They say youâre not supposed to judge something by its cover, but screw it: 007 Legendsâ awful cover gives the game away.
The second giveaway of the titleâs quality also revealed itself early on: in the middle of the first level, Pussy Galore asks who our intrepid secret agent is. His response? The most monotone, dry delivery of âJames Bondâ Iâve ever heard. Not âBond, James Bond.â James Bond. I cringed, though my loyalties donât typically align with following tradition if thereâs a better alternative: but the line was delivered so terribly, I wanted the game to hark back to cliche.
Thinking about it, perhaps this delivery is appropriate given that few 007 titles succeed in showcasing Bond as a gallant gentleman with a license to kill. As my friend put it to me recently, â007 is a very social creature. Heâs cool and suave, he gets in close, woos the ladiesâbut in the games, all you do is shoot and sometimes stealth/drive. He feels less like a âsecret agentâ and more like Navy SEAL in a suit.â
The oversight feels more egregious than it usually does in the Bond series, because 007 Legends is supposed to be a celebration of fifty years of James Bond movies. One would think that by extension this means we should expect an exploration of the man himself, given that thatâs who weâre paying homage to, right? Instead the game features specific moments from six different movies, each one hailing from the different actors who have played Bond over the years. Eurocom, who also developed the (much better) GoldenEye remake, chose an âeclecticâ mix of films: Goldfinger, On Her Majestyâs Secret Service, Moonraker, Licensce to Kill and Die Another Day.
WHY: 007 Legends is not only terrible a homage to James Bond, but itâs a mediocre shooter too.
007: Legends
Developer: Eurocom
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Windows PC
Released: October 9
Type of game: First Person Shooter
What I played: Played 7 hours, unlocking the majority of my upgrades.
Things I Liked
Melees often one shot enemies. So I went Rambo Bond.
Though the implementation wasnât very good, the idea of playing through a bunch of different movies is cool.
Two Things I Hated
The game doesnât capture the feeling of being James Bond at all.
Enemy AI was so bad, I felt like I was experiencing existential horror.
Made-to-Order Back-of-Box Quotes
âNo Bond, James Bond? What is this shit?â âPatricia Hernandez , Kotaku.com
âI never thought being James Bond could be so awful.â âPatricia Hernandez, Kotaku.com
But the iconic landmarks and people mean little on their own without context, build-up or narrative. âWhy are we here and why should I care?â was a question I asked myself constantly as the game does a poor job of setting things up or explaining how to do anything. The gadget minigames, for example, are often shoddily explained and missions often start in the middle of things. Those looking for a shooter to pass the time are likely to look elsewhere before turning to 007, and fans looking for a tribute will be offended by how much 007 Legends feels like a shameless cash-in. The gameâs lack of an ending doesnât helpâthatâs supposed to come later as free DLC as a level from Skyfall. Or maybe Legends is the type of tribute as imagined by the gold-obsessed Auric Goldfinger?
The game tries to vaguely justify the cohesion of the levels by setting it all up as life-flashing-in-front-of-your-eyes-right-before-death. It opens with a sniper accidentally taking a shot at Daniel Craigâs Bond (who is not voiced by Daniel Craig!), and as he falls off the moving train, he starts having flashbacks of his previous missions. You know, even though Craig is supposed to be a reimagining of Bond and thereâs no way heâs actually lived through all of what we get to play?
The settings have been âmodernized,â but not in a good way. The most jarring thing about this is Bondâs usage of his smartphone. Nevermind that the minigames are uninteresting. Since a regular personâwho isnât as cool as Bond, or as suave as Bondâis so familiar with smartphones, the fact that James Bond relies on one instead of an assortment of gadgetry makes the experience feel less sophisticated. It turns out that while âthereâs an app for thatâ is useful for us, having that be the case for Bond strips away the novel feeling that comes with new, previously unknown gadgetry. We can all use smartphones, but weâre not all James Bond. So we canât be as sophisticated as Bond, and we canât be as cool as BondâŠwhatâs left?
Killing, of course. Nothing noteworthy here either. Moving forward in the game feels like a chore. Still, I found myself making things mildly interesting by going Rambo. Youâre invincible during the cinematic close-up that happens on a subduction or melee, and most enemies go down with one hit. There are also quick-time fist-fights that tend to happen with special enemies, like bosses. These are absurdly easy: youâre supposed to tilt the right or left stick up and down depending on the given prompt. It doesnât capture the feeling of hand-to-hand combat at all. The game features challenges, but theyâre largely uninspired. Weâre talking challenges along the lines of, âEliminate X enemies with Y gun.â Then again, if the base game is no good, superimposing challenges on top of that isnât likely to help things.
Thereâs stealth, but itâs not implemented well. You can crouch and hide or go behind cover, and you can take out enemies silently. As is typical of most games that include it, stealth seems to be the option for masochists who are looking for a âchallenge. And by âchallengeâ I mean âhere, have a system thatâs not fleshed out and levels that arenât designed for stealth. Have fun.â While itâs possible to traverse some levels without being noticed, thereâs nothing fulfilling about it: it feels like youâve lucked out and managed to not get seen rather than feeling that youâve been crafty about your movement or traversal of the shadows. And since you canât hide bodies, itâs more likely that you wonât be able to pull off a furtive playthrough anyway.
The clincher for me came while I was playing a level that featured what was supposed to be Mayan ruins. Instead what stood before me was the knowledge of what geometry these worn relics were made of, not an understanding of the marvel of human ingenuity they represent. Most levels had something unnaturally off about them like this, reproducing things that are supposed to mean something to usâŠbut donât. At least not in the way theyâre represented in the game. Itâs not just the levels, but the parts we play, too: the setpieces that clearly wanted to lift successful elements off Call of Duty, but even bombastic explosions have an art to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXsAfVhEPmE
Eventually what 007 Legends offered me wasnât homage or tribute, but rather existential horror. As I stood high on my sniper perch above my enemies-which all looked the same (they were always the same, endless horde of similar faces)âI noticed something unsettling. Enemies would scatter like ants to the exact spots as those before them, eventually creating large mountains of human flesh that, bafflingly, more people braved. Could they not see what was happening around them? Or did the gameâs code bind them to a destiny they could not prevent? One by one I saw my enemies practically line up for their turn, acting like modern sacrificesânot to a Mayan god, but to corporate greed.
It was like they begged, âFree me from my mortal coil!â And I did, for if I lived in this meaningless world, Iâd want to die too.
