Introduction

The elements that make up this game were poorly thought out, and control over your units was lacking in every regard. It was painful to review this game, but here goes.

Install

The install was the biggest promo real I have ever seen. Instead of listing the features of the game, Strategy First opted to advertise many of their upcoming titles such as Celtic Kings and some army game that I have never heard of. Promo installs are quiet annoying; I would rather like to see screenshots or game art, just something to make you want to play the game. This has neither and this game truly suffered for it.

Game play

Turn based a game type I tend to avoid because it gives you too much time to think. Now this might sound ludicrous, but real time intensity is what I am all about. Turn based games do not offer that. Anyway back to the review. You start out with your basic town(s). You can select each and it zooms in to show you the make up of your town i.e. how many buildings you have, your population count how many combat units you have, a great big smorgasbord of vital stats that are crucial to your towns survival.

Your resource management is vital to the effects it has on your town, to many units will leave you bankrupt and to few will leave you defenseless. Not only do you have to monitor your combat units but your civilians as well, for they are what keep the town functioning. The way the towns are set up, every building is in a pre determined space. That means you can't place it wherever you want, it's comparable to a puzzle not much freedom. The functions of your town can range from, resource gathering to research of bigger and better weapons. However these functions are not seen when you activate them, you must wait a number of turns before the desired effect is carried out. The only notification you get to signify something is completed is a simple sound similar to a beep. This is horrible for it makes the game a complete bore.

There are two types of maps, the world map, and the combat map. The world map shows you and any other culture that inhabits the world. Your towns show up as little houses or a palace. This is pointless because you have no idea what the other towns have in them and there for can not judge the "threat" factor of a fellow culture. Sure you can see the population count, but unless I missed something it really doesn't benefit, however there is one use for it, the more combat units you have the less population you have, so if you view a town with a low population it is either a unit producing town or a town in its early stages.
Combat is nothing spectacular either, in fact it just down right useless. Your units are represented on the world map as one big unit, whether it be a horse or as a soldier. This holds true to the enemy as well, so the picture looks like, the world, little houses and big soldiers walking around, not much fun. When you do encounter enemy units you can attack them or walk away. Attacking them is the most enjoyable one would think. This turns out to be wrong. Once you do engage the enemy you are brought to a screen where it shows your units and the enemies. Here you can setup your formations and your formations that's it. The next thing to do is click go. Now what happens next defies everything that stands for fun. The entire battle is automatic you have no control over your units. They just walk at each other and kill who ever is in front of them. You know when you have lost battle for; you see your units running away from the enemy after that the battle ends and your units are gone. Oh just for and extra kick of non-fun every battle field looks the same. There is diplomacy, giving offerings of gold to fellow cultures in hope they will want you to become their friends, but where's the fun in that? To sum it all up the game play is extremely lacking.

Graphics

What's with these game and using horrible, 2D graphic engines? Legion's graphics are some of the worst I have seen yet. They are comparable to the original Civilization game. The land you are trying to conquer is color coded to represent the cultures controlling each section, it reminds me of RISK, but that game was fun. Unimaginative and bland, Legion's graphics push a new low only seen in budget titles.

Sound

The sounds that represent certain items, such as buildings and notification when something is completed are basically all the sounds you hear. There's really not that much to say. I do like how your units respond in the proper language of your race. Unfortunately, the sound is just as bad as everything else.

Artificial Intelligence

The AI in this game is tad bit tweaked. I went up against one platoon of men, with 4 platoons of my men and lost. Now normally I would take this as a challenge, and I did. Unfortunately every battle I fought I lost. A tuff AI is absolutely necessary to make any game fun, but, having an AI with a permanent overkill setting is just unnecessary. Well we're 0 for 4 so far.

Game modes

Single Player is the only game mode you can choose. The Dev team left out multiplayer and put all its focus on single. There effort was in vain, for this game is no where near the idea of fun. Having large armies is great, but not being able to control them is just ridiculous. It beckons the question "Then why have them?"

Conclusion

In my personal opinion "Legion" is one of the worst games I have ever played. I want the time back I spent on that game. It was not fun at all, it was un-original, and it has the worse replay value EVER. Pass this one by folks, save your hard earned cash and buy something that is worth your time, because you only deserve the best for your money.

Score 5.5/10