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The Untold Legends franchise lands on the PS3. . Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom is a game in the Untold Legends series that Sony Online debuted on the PSP. Although not a bad game by any means, Dark Kingdom doesn’t go anything particularly different or especially well.
Dark Kingdom takes place in the fantasy land of Dureth. You play as a member of a military squad called the Dragon’s Shade under the rule of Dureth king Halaskar. The story is fairly standard fantasy fare. The kingdom needs your help so you have to fix it. In this game, you’re trying to figure out how to stop the forces that are corrupting your king.
The game lets you play as a warrior, scout or mage. All of the characters have access to a number of spells (although you can only have four equipped at any time) and typical weak and strong attacks (that can be combined into combos), as well as block and dodge functions. By and large, you’ll be hacking and slashing your way through the game’s dungeons, sewers, tombs, villages and caves while destroying the enemies. The enemies include the typical demons, zombies and golems. As you play through the game you will earn experience points which translate into level increases. As you increase the character’s levels, you’ll be able to improve stats such as defense, attack, magic, health and mana. The defeated enemies will usually drop orbs that replenish your health and mana orbs, as well as essence, which is the game’s currency system.
Additionally, as you go through the game, enemies will occasionally drop armor. They will never drop weapons though. The actual item system is fairly light and straightforward, which will be appreciated by those that prefer the action in “action RPG,” although it will undoubtedly disappoint those in the other camp. The game lets you easily get rid of items and this gives you essence. There are places where you can pay to replenish your health and mana, as well as purchase armor. The armor isn’t as good as what the enemies drop but better than not having anything.
Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom supports two-player cooperative multiplayer. The second player can join an existing game and you can pick up a cooperative game by yourself which is nice. The game also supports four-player online multiplayer although it is fairly light in features, especially when compared to modern Xbox Live games. You can send and receive messages with Xfire (which uses the same account as the PC application), but there is no voice chat. The campaign should take between 10 to 12 hours to complete when playing alone or in multiplayer.
The graphics in Dark Kingdom were very underwhelming when the game was announced and it is obvious that Sony Online went back and redid some of the characters and levels. Both the characters and levels are fairly detailed with some fancy lighting, particle and texture effects being thrown in for good measure. The game doesn’t look back but it isn’t a shining star in the PS3’s launch lineup. The audio fares a bit better thanks to the epic orchestrated score which sounds great. The sound effects aren’t anything special but get the job done.
It isn’t that Dark Kingdom is broken in any way, but the game lacks the sense of grandeur that can be seen in other next-generation games. As such, it isn’t the game you use to justify the purchase of a $600 purchase. Nonetheless, you’re into hack-and-slashers, chances are that you’ll enjoy the game just don’t expect anything revolutionary -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Dec 3, 2006
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