Eurogamer Expo: Legendary

A game that had also slipped under my radar this year was Legendary (previously known as Legendary: The Box). The old name in itself could have subconsciously caused me to ignore it, but I'm going to go with the fact I filed it under 'generic', pretty early on in it's production. You couldn't blame me though; it had guns, greyness, mythical beats and all the jazz, and I could pick a bunch of games out of a hat that had these and more.

But I hadn't played the game, so when I stood at the tiny 360 kiosk I had to put all those preconceptions behind me and get into it.

You star as some sort of thief called Charles Deckard, who has to for some reason or another steal something important from a place that's pretty big (I skipped the cut scene). The demo began with you going through a museum, and getting your way to the legendary box which, naturally, unleashes hell and infuses you with powers when you touch it.

Gameplay started right after this, giving you abilities involving blasting stuff and blasting more stuff, and if you're really good, moving stuff before you blast it.

...And yep, that's about it. Besides this, there's really nothing else to it. Guns were to be fired, monsters were to be killed, but aside from the (in my opinion) incredibly cool giant car monster halfway through the demo, everything about it sucked balls. I was standing there mentally ticking off the list of clichés and overused gameplay mechanics, and adding a couple more when I found them.

Something I really hated was how incredibly linear it was. There's only one path to take and you can press a button and it points you in the right direction. Now, this has been used in other games (Dead Space being a perfect example) but they're tied in so well with the whole theme of the game, and are cumbersome enough to not have you tapping it all the time that it doesn't make it too easy.

All in all, I was quite glad to let the controller dangle there, game still running (safety precautions be damned) after I was 'done' with it, because that's what I felt it deserves.

It's out already for PS3, 360 and PC, but by all means this does not require you to purchase it. Avoid it like someone with the plague who's come round for tea, uninvited and naked.

AW