off with the fact that they drop you in one of the missions and give you enough information to confuse this *&%$ out of you.
For example to start the On Her Majesty's Secret Service part, you are on skis and have to follow AND KEEP UP with Tracy, however it doesn't tell you how to speed up, I had to go online to figure out that you have to press and hold the left bumper (I play on 360) throughout the entire section, I mean even GoldenEye Reloaded, made by the same studio, gave you some direction.
The fact that there is no overarching story to even try to link the stories together leaves a lot to be desired.
There are others too but I will leave it with this last one. The Skyfall section.....WTF? What exactly were they worried about being spoiled that they decided to make it a free DLC addon for PS3 and 360, while on the Wii U it was on disc? I mean you fight Patrice in the open glass room as sort of a final boss for the game, and then it ends. Again, WTF?
In short, I commend them for trying, but 007 Legends does fall short for what it could have been.
I for Connery and Dalton I think they made okay choices, however Moonraker got old REAL quick especially during the zero g section, it was neat at first, but it became quite annoying, especially trying to destroy the arms. As for the Die Another Day segment, This was one of the more solid parts of the game, in my opinion.
The mechanics were fine. A nice, solid update from GoldenEye Reloaded in the areas I felt needed tweaking and the overall concept was great, but I expected a lot more from this game.
1: Brosnan 2: Craig 3: Moore 4: Dalton 5: Connery and 6: Lazenby