PS3 Review: 007 Legends (2012)

This one's a bit late. I had originally planned to review 007 Legends in tandem with my review of Skyfall last fall, but you know, things happen. Better late than never, I guess. Keep your eyes peeled for more 007 coverage from your fellow spy enthusiasts at Code Redd Net.

I liked the first Die Another Day game I played better. You know, Nightfire.

I had been hoping for a game like 007 Legends for a long time. It seems like an easy project: to collect the best action set-pieces from the best James Bond films in one game and to serve it up in a competent shooter with a few multiplayer options. From Russia With Love had the right idea, successfully converting the classic '60s spy film for PS2 in the Everything or Nothing model. It was a solid Bond game that captured the look and feel of the film while simultaneously bringing it up to speed with the more stunt-heavy recent Bond films. 007 Legends also has the right idea, as it incorporates the most spectacular scenes from five Bond films and ties them into the plot of Skyfall: those films being Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, License to Kill, Die Another Day and Moonraker. This is an excellent idea well suited for today's generation of games, but 007 Legends falters somewhat in execution.

The game has a real flimsy narrative excuse to revisit all these old missions. It begins with a cinematic adapted from the pre-credits sequence in Skyfall, where Bond is shot by another agent while fighting an adversary on the roof of a speeding train. As Bond hits the water, he is reminded of his previous encounters with Goldfinger, Blofeld, Jaws and others. The game proper begins with a scene from Goldfinger in which Bond finds that girl dead, covered in gold paint. What makes this recreation of Goldfinger odd is that you play as Daniel Craig instead of Sean Connery, and you have access to a smartphone device and other contemporary technology/weaponry.  This is in contrast to the architecture, as well as the design of the surrounding characters, virtually all of whom retain their 1960s clothing. It's an odd inconsistency in art direction spread throughout the entire game, and it never feels quite right. I would've liked to have seen a total commitment to each era, all the way down to its rudimentary gadgets, or a total process of bringing-up-to-date rather than the hybrid nostalgic-contemporary setting provided instead. That's not to say, however, that the structure of 007 Legends is without benefit: those five Bond films, bounded together, make room for considerable variety in setting and gameplay mechanics. Throughout the game, you switch between several styles of gameplay, including the straightforward shooting portions, stealth segments, sleuthing, vehicle combat, and fisticuffs. Unfortunately, these styles are highly organized and segregated in your missions. In other words, a bit of hand-to-hand combat is always bracketed by a cinematic that cues up the switch to this style, and stealth often becomes mandatory to mission completion upon entering a particular room rather than being simply a strategic choice with consequences. Nonetheless, each mission draws on particularly strong action scenes from its respective film to keep the game moving at a commendable pace.

I was also impressed by other improvements over the previous GoldenEye: Reloaded, particularly a dramatic increase in replay value. Whereas more recent Bond games have suffered from a weak single-player experience that did not invite multiple playthroughs, 007 Legends has a strong set of weapon upgrades and unlockables for multiplayer, based on finding objects and overall mission scores. Furthermore, I was impressed by Legends' customization options. Like most modern first-person shooters, on the default option health regenerates after a few seconds: thankfully, though, Legends gives you the option of switching to an old school system in which health does not regenerate and you must rely on body armor spread throughout the level. This is a nice addition that makes the game considerably more challenging, in many instances artificially so as body armor is unevenly distributed in these missions. Multiplayer support is fairly strong, though the lack of AI bots hurts this feature substantially, as online multiplayer is sparsely populated.

Overall, 007 Legends is only a fair-to-middling entry in the franchise, one that does a decent enough job with a promising idea but nothing more. It's much better than the other Bonds released in the last few years, yet nowhere near the level of PS2-era shooters like Nightfire, Everything or Nothing, or From Russia With Love. Fans of the super spy should give it a spin with a weekend rental, but this is probably not one you will want to own.

License to Kill and Die Another Day (!) in 007 Legends

Well, this is a small surprise.


Guess I was right about License to Kill and OHMSS. As for Die Another Day, quite frankly I'm shocked at that choice. They might be able to get some fun out of it, and maybe I'm only sceptical because I've never been a fan of that one, but it seems like an odd pick. And what's going on with the whitewashed Halle Berry? Like I told Chicken Man, they should've just redone Nightfire, since that was a better movie anyway. It was even released at the same time, and it has multiplayer and Skyrail (Nightfire fans know what's up).

007 Legends is supposed to feature five classic Bond missions, in addition to an unspecified amount of Skyfall material. Keeping this latest announcement in mind, we now have four films confirmed for the game: Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, License to Kill, and Die Another Day. Will my original prognostication come true, that being Dr. No as the fifth and final classic Bond? Stay tuned.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Once again, Thrasher returns with a review, this time of Diamonds Are Forever, the last official Sean Connery vehicle. Expect Chicken to return from his extended leave of absence in our next installment.

It seems like Sean Connery's Bond would like to forget about On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He acts like he never left the series, only taking a short "holiday," as one of his superiors calls it, to refresh himself before returning to duty. Even when he chases down Blofeld in the pre-credits sequence, presumably to revenge to death of his wife in the previous film, he does so with a wry humor, like a man smiling through a dull chore. Indeed, there isn't even a single mention of his personal tragedy (strangely enough, that would come later, with Roger Moore). In the world of Diamonds Are Forever, George Lazenby was an unpleasant diversion, and Diamonds puts the series back on the path to outlandish comedy and self-parody, something which began in earnest with Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, and would prepare us for the often unmitigated cheese of Moore. Through a fairly obscure plot involving diamond smuggling and extortion, Bond is cast into a series of strange locations, such as funeral parlors and moon landing simulations, and the incongruity of seeing his well-tailored dinner suit walking alongside the business casual clientele of Las Vegas is very kitsch indeed. Diamonds Are Forever is fun for exactly this reason, but I'm not sure the filmmakers, or the rapidly aging Connery, were in on the joke as much as they'd like to believe, hence the schizophrenic shifts in tone. Still, there's plenty of action spectacle to recommend in this one, especially the French Connection-lite car chase through the streets of Vegas, and Bond's fight with Peter Franks in an elevator, something which brings to mind the similarly enclosed brawl between Bond and Red Grant in From Russia With Love. But that's the problem with Diamonds; even at its best moments, it can only remind us of earlier, better films. Bond's transition, from Connery to Moore, begins here, and consequently this one suffers for it.

Nobody Reviews It Better: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

A drastic change, indeed. Today Thrasher looks at On Her Majesty's Secret Service, of the most unusual, and one of the most interesting, Bond films to date.

More than any other Bond film, certainly before and arguably since, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a strange one. It's weird. It's different. It's also immensely interesting, for Bond fans especially, because of these differences. Many consider this the most faithful Ian Fleming adaptation, but for me that's an insight of minimal critical value. No, what matters here is how George Lazenby develops such a strikingly different character from his filmic predecessor. Gone is the dry cruelty of Sean Connery, and in its place is a softer, more humored, more human Bond that directly confesses his shortcomings to the spectator, plays at being disinterested in young women, and silently sobs before the end credits. Oh yes, it's truly difficult to imagine Connery playing this role. OHMSS is quite daring compared to the others, it's practically an art film with substantial financial backer. Much like Casino Royale, this one takes what we know and inverts it, but not for the sake of criticism; it's like a knowing wink, flipping things around a bit to keep us interested, to keep the Bond formula fresh, and indeed we'll see that most of the generic gambles this film takes are immediately withdrawn by the next film.

And what do we make of that odd pre-credits sequence, where Bond trails an unidentified woman to a beach at dawn, saves her from drowning, is attacked by thugs, and, when the woman sneaks off without so much as a "Gee, thanks," turns to the camera and remarks, "This never happened to that other fellow." I believe it's an open admission of guilt, a concession to the spectator, essentially telling us upfront that, Hey, Connery may not be here, but don't blame us, and let's have some fun anyway. Not only that, but it also sets up the kind of Bond that Lazenby will be. In a way, these uncharacteristically modest words prep us for a Bond not as self-assured, not as rugged, and certainly not as boorish as the Connery iteration, even though the stylistics of the fight scenes in OHMSS might tell us that 007 is more brutal than ever. In that sense, the kind of baroque camera work on display here seems quite at odds with the rest of the film, and would absolutely be a better fit in the previous five films. Nevertheless, the non-hand-to-hand action set pieces in the film are fantastic, well-choreographed affairs, especially the ski chase, and the bobsleigh beatdown between Bond and Blofeld. OHMSS should also be commended for its most radical challenge to the series' grammar, something which had already become staid and subject to parody, and that's the infamous tragic ending. It's never really been done since, although I suspect it may return sometime during Daniel Craig's tenure as 007. Too bad Connery had to return so quickly to the series, only to take Bond's true tragedy and spin it into another one-liner.

007 Legends OHMSS

I had a feeling about this one, and today IGN confirmed that the underestimated On Her Majesty's Secret Service will be included in the upcoming 007 Legends. Of course, this time Daniel Craig will substitute for George Lazenby. No video to show, though, only these screens:

So we know we'll get to play through parts of Skyfall, Moonraker, and now OHMSS. What other classic 007 films do you think will be featured?

007 Legends Announced

Alright then. Instead of going with a straightforward video game version of the upcoming Skyfall, we get 007 Legends. According to the Guardian games blog, this means the next entry in the series will not only feature levels from Skyfall, but from five other classic Bond flicks. Exactly which five, nobody knows. Furthermore, this one is being put together by the same crew who recently redid GoldenEye. It's not yet known whether or not these classic excursions will be of a similar nature, featuring Daniel Craig and retooled stories to fit his version of 007. This is an intriguing development, especially in light of the mediocre GoldenEye remakes, not to mention the deplorably ho-hum Blood Stone and Quantum of Solace. Going back to the classics makes sense, too, considering that the last quality 007 game was From Russia With Love.

As for the speculation, I think we can expect to see Dr. No as one of the five chosen classics. It is, after all, the fiftieth anniversary of that one this year, and something I suspect the market discourse for Skyfall will obviously draw from. Goldfinger is a virtual lock, as well, being the most canonical film in the series and all. Personally, I would love to golf against Auric, but I shan't hold my breath. As for the other three, we can virtually rule out GoldenEye, and thank goodness for that. The Spy Who Loved Me strikes me as a strong possibility. Personally, I would like to see a few unconventional choices, like the often overlooked On Her Majesty's Secret Service (I can always go for some skiing missions), or maybe one of the Timothy Dalton joints, The Living Daylights or Licence to Kill.

A James Bond Thanksgiving

Hopefully you're celebrating Thanksgiving like I am by watching the customary James Bond marathon on the SyFy network (or perhaps on some other network, depending upon your region or country). Unfortunately, they are presently playing one of my least favorite entries in the series, Diamonds Are Forever. Sean Connery seems very bored indeed; maybe he should take up writing so he can help out the inner-city youth. Thankfully, though, I'm lucky enough to own DVD copies of my favorite 007 films, and this is a perfect opportunity to talk about the Ultimate Edition box sets put out in 2006.

These box sets, and the DVDs within them, are not ordered chronologically but they are rather shrewedly haphazard, in the sense that most of the sets contain equal measures of the best Bonds, and a few stinkers thrown in as well. But for the James afficionado, your best bet is the wonderful Ultimate Edition Vol. 3. You get three absolute classics, From Russia With Love, GoldenEye (you may recall that Goldeneye won the Code Redd Net Award for Best Bond Film a few weeks ago), and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and even the requisite Roger Moore sleeze-fests, Live and Let Die and For Your Eyes Only, aren't too bad.

Amazon has it for pretty decent bargain, so get on it.