It's been 50 years since James Bond had become the astrological phenomenon he is today, with fourteen official novels, twenty-three films, and twenty-three video games. With that being said, there is so much material to work with, so much influence to be had, and so much brilliance to build upon...and yet, 007 Legends falls flat on its theoretical arse. As Tristan Ogilvie over at IGN worded so brilliantly, "...it seems like the development team has merely skimmed the back covers of a few of the DVDs in the James Bond box set and then decided to interpret them in the form of a poor man’s Call of Duty."
From the beginning of the game, as a true Bond fan, the opening sequence was incredibly and painfully weak, and lacked any kind of debonair flair that Bond himself would be proud of. With a rather disappointing rendition of a scene from the upcoming film, Skyfall, 007 suffers an accidental shot from his fellow MI6 operative, Eve, whilst fighting an enemy on the roof of a speeding train. As he plummets into the waters below, he's struck by a series of flashbacks which serve as the five different films they used in the game. These five films are five short and unsatisfying missions leading up to the yet to be released Skyfall downloadable content. In lieu of this, the game feels incomplete, rushed, and overall disastrous.
To further add insult to injury, the many things Activision got right in this instalment, they got quite horribly wrong. While it's very much enjoyable to relive these classic moments in 007 history, the whole affair is rather tawdry when one realizes nothing is really the same. It doesn't feel quite right causing an explosion in Franz Sanchez's lair with a smartphone and ejecting one of Goldfinger's henchmen from the passenger seat of an Aston Martin DBS instead of the DB5, and it's rather disappointing.
The online multiplayer is nothing more than a poor man's rendition of Call of Duty's multiplayer and actually feels like it's been watered down, condensed, strained, and served on a cracked China plate. It's boring, unsatisfying, and rather embarassing. The split screen multiplayer is just as tasteless and lacking in the same respect, and should be substituted for the split screen multiplayer in GoldenEye Reloaded.
In regards to all this, 007 Legends feels way too much like Call of Duty and nothing like James Bond, and it's becoming more and more apparent that Activision is in fact a one-trick pony with their best selling franchise. With that being said, in my honest opinion, they ought to just drop the rights to the James Bond games, because if they aren't going to put enough effort into making them, like or unlike Call of Duty, they're just losing money and time in the long run; money and time that could be better applied to the franchise that everyone actually enjoys. If I wanted to play Call of Duty, I would play Call of Duty. However, if I want to play James Bond, I'm going to have to dust off the Nintendo 64 and Playstation 2 and go back to GoldenEye, Everything or Nothing, and Nightfire, where one can witness a true 007 experience.
As a Bond fan and gamer for fifteen years running, 007 Legends is just plain awful. It's a hideous and embarrassing "tribute" to the James Bond franchise, and a prime and evident waste of money and resources. With the upcoming launch to Black Ops II not being so far away, 007 Legends should have just remained an idea and the time spent on it should have been applied to bettering the Call of Duty franchise.
Shocking. Positively shocking.
It’s been a while since the video game world was blessed with a James Bond title.
There were a few non-film ones back on PS2/GC that were really good.
I can imagine the cinematic elements of those games would look even better now.
Everything or Nothing is my second best Bond game behind Goldeneye 64, followed by Nightfire.
we have a lot of great video games and we have a lot coming out this year...lame
What's happened to the James Bond franchise in general?
It, much like Star Trek, Star Wars, has had too much of the "real world" shoved down their throats. That plus people with agendas hijacking them thinking they can use brand value to deliver "transformative" messaging while lacking the awareness, the creative talent, needed to make them entertaining at even a base level.
Also, getting back on subject, doesn't help that movie studios don't see gaming studios as equals who need as much if not more time to do their jobs right.
Yeah, come to think of it. Maybe their absence can be attributed to the falling popularity of the videogame adaptation or even the licensed franchise tie-in, as well as the gaming landscape being quite different now than it was. The Bond titles filled a niche of FPS-action titles, the likes of which are not exactly uncommon nowadays. That said, the Bond games were a fun take on the genre that I'd like to see return one day.
That's true. You couldn't get past the PS2 days without a movie tie in. Now, I can't think of the last game tie in.. even Star Wars was different
Developers have retreated from the James Bond property, a sad state of affairs for what was once the gold standard of licensed video game adaptations.
You'd think that a developer would release a 007 game more akin to a stealth franchise like Hitman by now to play up on Bond's espionage
I can remember more than a decade ago, the Goldeneye-esque shooters were fairly popular. Unfornately, Goldeneye-esque shouters seemed to die out after 2005, with the polarizing PDZ having a good online population for a few years. Conversely, the extremely content rich and well designed Timesplitters: Future Perfect underperformed in sales. As for bonds games, I haven't played one since 007 Nightfire (a personal favourite). I personally, think if 007 games (and Pefect Dark games) were to return, the titles should take influence from Deus Ex. With levels designed to allow the players to either play stealthy, uses gadgets or just shoot up the place.
There are many reasons why a highly anticipated game will fail such as toxic work environment or outdated game engine. Then there are the moments when it was obvious the game was going to be a failure, and yet the development team was oblivious to the red flags. This is a look at five games that were obviously going to fail but the development team ignored the red flags.
I feel like Battleborne is the next game on this list. Nothing about it looks bad per say, but it's really not standing out, and no one really seems to care about it (including me) it's just like that pretty normal kid that sits at the edge of class no one really pays much attention to.
resident evil 6 was already doom, when i was playing it with the ps3 controller. qte ,camera story.killing wesker was dumb mistake to replace him with a boring character. re6 was a big mess
I'm gonna throw evolve in on this. Yes it sold opening week. Unfortunately it fell fast from there on out at was critically panned.
Check out Bloodstone, if you haven't already. It's a hidden gem imo.
from what I saw, the whole game seemed rushed.
I couldn't agree more. I just finished and submitted my review for the game, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only person appalled by this title.