Don’t open The Box.

Game Info

Developer: Spark Unlimited
Publisher: Gamecock Media Group
Release Date: November 4, 2008
Genre: First-person shooter
Available Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Modes: Singleplayer, competitive online
Reviewer’s Experience: Played to the final level of the single-player game on PC. Multiplayer modes not tested due to lack of players and reliable servers.

Throughout the long and arduous process of building the latest iteration of my gaming PC, I discovered that I was building up quite a stock of free games. One of which was Far Cry 2, which is far too boring to even deserve any kind, taste, or flavor of review. The other was the (Arguably. -Ed.) legendary Legendary: The Box, henceforth referred to as Legendary.

Now, before I go on a never-ending rant, let me talk about some of the nice things about this game. The graphics are pretty good, I’d say a little bit below, oh, what’s a game that all of you peons who might actually read this would know? Let’s use BioShock, mostly because both games utilize Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3. Now, BioShock was released upon the world in mid-ish-2007, whereas The Box was opened back in late 2008, so I will do my best to take into account the numerous engine updates that can come within such a timeframe. Either way, it’s still fairly pretty, albeit with no antialiasing, something that has always hurt my view of Unreal Engine.

The one main thing I’d like to point out about the graphics in this game is the astounding use of nVIDIA’s PhysX technology. Cloths sway in the breeze, buildings crumble as griffons fly into buildings to grab the nearest meal. Possibly the most amazing thing I saw throughout my whole adventure with this game is whilst fighting a massive Kraken in London, it grabbed Big Ben with one of its tentacles and ripped the building down. I literally messed my pants when I saw that. Cleaning myself up, let’s move on to the story.

Ahem, so, story, uhh, well, there’s this guy, he’s a thief, his name’s Charles Deckard, and he has to steal Pandora’s Box and do…something with it. Basically, upon this happening, the proverbial shit hits the fan, except the shit is made of mythological creatures. From there it’s up to Deckard and his random blonde girlfriend whose name I can’t remember to set off and save the world. There’s not much else, something about warring ancient secret societies and you go to London and…yeah. Listen, I won’t bore you with the details, the story is by no means what you should play this game for, as it definitely surpasses the qualifications of what the common folk call “retarded”.

OK, gameplay time. It is a first person shooter. It has guns, some grenades, and, oh, molotovs. Refreshing.

Is it blatantly obvious that I’m rushing through this review? Well to be quite honest, I didn’t even finish the damn game. As I discovered on the very last level, the elevator that’s supposed to take you to the top of the Combine Citadel in beautiful City 17, er, I’m sorry, the Black Order Tower in the middle of a destroyed and gleefully boring New York City, well…let’s just say that it doesn’t exist, at least for me. Upon entering the elevator, I immediately fell out into the nice, red, bloody skybox to my imminent doom. Yeah, this happened a couple times, so I happily surrendered to the bad game gods and started writing this piece of shit.

Overall, I’d have to say my favorite part of this game was the nap I took a few hours ago whilst trying to beat it. It’s buggy, it’s boring, but it would make a good tech demo if they boosted the quality of the textures and added some anitaliasing to this otherwise meh game. It has the makings of a quality cult-following kind of game, but it’s definitely understandable as to why it couldn’t compete in the bigger markets. In the end, I give this game a “meh (with nod),” sparking that I’d say it’s definitely not the worst thing I’ve played for a while and I’d recommend it if you’re impatiently awaiting some big release (as I know I am) and you’ve got an extra 10 bucks lying around.

For me, 2006’s early 360 title Dead Rising was always about the sheer number of zombies that were pushed. Hundreds of the creatures could be onscreen at any given time–and it was a joyous initial exhibit of the 360’s power.

But now, these screens from Dead Rising’s Wii port (Zombie Sacrifice) have been released. I must say, I’m impressed with the detail of the character models–but at what price has this feature come? Take a look.

As you can see, the zombies (and Frank) are looking spiffy–but there’s only a few of them. Now, I understand the Wii can’t push polys like the 360 can–but, personally, I’d rather have zombies that looked 50% worse, but 100 of them onscreen instead of 20. I’d rather have a LoD system where distant zombies faded even into the 2D realm–but not this surely pop-in filled display.

On a gameplay note, I’m ecstatic to see that they’re implementing real mechanic and structure to the game–Dead Rising was a good title for the early 360, but its timed mechanic kept ol’ OCD-explorer me away.

What do you think? Fire off a comment.