With voice actors for previous films on board lending their talents (Daniel Craigis Bond, so don’t expect any cameos from other folks who’ve played Sir James this time out), this just might be the best Bond game to date. Yeah, yeah, you die-hard N64 fanatics can’t give up that GoldenEye fetish (and it absolutely was a great game for its time), but it’s a new generation of systems and Eurocom has established themselves as the go to studio for the franchise. I say buy 007 Legends and play it with pride, as the developer has taken cues from Rare’s work and expanded greatly upon it to all our benefit.
It’s pretty clear that Activision and High Moon Studios have a big hit here, so the game will practically sell itself without any trumpeting from me. My only issue with the game is there’s no portable version, specifically a Vita game that could be played cross platform or had content such as upgrades earned while playing that could be transferred to the PS3 version. Yeah, I know the game has been in development for a bit, but why not try to use features touted in Sony’s new portable in order to possibly generate a few sales for the unit? I know I’d buy a Vita version of this game for sure…
Hey, I know I’m going to get grief for this, but I already played two No More Heroes games, MadWorld, GOD HAND, Red Steel 2 and Duke Nukem Forever. Sure, Marvel’s HUGELY popular cussin’ shootin’, stabbin; fan favorite has been around for ages, but I don’t think he can hold up an entire game on his own without the project being an exercise in brain-numbing overkill after about… oh, the third or fourth stage. Now, I don’t mind brain-numbing overkill (hell, I played the new Splatterhouse and both SAW games in the same week), but here’s a case where there better be a damn good story to back up all the jokes and gore. Meh, who am I kidding? I’d bet some of the same people that will run out and buy this are some of the same people that probably don’t “get” a Suda 51 game because they try to take it too seriously. As always, we shall see.
But yeah, this one better be a keeper or I’m calling up Lobo and telling someone is stealing his schtick…
So, I’m thirteen films into my 19-flick James Bond 007 marathon (and again, thanks, Encore, but no thanks for running the SAP versions and not the original theatrical formatted flicks, grrrrr) and I’m a bit more disappointed with the middle run of the series than I thought I would be. Nostalgia value aside, seeing all of these films one after another is like getting stabbed to death by an army of ants with really tiny knives. For me, once you get past On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (and realize how good it is), most of the films after it (mostly the Roger Moore era ones) haven’t stood up so well. Sure, Diamonds Are Forever is amusing (to a fault), Live And Let Die makes for a great 9albeit controversial) intro to the Roger Moore era and The Spy Who Loved Me at least tries hard to be ten years younger than it really is. A few of the other Moore films have interesting performances and plot points, but clearly, the series was devolving into campy, self-referential humor at the expense of whatever sensible elements remained.
Yes, I know the four Pierce Brosnan films (which I haven’t seen in a few years, but will get to this week) have great key moments that helped usher in today’s more serious Bond films, so I’m looking forward to seeing them at least once more. That said, the 70’s to 80’s Bond films range from adequate to flat out dumb to trying too hard to be serious before degenerating to the usual plot point of Bind dropping his pants and bedding anything he can before getting conked on the head and delivered to the bad guy’s hideout or some other location where he’ll escape before popping up to surprise the potential world dominating fool and set into motion his usually sightly to highly comical (explosion, falling, impalement, etc.) demise.
I’m really interested in 007 Legends because Eurocom has been doing a pretty stellar job with their last few Bond games and this trailer shows off a nice level inspired by my favorite Bond film. I do wish that all the music in the trailer was taken from the original film, as the main theme was and is one of the best in the series and still works double duty as an intro and action scene piece. Amusingly enough, Encore is running 19 Bond films this month, so I’ve been watching one per night (in order, of course) for a bit of reminiscing and for a future article. Yup, some of them haven’t held up well at all in terms of a few prickly points I’ll discuss later (and a big fat BOO to Encore for not showing these in their original theatrical formats!), but for the most part, I’m still entertained by what I’m seeing. As for the game, I’m just itching to play it just to see how well Eurocom translated and condensed each film they chose down to what’s looking like a nearly non-stop thrill ride of a game…
OK, I may not want to swing around a virtual NYC as Stan ‘The Man” Lee in The Amazing Spider-Man game, but I can’t say anything negative about Bruce Campbell getting into the game, voicing “The Extreme Reporter” (which is an oddball name for a character, but oh well). Now, would I want to swing around in the game as Bruce in the guise of Ash, Brisco County Jr., Elvis from Bubba-Ho-Tep or any other characters he’s played? Nope. I just appreciate the man’s talent and humor along with his large body of work. That and hell, some “bonuses” aren’t all that special if they make no sense, kids…
Yeah, it’s a stupidly cool Amazon pre-order bonus and all and yes, it’s looking like Beenox’ best game to date, but let me start some trouble here by stating historically (for some old school Marvel fans), it’s a bit off-base. I’d imagine any Steve Ditko supporters out there might be a wee bit ticked off at this, but hey, he’s a mystery man himself and there hasn’t been a photo of him published anywhere that I know of in decades. Feh, we’re a dying breed the kids don’t give a hoot in hell about these days anyway, as I’d bet none of them even KNOW who Ditko is.
Then again, given that Marvel and Stan Lee have been boosting Stan as the creator of any and everything successful about the company for decades (overlooking the contributions of too many comic art legends, many of whom are no longer with us) and Lee’s the perfect showman (in that Funky Flashman manner – if you know what I mean), I’m guessing a little bit of re-writing is helping keep those dollars rolling in for both parties. So, as long as you don’t think about it too much (and that’s not too hard in this era of shorter attention spans), it’s all good, right? Um, “Excelsior!” (which should mean, “Hell No!” in this case, but you can’t stop the fan train from rolling onward sometimes)…
And all is good in that way fans of the show would want it to be in the case of one of the key character voices. Frankly speaking, the game is looking so polished and excellent that they could have gotten Gilbert Gottfried to to ALL the voice work and it would still be worth paying full price for. Hmmm… that gives me an(other) crazy idea (dot, dot, dot).
Memo to Activision: maybe think about giving Gilbert a call and hell, get him to narrate the TV commercials while you’re at it. I know people who bought a Shoedini just because he was the voice talent in that infomercial. Or maybe not. Hey, I’m entitled to feeble attempts at both humor and dipping a toe into some PR person’s day to give them a chuckle from time to time…
Truth be told, this game REALLY doesn’t need any CG trailers at all, as the gameplay itself looks pretty amazing. That and the Megaplex reveal we all saw was more than enough to make plenty of people want to trow more money at Activision and keep High Moon Studios in business. City-sized robot? Oh yeah, that’s going to be a ton (or a few million tons) or awesome.
By now, Activision and hard-working developer Treyarch have no doubt developed quite the thick skin (and a deaf ear from all those ricochets) when it comes to listening to the anti-CoD crowd wailing away when news of a new installment breaks. I’ve pretty much heard it all, from JRPG fans who “hate FPS games and CoD players” with a rather biased viewpoint (sorry, they’re not all “frat boy jerks” or “gun nuts”) to fans of other shooters who never seem to realize that most of the games they like wouldn’t be around if CoD wasn’t busting sales records and forcing a few innovations (like them or not) into the genre (which IS a bit stale after so many years with so many AAA games coming and going).
That said, and as I noted earlier, when it works, it WORKS, and Black Ops was one of those games that packed so much content onto a disc that you didn’t really need to play it online to enjoy some prime content. OK, let me shut up and let you enjoy this little “documentary” about the future world weapons and such presented in this upcoming sequel that’s bound to make all involved another mint. Oh yeah, I’ll be nice for a change and not even ask what Oliver North is doing in the video. Put him in the Zombies game next time, guys.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 