Games Thursday : Legion of Man Demo Impressions
I have always enjoyed watching lone warriors of exceptional martial prowess clearing a bloody swathe through the ranks of the enmemy in CG trailers for games like the Korean MMORPG Soul of the Ultimate Nation (top) and the X06 trailer for Lost Odyssey (bottom).
© Webzen
© Mistwalker
While action-oriented RPGs like Diablo allow your hero to re-enact similar scenes and hack down enemies in droves, combat in these games is still essentially an abstract game of numbers for to-hit percentage, damage, armor effectiveness, etc.
Not in Kaos Kontrol’s Legion of Man 
You control a nameless fighter and hack through anyone foolish enough to stand in your way until the blood of every single enemy on the battlefield paints the ground red (or if you succumb to overwhelming numbers, of course).
By left-clicking, you swing your sword and slash any unfortunate soul within reach. Although combat sounds simplistic, timing your attacks becomes critical when you’re faced with multiple enemies as you’re vulnerable to attacks from certain sectors when your sword is currently slicing through the foe in front 
Most of the enemy minions will fall to a single sweep of your sword but they’re numerous and can easily take you down in due time when you’re surrounded on all sides. Fortunately, you have a shield (right mouse button) to fend off frontal attacks and a spin attack (hold and release left mouse button) to slaughter all within a specific radius. It would be great if the shield could be used offensively to batter the enemies to your side or a running or charging attack was included to extricate yourself from sticky situations.
© Kaos Kontrol
In terms of aesthetics, Legion of Man is definitely influenced by the movie 300 from the loading screen to the character design of the forces arrayed against you especially the ungainly axe-wielding giant in Mission 3. Duel. Thankfully, your character doesn’t wear leather underpants like the Spartans in 300 
The gameplay is very much similar to 10 Tons Entertainment’s sci-fi survival game Crimsonland, particularly the Modifiers system (Perks in Crimsonland) and the gameplay modes).
I prefer the gory melee combat with swords and axes in Legion of Man over the long-range high-tech firepower in Crimsonland as there’s nothing like evading a charging standard bearer and then plunging your sword into his back There’s some medieval ranged weaponry e.g crossbows available as power-ups to pick off advancing foes but you’ll be relying on your trusty sword and shield most of the time.
There’s plenty of graphical violence in Legion of Man e.g cleaving bodies into halves and loping off the heads of opponents so it’s definitely not for young and/or impressionable players.
BTW, if you get a black screen after the loading screen when you start the demo from the Windows Start Menu, press Alt+F4 to close the game and run the Legion.exe in the game folder instead – usually C:\Program Files\Legion of Man\.
Also if the game controls feel sluggish, turn down the resolution or as a last resort, disable shadows by editing Pcini.txt in the game folder and set shadowenabled to “0″.
Download the 45 MB demo over at GamersHell or visit the official site of Legion of Man to buy the game online @ $14.95 USD. (Haven’t seen it on retail shelves here in Singapore)
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Viva Caligula – The Bloodiest Flash Game ever?
Survival Game : Crimsonland, The Endless Zombie Rampage, The Last Stand
Boxhead : More Rooms – Kill All Zombies!
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2Ghz P4? shucks, my PC is only Athlon XP 2000+ (1,8)
but have u tried old game like Beyond Divinity (2004) ? i’m playing it right now
it’s like diablo but the map isn’t generic,
and the story is quite lenghty, i haven’t finish it yet
Yeah, I play quite a lot of old games but I have been playing more Flash and indie freeware games lately. The only commercial game I’m currently into is Rome : Total War though.
RPGs are a bit impossible for me at the moment since I’m still busy cleaning my harddisk of all the accumulated downloads from the past 6 months
After reading this post I downloaded the legion of man demo. I got hooked and bought the full version. It was fun, but short. There is replayability, trying the different missions with different strategies. Over all I would give it 3/5. Easily four out of five if an additional 10 missions had been added.
I should also add that I agree with your comments about the shield. Its useless. I think I did the entire campaign without useing it. Attempts to use it generally mean’t I lost health … someone from behind or the side would hit me.
I must admit that I haven’t actually bought it yet because my machine can’t really handle it – graphics stutter and controls become sluggish when too many bad guys enter the screen at once.
It’s good for short breaks and stuff but that’s about all to it. The price’s quite acceptable though
How long did the campaign take you?