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Screens & Info Updated: 10/29/2008

I was able to spend a little time with a near retail build (360) of the upcoming title Legendary from publisher Gamecock and developer Spark Unlimited. I spent the majority of my time with the first three levels of the game, which introduced me to the mechanics behind the Animus abilities, and few of the monster enemy types you'll encounter thru the entire campaign.

First, the game begins by setting up the thief and main character of Deckard as the guy who unwittingly unleashes the contents of Pandora's Box across the world. You quickly realize that Deckard was set-up by his employer, but that's of little concern at first. Instead, as soon as the monsters start to show up (in form of Fire Drakes, Gryphons, etc.) you need to make a mad dash out of the museum and thru the city as it's being destroyed by all the mythical creatures that have just showed up in our plane of existence.

This beginning segment is pretty solid, with a showy display of power from the Gryphons especially, as they pick up various objects, like cars, and toss them around the city. Along with that the ground beneath your feet is splitting and moving, and you're only given a pistol at first to defend yourself with. Your first real encounter with a monster will be the Fire Drakes, which are about knee high in comparison, and remind me a bit of the Fireball's from Final Fantasy titles, but with little legs and arms. These guys will spew out large fireballs at a distance, or a steady stream of fire up close. They also take a surprising amount of bullets to go down, but once you pick up the fire axe later in the stage they're fairly easy to take out, provided they don't start to gang up on you.

The first stage will also introduce you to some light puzzle solving, mostly in the form of extinguishing the fires using hydrants or valves, but you'll also need to destroy security boxes to unlock doors too. Interacting with these objects is done simply by pressing the X button, or holding it down. In later levels though you'll come across other types of puzzles too, which end up being a bit more challenging.

Besides basic FPS style weapons, Deckard also has the unique ability to use energy that drops from dead creatures called Animus. In the early stages you absorb Animus by holding down the Y button, and then you can either discharge it as a pulse that can knock back enemies (and decapitate downed Werewolves), or use it to heal Deckard by holding down the Y button again. You'll want to keep an eye out for this energy as you'll find yourself using it pretty frequently, and if you're in the vicinity of some that's hidden around the stage, your HUD will give you notice by having the Animus meter do a little bit of pulsing on the bottom left of the screen.

The most interesting enemy type that I ran into had to be the Werewolves, which have some interesting AI mechanics at play. At first you'll come across them individually, allowing you to get used to how they work. If they spot you at a distance, they'll start to pick up objects and toss them at you before moving in for the kill with their claws. Once they're right in your face they become difficult to shake off, but if you equip the Fire Axe you can hack away at them and sometimes manage to break their arms (you'll notice this from the damage on the enemy model and the way their arm will flail about), however, just knocking them out doesn't quite do the trick. If you don't decapitate them, they'll rise up again after a few seconds, so once you have them down you want to target your attacks on their head. Alternately, if you target their heads at first you can take them off before knocking them down the first time, something that gets easier to do when you pick up some of the more powerful firearms. However, in a later stage you get introduced to the Alpha Werewolves, which are far more difficult to kill, and provide a really big challenge in comparison to the basic ones.

The other interesting aspect of the Werewolves, when you start to encounter them in groups, is how they tend to work together in taking you down. Once you're ganged up on by three of them you'll want to try and use your Animus pulse to take one or two down early, because trying to run around and dodge three of them at once is incredibly hard. Also, if you want to quickly decapitate a Werewolf after knocking it down, simply unleash an Animus Pulse for an instant severing attack.

There are other mythical creatures that I've run into as well, like the Golem that lumbers about the entirety of one stage, and the demonic baby spirits called Nari that can inhabit objects (or bodies) and use them as weapons against you. You can only hit these guys when they turn solid, and they're probably some of the tougher creatures in the game to kill, simply because they're so damn hard to hit. Then there's the tentacles that run under water thru quite a few levels that will pop out and snatch a hold of you, requiring you to shoot them as they start to drag you down, and finally the cocoon pods that will spawn exploding leech like creatures that have a knack for zeroing in on Deckard regardless of where they're at.

All together Legendary seems to be shaping up nicely, and I look forward to seeing everything the game has to offer, including its multiplayer modes. Expect a full review coming up soon, where I'll lay out everything I can think of about the final product once it's out.

A new selection of legendary screens.

Features:

• A war of mythic proportions - Lead awe-inspiring fire-fights where high-caliber ordnance meets beak, talon, claw and fang. Dynamic environments crumble around you as you and your enemies tear an interactive, living, breathing environment apart in your battle to stay alive.
• Global combat in stunning locations - Devastation is realized on an unprecedented scale. See internationally recognized structures and monuments to mankind fall before the primal onslaught of titans. Every feature, every location is realized in breath-taking high-definition.
• Think fast or die combat - Man is no-longer top of the food chain and you are the hunted. Witness stunning artificial intelligence in action as packs of werewolves attempt to outflank you and giant gryphons tear through buildings to drag you screaming into their world.