007 Legends

As soon as that name is mentioned, memories from dozens of films may flash before you. After all, Ian Fleming’s James Bond is one of the most memorable characters of all time. Even if you haven’t seen or played a game, you know of the character. It’s hard to believe that the entire 007 universe – with all its characters and history – could be summarized into six missions with a video game. However, developer Eurocom and publisher Activision certainly seemed up for the task when they released 007 Legends for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, and PC.

Fade to Black… Again?

The announcement for 007 Legends was one video game fans had been clamoring for – ever since the release of GoldenEye 007: Reloaded. There had always been a huge interest in the world’s most famous spy: James Bond, even outside the game world. So much interest that the character and his stories date back all the way to the early 1950’s. Generations have grown up reading, playing, and watching Bond. When fans were told that the new story would take us to classic locations where we’d take down classic villains alongside the trusty Bond girls, we were hooked. However, that’s not what happened. Instead, we received a story that tried to take the plot and villains from six different Bond films, then smash them into an eight-hour game. What I mean by this is that each of these missions is really its own telling of the films, albeit a condensed one.

At the start of each mission, you’ll be waking up a bit dazed and confused. And when I see each mission, I’m telling the truth. There are no proper transitions between each mission, so be prepared to have to adjust yourself to your new scenery when finishing a level.

From there, you’ll travel the rather cookie cutter environments with loose instructions from franchise favorites M, Q, or even a Bond girl such as Jinx. There’s little to nothing to explore during a level, but you can find intel that provides a bit more context on the characters being mentioned. If you’re a Bond fan, you won’t find any new info there. For those who are not too aware of the Bond franchise, you may get a bit lost during this game. It’s not exactly clear of how the story is tied together at first. You have to piece that together yourself as you play throughout the story. The only true connectors between the beginning and the end is Daniel Craig’s James Bond getting shot in the beginning and falling into the water, then surviving after one the later missions is complete. No rhyme or reason as to why we just replayed all those missions.

007 Legends Never Die

Some of my favorite memories growing up was playing GoldenEye on my Nintendo 64. Not only was the multiplayer great to play with my brothers and friends, but the campaign was excellent. The gameplay was fun either way you played. In 007 Legends, that’s not the case. It’s a first-person-shooter (FPS) that struggles to provide much excitement throughout the game besides a few big explosions and memorable cutscenes in between. You’ll mindlessly run through stages running and gunning with little resistance from the enemy AI.

During some stages, you’ll be asked to be stealthy or risk detection. To succeed at being stealthy in this game, you’d have to have the patience of a saint. It’s simply too difficult, but not in a fun way. There are sections where there are simply too many lines-of-sight from the various cameras and enemies. On top of that, you’re not able to hide bodies after taking them out. If you take out an enemy, you have to make sure no one sees, which can be tough with patrols. It’s safe to say I was detected more often than not and by the end, I choose to run and gun.

A Side of Challenges, Please

Outside the campaign, there is a multiplayer section of the game that allows you and up to four friends to play split-screen with one another. This is actually a welcome sight as most games fail to add a split-screen option, much less with four players. Don’t expect to play online these days, but you weren’t missing much as this game was DOA as far as online multiplayer came.

Another mode you can play is the Challenges mode. In Challenges, you’ll be able to play as various characters from the campaign mode such as Oddjob. You’re tasked with other one of four missions: assault, defense, escape, and infiltration. Each one has its own objectives and provides a scoring system as well. This is a very in-depth scoring system and can be tinkered to your liking, which is neat to see. Since you won’t be playing the campaign more than once, Challenges is where you’ll be a lot of the time – at least it’s where I was.

Pros:

• Some of the cutscenes are great
• Four player splits-screen multiplayer
• Challenges mode has depth

Cons:

• Campaign’s story doesn’t make any sense
• Have to be a Bond fan to understand what’s happening
• Poor voice acting during some parts
• Gameplay is boring and repetitive