The Five Things You Need to Know About Legendary

7/9/2008 7:08 PM | 1 Comments | Page 1 of 1

The 10-Cent Tour: Griffins and werewolves have invaded modern-day New York City, and all that stands between you and a Game Over screen is your shotgun and your magic hand. Can Gamecock's first FPS survive in a post-BioShock world?

1. You play through the game as a thief known as Deckard. Like Cher, Deckard apparently only goes by the one name. Deckard/you break into a museum after hours to steal, and during his thievery, he inadvertently opens Pandora's Box, unleashing all sorts of things he'll have to shoot.

2. Though the frame rate chugged at times, the game features destruction on an epic scale. Buildings crumble around you. Cabs sail over your head. So much crap is exploding around you in the game's early levels that you'll often have trouble figuring out where to go next. Confused? Lost? Click the left analog stick and a faint indicator will appear on-screen, telling you what direction you need to be heading in. (Thanks, clever developers!)

3. From what we could tell, weapons are all pretty standard-issue: You've got shotguns, pistols, assault rifles, etc. But your left hand is apparently good for more than just pleasuring yourself. During our demo, while being attacked by a griffin during a cut scene, the left hand fended off the beast by sending some fiery magic at its beak.

4. Welcome back, giant-ass bosses! The game celebrates the return of the Super Boss, aka bosses so huge that they don't fit on your widescreen plasma. Seriously, we haven't seen bosses this big since the glory days of Serious Sam and Painkiller. Nice to see you again, old friends!

5. You're not merely fighting werewolves and griffins -- you're also fighting against a mysterious third party. During the demo, we skipped ahead to the game's intense fifth level (ah, the wonders of de-bugs), showing a group soldiers in the distance firing guns in our general direction. We spotted a werewolf in a cage behind the soldiers. Aiming for the lock, we freed the werewolf, who rampaged through the soldiers ... and then came after us.

The Crispy Forecast: Surprisingly sunny. The build we played was indeed a bit choppy, but overall, we're happy just to have a shooter that doesn't have anything to do with WWII or take place in some vague dystopian future.

This preview is based on a hands-on demo that took place while sitting on a cheap, faux-leather couch at the Sandbox Strategies offices on 8th Avenue in New York City on an extremely balmy day (temps were in the high '80s, with relatively high humidity). This game is expected to be released in Q3 this year.