007 Legends Review (X360)

• Publisher: Activision
• Developer: Eurocom
• ESRB Rating: “T" for Teen
• Genre: Shooter
• Pros: Local multiplayer
• Cons: Dull gunplay; awful stealth; incomprehensible story; very short

007 Legends means well, but is executed extremely poorly. The idea was to feature one story from each of the six different actors that played James Bond over the years, which is a nice idea, but the films that were chosen are far from the best the franchise has to offer. Connery is represented with "Goldfinger", Lazenby with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (obviously), Moore with "Moonraker", Dalton with "License to Kill", and Brosnan with "Die Another Day". With the exception of "Goldfinger", this isn't exactly a collection of the most popular Bond films ever. Craig's entry in the game will be "Skyfall", but that level isn't even included with the game and will instead be released as free DLC once the "Skyfall" movie hits theaters.

Strangely, despite wanting to pay homage to all of the Bonds of the past, none of their likenesses are actually used and instead Daniel Craig's Bond is pasted into their scenarios. Not only that, but everything has been modernized to fit with Craig's Bond, so now he's hacking Goldfinger's computers with a smart phone and tooling around town in a shiny new modern Aston Martin rather than the classic one. Considering the story is supposed to be that Craig's Bond is wounded at the beginning of the game (during "Skyfall") and is having flashbacks to his past missions (which kind of throws out the "Bond is just a code name" theory ... good thing this isn't canon), it makes sense from a story perspective, but fans won't be happy about it.

Also strange is that there is very little actual storytelling here. Instead you are just thrown into levels that sort of hit the high points in each film, but with no explanation or context on what you're doing or why you're there or even where you are. I supposed they expect that Bond fans will recognize things and have lots of "ooh, aah" nostalgic moments, but in order to stretch those brief memorable moments from the movies into actual 15-20 minute gameplay levels they had to essentially rewrite the movies to make it all work. What you are left with is a confusing mess of levels with no story and no context that when all is said and done only manages to last around 5 hours in total.

There are multiplayer and challenge modes available, which actually are kind of fun since they throw out any notion of story and just let you shoot stuff. Online multiplayer is a total wash, since no one is (or will be) playing it, but local splitscreen multi actually works quite well and will remind you of the good ol' days of GoldenEye 007 on N64 (aaah, memories).

Perhaps worse is that the game also tries to implement a stealth mechanic (including some forced stealth sections) that is just absolutely awful. All you can do, basically, is crouch and hide. Oh, you also can't peek around corners, so if you poke your head out to actually see what is going on, you'll be spotted. You can stealth kill enemies with a melee attack or a silenced weapon, but there is no way to move the bodies. This means that if you kill an enemy, the rest of the level is a sort of race to make sure you kill everyone else before they discover the mess you're leaving.

Boss fights are also handled in a hilariously awkward way where you duke it out with Goldfinger, Oddjob, Blofeld, and more in the age old art of manly QTE-driven fisticuffs. Easily dodge incoming punches with the triggers, then punch with the analog sticks and finish off every fight in the game literally without ever taking a hit. Yawn.