Whatever you say, but Zack Snyder can rightfully be considered one of the most fashionable and versatile directors of our time. It costs him nothing to outshine the recognized luminary of zombie horror George Romero, masterfully re-filming his own imperishable film; charge the showdown between half-naked Spartan men with such phantasmagoric drive that in a normal case it would be more than enough for ten “Matrixes” – and then present to the amazed public the most ironic and gloomy film about superheroes. This time Mr Snyder staggered in a slightly different direction: his new work Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (in Russian box office – "Legends of the Night Guardians") is an adaptation of the book series of the same name Katherine Lasky, telling about a fictional world in which wise owls reign supreme. According to all the laws of marketing drama, one should expect the release of a great martyr game based on the game, which will have to courageously survive a hail of criticism and offensive attacks from the specialized press, so that at the end of its righteous path it will slightly improve the financial situation of the greedy publisher and ingloriously sink into oblivion. Frankly, a seditious thought about the quality of the interactive interpretation of “Night Guardians” crept in from the very beginning. Still, a diligent product under a film license is an extremely rare phenomenon, standing on the time scale of phenomena approximately on the same level as a large parade of planets. But here’s the strange side to this story: Legend of the Guardians incomprehensibly combines unusual design solutions with outright hackwork. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t dare call it bad.
In the distant kingdom
The Owls of Ga’Hoole departs from the official storyline and depicts the misadventures of a young guard named Shard. Being the son of an exile, he strives with all his might to clear the family lineage of many years of shame in order to prove to everyone in the area that in fact the apple has rolled far from the tree. As we move up the story path, we witness fierce battles, class strife and at least one triumphant revelation.
We warn you right away: the narrative has a number of specific features that you will have to get used to. The developers did not draw daring twenty-minute CGI scenes; instead, the story is presented through… a filmstrip with rare inclusions of scenes in the engine. We are shown animated illustrations, which are accompanied by a well-choreographed voice-over narrator. Usually, for such overt manifestations of “creative minimalism,” it is customary for authors to be slapped on the cheeks and flaunted at every opportunity, emphasizing in every possible way their creative incompetence. But not in our case. The thing is that this purely bookish, leisurely format of presentation, coupled with the outstanding work of the actors, ideally complements the mysterious atmosphere and creates a certain fairy-tale charm, thereby bringing the game closer to the book than to the film.
Here’s what Chrome Studios What definitely shouldn’t https://casinobella.uk/login/ have been done is to refer to the events of books and movies with enviable regularity, because without special preparation here the devil himself would break his leg. This is not catastrophic, but it still introduces some dissonance. Since you have decided to honestly abstract from both sources, then be kind enough to do it in such a way that the work turns out to be moderately isolated. From all that has been said, it follows that without a wealth of knowledge it is better not to meddle – you will be bogged down head over heels in questions and half-hints, the answers to which you will definitely not find in the game, and a story filled with unearthly pathos about the gossip of assorted birds with complex muzzles risks seeming like hopeless nonsense.
An owl is visible in flight
And if everything is more or less clear with the plot, then some difficulties may arise with genre identification. To better understand the structure of the game, try to imagine an aviation arcade game in a fantasy setting, in which, instead of bulky attack aircraft and fighters, nimble birds that prefer close combat fight in the sky. Management organization, available maneuvers, led as a support unit, continuous negotiations in flight – everything is like in an average flight simulator. The differences start when it comes to the combat system.
IN Legend of the Guardians we put out forest fires, clear caves of bats, disable enemy ballistas, save chicks, and so on. Nine out of ten times the mission ends in a protracted battle. Using the radar, we mark the desired target in the air, after which we fly up to the enemy and hit him painfully with a clawed paw right in the belly. Alternatively, you can smack it against a nearby rock as hard as you can to cause increased damage to health or break the defense. If the special scale of valor is filled (the best way to restore it is diving), then you can entrust the dirty work to your subordinates by simply clicking on the “Face” button!». Methodically combining such simple techniques, we build a chain of combos: after several successful attacks, the owl’s paws ignite from frenzy and the damage caused increases significantly.
The tragic truth is that people from Chrome Studios for some reason it seemed as if the battles were especially successful for them, so it’s not a sin to drag out all the action on them. But this, to put it mildly, is not the case: a few opportunities fall on the head of a taken aback player literally from the first minutes, and then they just have to be shuffled. Despite the fact that there are three types of adversaries presented here – eagles, ravens and bats – for some reason the recipe for their preparation is always the same. As a result, the combat system quickly shrinks, without having time to really open up.
And finally, the main thing you need to know about Legend of the Guardians: it is mockingly short – it will take you three to four hours to go through the single-player story campaign and study the length and breadth of each of the five available maps. But after the finale it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to extract at least one bright moment from your memory.
Legend of the Guardians – a pretty good game, the main problem of which is that its authors tried their best to make it in time for the film’s premiere. Stakhanov’s pace came at the cost of serious simplifications: there are a lot of potentially interesting ideas that, alas, did not receive the proper depth of implementation, and cyclical tasks and a rapidly deteriorating combat system can drive any normal person into a lethargic sleep long before the final credits. However, if you happen to be a passionate fan of creativity Katherine Lasky or are in a state of exuberant delight from going to the cinema, then watch The Owls of Ga’Hoole It’s worth it at least for informational purposes.
Pros: a completely new chapter in the Night Guardians universe; the romance of flight is perfectly conveyed; wonderful fairytale atmosphere.
Cons: ridiculous duration; the plot is replete with logical holes; general monotony.