007 Legends Review

007 Legends hopes to do to the Bond game franchise what Skyfall is currently doing to the movie one. Can it take a long hard look at itself a and produce something special?

007 Legends attempts to pay homage to the 50th anniversary of James Bond. To do this Eurocomm, creators of last year’s Goldeneye: Reloaded, needed a mechanism to go back to the well. This mechanism is served from the opening of Skyfall, where Bond is shot and plummets to his doom. Here he enters in to some sort of watery flashback covering some of his past exploits.

Taking inspiration from five of the past classics you find yourself in the disembodies shoes of Bond in Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Licence to Kill, Die Another Day and Moonraker. A sixth mission, based on Skyfall, will be released in November as free DLC.

So far so tenable. This is unfortunately where the game departs from good ideas and solid premise. Instead of a spy-tastic romp you are treated to a sub-par first person shooter with poor design choices and wet lettuce for weapons. Each missions you undertake you will make your way through one of the classic movies. Sure they may not have been the best choices but they each still have memorable moments in them. Unfortunately Eurocomm seems to have removed most of these moments and replaced them with tepid farce. If I have to play the lacklustre Living Daylights at least throw in the 18 wheeler truck rocket dodge part!

Instead of inspiring spy action you are treated to poorly executed stealth, and lather rinse repeat game play. Shoot through area A, scan room/area B, shoot through Area C and repeat as needed. The enemy AI is laughable as they pop up and down like a fair ground attraction or, in some instances, do a bizarre moonwalk run against solid geometry in the level. Weapons too just feel so underpowered and uninspiring that you’ll rarely want to even bother picking up a new one – or using the MI6 rates to level them up.

The game looks reasonable enough. A little like a mid-range triple A title from a few years back. Some of the environmental and level design is also very well done and captures the look and feel of the movies it’s trying to ape. That’s until you realise that in each classic scenario you still play Daniel Craig’s likeness. If that wasn’t jarring enough Craig didn’t even provide the voice for 007 Legends. The voice actor that does attempts to do his best “British Spy” work but it’s nothing like Craig OR his interpretation of Bond. Throw in to that the fact that Bond has access to his Xperia Smartphone back in Goldfinger times and it all falls apart at the seams.

Luckily the main campaign is only six or seven hours long and you’ll be glad you’re through it – if you stuck with it that long. One treat if you do stick with the campaign is the repeated use of one of the worst quick time combat systems I’ve seen in some time. You’ll suddenly be face to face with Odd Job, for instance, and you’ll have to push the analogue sticks up or down to hit the head or body. This is just weirdly jarring ad completely out of place. It often replaces the real ending to the actual movies too which is just weird. Talking of weird the final level, Moonraker, just ends abruptly – fade to credits. I presume the Skyfall levels coming in November will round this out but as it stands it just ends badly.

The saving grace for 007 Legends comes in the form of the multiplayer. All stock options are here and a stripped down P system found in Call of Duty or Battlefield. It’s essentially a tweaked version of the multiplayer that was in Goldeneye: Reloaded – all be it a little less fun. This might just be because it’s been played out previously in the last Eurocomm Bond title.

This is such a shame because this could have been a good game. The premise was at least believable but it should have been movie specific Bonds and it should have been a lot more engaging than it was. As it stands Bloodstone is still the modern Bond title to beat.

Final Thoughts

A lacklustre attempt at mining the Bond back catalogue for the 50th anniversary celebrations.

Gun play is sloppy. The AI is poor. The “fun” has been drained out of the scenarios and the game is so repetitive you’d be tempted to give up about midway through the campaign.

Middling graphics and sound, a good score (yet they still don’t use the full breadth of options this could have yielded), strange design choices and uninspiring story just make 007 Legends dissolve in to a mess.

Some fun can be hand from sticking with the campaign and the multiplayer offers up a few hours of entertainment inside the James Bond universe.

007 Legends does the exact opposite to Skyfall. It takes the series further down a dark road of cash-in ethics and poor fan service. It takes the headway made with fans made by Bloodstone and leaves us shaken, stirred and feeling rung-out.