EIEIO 2008: Hands-on with Spark Unlimited's Legendary

"Episode Five" of Legendary is your typical "storming an English town" level, except the town in question just happens to be overrun by werewolves and one really, really pissed-off Minotaur. When it comes to controls, anyone who has played a first-person shooter is going to feel right at home, and for the most part there’s not much to report on that front. There are, however a few minor changes that Spark Unlimited are hoping will have a significant effect on gameplay.

The first is the use of something called the Signet, which you can use to draw the life force, or "Animus," from fallen monsters. Once a monster has fallen, the yellow life force will glow from its body; when within range, you’re prompted to press a single button to absorb the Animus (this is the Y button on the Xbox 360; we didn’t have a chance to play the game on the PlayStation 3). In Legendary, there are no health packs and you won’t recover over time like some of those other first-person shooters you might have played. The yellow animus can be used to restore your life at any time, as long as you have enough stored in the Signet. In the EIEIO 2008 demo, we also saw another use of the animus in an offensive maneuver called the "Animus Pulse", which allows you to push off attacking creatures and move objects in the environment.

Legendary also prominently features something that Spark Unlimited referred to a lot during the demo, three-way fighting. From what I saw, Legendary is a frenzied first-person shooter, with so much happening on-screen at once that it’s sometimes hard to keep up with it all. This is, in part, due to this three-way fighting, where creatures who are trying to tear you limb from limb will also battle soldiers who are (when not getting shredded by werewolves) setting their sights on you, too. This dynamic can come in handy in a few situations where you can conveniently use it to your benefit. One area of the demo mission featured a caged Alpha wolf that was being guarded by soldiers; a carefully-placed shot could release the beast from its pen, causing a scene that could work in your favor. However, you have to be careful, because remember, you’ve unleashed a bloodthirsty God damned werewolf, man. So sometimes you’ll have a decision to make — who do you want to focus on gunning down first: humans carrying firearms or werewolves capable of tearing off your arms?

The creatures in Legendary are indeed vicious. The AI is written in such a way that monsters will find multiple paths in an environment simply to reach their prey; it wasn’t unusual to see wolves climbing the walls of buildings to create an ambush, or to knock objects out of the way to clear a path. The result adds to the tension and frantic pace of Legendary — it became very hard to predict enemy movements when at any point they could change based on architecture or other in-game factors.

I was asked multiple times to keep in mind that we were being asked to play the game’s fifth episode, and that the difficulty would ramp up to this point accordingly. That said, the game seemed to be way more difficult than I had expected a demo to be. I died a handful of times before finally gaining my footing and really coming to terms with the world, the enemies, and how all of it works as a whole. Thank God that Legendary has a sprint button (left bumper on the Xbox 360) — I spent a good deal of my time running away from werewolves who had stunned me by jumping from some roof or ledge I hadn’t been aware of. It appeared that running away from a battle to find safer and more strategic ground was the way to go; I was most successful when I backed away from a pack of wolves before pumping them full of lead. Trying to stand toe-to-toe with enemies always resulted in a series of claw marks on the screen right before seeing a continue screen.

Legendary will also feature a number of "big boss"-type battles, with enemies that are said to be tens of stories tall. I only had a chance to battle an irritated Minotaur in courtyard, but it’s easy to tell where they’re going with these encounters. Again, sprinting was key — the Minotaur tore apart the courtyard, breaking pillars and tossing stone benches in my general direction. Surprisingly, toppling the beast was relatively simple, and mostly consisted of side-stepping his bull rushes and firing accordingly.

One thing to mention is that while the pace of the game was hectic, something about the game’s controls was noticeably sluggish. In particular, switching between weapons was exasperatingly slow, and bearing in mind how fast-paced some of the battles were, would be unacceptable in the final game. When asked about this, the team agreed, and mentioned that it was something they’d be working on before the game ships.

Right now, the visuals in Legendary do seem a bit inconsistent. I’m keen on the art direction and style of the game — it’s great seeing the dramatic changes the mythical creatures make to the modern world. But the creatures themselves seem to be a bit disappointing in the looks department. The wolves animate well, and it’s great to see them slamming a soldier to the ground or tearing off limbs from afar. But up close, they don’t seem quite as interesting, and have a flat, dull look to them. The Minotaur, on the other hand, looked impressive and detailed, but let me be honest: you’ve got to be crazy to get close to that damned thing.

Legendary is definitely showing promise, despite having a few noticeable rough patches. And as the official fact sheet is quick to point out, it’s "Not another World War II or generic Sci-Fi shooter!" It’s kind of hard to argue with that sentiment, isn’t it? Legendary will be coming to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows compatible PCs later this year.

[Note: For those interested in knowing what happened to "The Box" portion of the title, a Spark Unlimited employee who will remain nameless said this when asked why it was dropped: "Uh, because it was kind of stupid." I’m staying out of this one, but does anyone else agree?]