New Legends is a Chinese based adventure game, based on you reclaiming your land over evil empire that has taken over most of China. It’s your job along with the rest of your family and colleagues to avoid defeat and reclaim the lost world of China, is it worth it…?

Gameplay:
By now you’re thinking well is this game any good? On initial impact, yes it’s not too bad and seems like there could be an epic game that could be more aimed at Japanese gamers to attract them to Xbox, but I hope they didn’t lay their hands on it. The game can be described as ‘linear’ quite easily as you are always fighting evil Chinese people either with a gun or a sword both of which can be organised for each hand you have, neat idea and has the prospect of some decent battles as there are even some specific combos that can be pulled off depending on the weapons you have. All of this doesn’t really come into play as the game is spending tapping away at the attack buttons to kill the annoying gits quickly! If you get attacked you think you’re in trouble but a simple tap of the block button you can let rip and easily win a battle. On the other hand if you get massacred by the enemy by 5+ soldiers r even a tank don’t expect to get out alive and await another turn, so the game ends up being fairly simple to fight through instead of being something a bit more challenging.
But New Legends does have its small good points for instance the game can become quite challenging and some puzzle solving skills are needed, can be frustrating but at least the game is posing a challenge. The game also is a fairly original title not seen of yet on Xbox. Looking at some other aspects of the game the AI is indeed not very good, bots are very unresponsive to what’s happening in the game and enemies can be run away from or passed by with little to no trouble at all. I feel that the game becomes too easy at times once you’ve learnt how to control the game and work your way round each level. This is remarkably simple as beyond the chosen path the game sticks to there aren’t any additional routes, not even the ability to go for a brief walk and gaze at the wonderful oriental surroundings, nope simply get to work…linear as I said. If the game becomes more of a ‘chore’ than fun you know it not very good, New Legends isn’t a ‘chore’ but isn’t giving me any fun when I play it.

Graphics:
New legends graphics are shown off a few times by some nicely done cut shots and tend to look nice on first impressions, but overall at the end of the day the Xbox can produce far better than this, far far better – repeated textures, little to no effects and the horrible slowdown that the game produces all too often becoming frustrating and this is strangely unexplainable to me because it’s not like the game is fully of polygons and moving objects, so quite unnecessarily annoying.

Sound:
Nothing overly special, the game has many oriental based tunes which all sound nice as they do but I feel there is a sheer lack of music in the game as for the first few stages all you seem to hear is the same track on a continuous loop which started me wanting to get some earplugs or best yet mute the TV. The sound effects are ok swords, footsteps and other sound effects sound good, it’s just the music that starts to dissolve you brain more than anything audio-wise.

Longevity:
The game has a fairly compelling storyline and strings you along to see what the result of the whole epic of New Legends, but it’s the gameplay that really puts you off going through the whole story to find out. New Legends simply consists of a large story mode and that’s it, no extras or multiplayer mind you it’s just a well I couldn’t stand 3 other people moaning about the game. Once the game has been played through you won’t want to come back to it as there’s nothing new, besides you wouldn’t want to come back as you’d remember how not so great the game was. The game has quantity in its main story mode but very little quality unfortunately.

Round Up:
New Legends wasn’t a bad concept for an Xbox game but has ended up with a few major flaws that make it annoying, repetitive and generally not the most fun of all games to play. There’s a good narrative behind it all and seems to look and play like a half working version and still needs to have many additional things to make the game worth a purchase and furthermore any fun or sense of achievement through playing it.

Pros:

• Fun at first
  
• Good Narrative
  
• Has enough quantity of missions…
  

  Cons:
  

  • …but sadly lacks in quality in general.
    
  • Why is there slow down??
    
  • Becomes a ‘chore’ after a while to play