It’s James Bond fever all over the place at the moment with Skyfall just being released and all the hype around what could be one of the greatest Bond films. That usually means some kind of movie tie-in game is on the horizon that’s rushed out to coincide with the film, but Activision and Eurocom have gone down a slightly different route. Offering a “007 Legends” video game which is a First Person Shooter, that is meant to recreate moments from Bond’s history, albeit including a portion of Skyfall (almost but we’ll get to that). Have they made a classic based on classics or have they missed the target by a mile?
Featuring a campaign based around six Bond actors who have portrayed him and a film from their time, so we have Goldfinger (Connery), On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Lazenby), Moonraker (Moore), Licence to Kill (Dalton), Die Another Day (Brosnan) and Skyfall (Craig). Legendary actors (nearly all of them) in their own rights, which probably explains why they’ve gone for Daniel Craig’s likeness in all the scenarios Bond encounters, financial reasons is my first thought. The idea is *Minor Spoiler* as in the Skyfall film, bond is shot accidently by a sniper and subsequently falls unconscious, starts remembering past missions he’s been a part of. Before you get too excited though the playable Skyfall part is not yet available and is being released via downloadable content (free) in the near future. I’m not a fan of distributing a partly finished game, especially when some buyers may not have access to a connection on their console so how do they get the final missions? In my opinion that’s poor from Activison.
That being said I was going to make the best of what the campaign did offer and into Goldfinger I went. Not just this level but it seems all on-foot based ones feature a rather odd mixture of forced variation from an uninspiring onslaught of enemies to an attempted stealth situation, literally within a room of the destruction you’ve just caused. Wouldn’t be so bad if the A.I. weren’t as odd as they are, I could crouch all the way in front of them at times and they wouldn’t even flinch. Compare that with a headshot, far from view of cameras and using a silenced pistol, however random guard number 42 seemed to survive it and alert all his friends.
The nostalgic value is there, seeing the gold painted lady, Auric Goldfinger, Oddjob, Jaws in selected well known locations from these films makes me want to watch those films once more. Unfortunately when you encounter these villains one on one it nearly always ends in a fist fight, despite holding a gun mere seconds before, where your left stick is left hand and right stick is right hand and it tells you on screen where to hit him. This might have been more enjoyable if I could choose my own punch destination instead of robotically complying with the on-screen instructions.
Gameplay in general was rather boring, even when they took me off my feet by skiing in the snow chase scene it seemed odd and a little bit basic, the whole thing, and each mission made me feel like I was bumbling through to the end of the level. Graphically the game never seemed to be able to cope with itself, possible rendering issues and even when they stepped it up for the cutscenes it got pixelated too often. Explosions from grenades were about as pathetic as a cheap magicians trick in a low budget show, yet damaged enemies that weren’t in the explosive range. Not to mention delivering shotgun bullets into enemies who then float in mid-air like they are underwater, too many glitched out bodies aswell.
Onto the better parts of campaign which were the gadgets, using a watch to fry cameras or hacking into security systems via a Smartphone. The most ingenious gadget is the dart gun featuring three attachments, each useful in their own right whether it’s shock, tranquiliser or distraction. It was fun for a while aiming a distraction dart and watching the A.I. flock to the location so I could walk on by without a hassle. Didn’t always work out that way though, it seems hit and miss to the usefulness of the few darts you have.
You’re probably getting a really negative feeling from me whilst reading about this game, but I’ve never been so disappointed and unfortunately there is more. Despite getting in Richard Kiel and a few other actors to reprise their likeness and voice, they seemed to think Daniel Craig’s Bond should just be voiced by Timothy Watson who I can only assume wasn’t paid enough as it was a lame attempt at adding character to Bond’s scenes. To be honest all the voice acting adding nothing to the feel of it, which is a shame as most character models were quite accurately made.
There is a challenge mode that allows you to be stealthy or destructive in a certain location, later on you take charge of other characters from the Bond world. The fact I didn’t enjoy campaign meant these extra levels were just as monotonous and so I was left with only one outlet to gain entertainment from, Multiplayer. That is of course if it wasn’t dead already, I found one match in my time of playing, which was fun but there’s a whole lot of games out there in the FPS genre that do it better. Range of game modes is refreshing when you can find someone to play with; it’s madness to think how dead the online community is less than a month after release.
Needless to say I won’t recommend this to FPS fans, James Bond fans or anyone as I am shocked at what’s been produced simply to make sure they capitalize on a major film launch. Without the Skyfall chapter it’s an unfinished game in my eyes, that’s not on and should have waited till that was ready or frankly not bothered. Poor graphics, dated tutorials and A.I. that is random but not in a good way, like running up to me then reloading before trying to hit me. Avoid please unless you really have the desire to torture yourself like the villains do to James Bond.
3/10