From reading the reviews here, I was not expecting much with this game, but it turned out to be one of the better games I've played in a while. Graphics are quite good, very short learning curve, simple keyboard control setup, and smooth glitch-free operation (except for the glitch mentioned below).
The game takes place in modern times, but with a mythological theme, so there are both human and monster-like enemies. Weapons are typical for a decent FPS. Pistols, assault rifles (with scopes), submachine guns, shotguns, frame throwers, rocket launchers, and grenades. Aside from the ammo stashes, you can also pick up weapons from dead enemies.
Health is restored by killing the mythological creatures and absorbing their "animus". You can use the animus to restore your health or as a type of close-range weapon that will stun enemies. In fact, some enemies must be stunned before you can kill them. The non-human enemies cover the traditional range of swarming little parasites to huge building-sized monsters.
While I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to the story line, it seemed about average and the voice acting was not bad. You often have team members running around with you, but they are autonomous. They tend to wind up being cannon fodder. I thought the setting was very well designed with some novel, though not particularly challenging, environmental puzzles. For those who find linear games boring, this is probably not for them. Personally, I don't have anything against linear games.
This game does not allow the player to save his progress. It uses the checkpoint system whereby the game automatically saves periodically. That means that, if you die, you will be set back to the most recent checkpoint. Some of the checkpoints are spaced pretty far apart, so you could wind up playing some sections over repeatedly. This wasn't a huge problem in this game, but there were a couple times that I wished they were a bit closer together. I played on normal difficulty and I don't know if other difficulty settings change the frequency of the checkpoints. Lack of manual save capability was the main factor that kept me from awarding five stars to this game.
I found the game to be on the longish side of average length. It seems like many newer games are quite short, so it was nice that it took a while to get through this.
This game has one serious glitch. Toward the end, you are to take an elevator to the roof of a building. When you step into the elevator, you get stuck and eventually die. I'm sure not everyone has this problem, but I don't know what triggers it. The answer for me was to change the MaxSmoothedFrameRate parameter in the file PandoraEngine.ini from 300 to 30. You will find the file under C:\Documents and Settings\My documents\My Games\Legendary\PandoraGame\Config\PandoraEngine.ini I found this solution using a web search. I don't know if it will work for everyone. After making the change, you can set it back after you get to the next checkpoint.
Over all, I found the game to be a lot of fun and visually interesting. While not a big fan of having super-natural powers (as with the animus in this game) this game kept it simple and useful. I paid $6 (plus shipping) for the game and found it to be one of the better bargains I've some across lately. I highly recommend this game.
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