Young Justice: Legacy (PlayStation 3) Review

It is truly amazing how some games make it through testing and eventually wind up on store shelves. At which point did the designers of Young Justice: Legacy think, "Yeah, this'll do," and send it off for manufacturing? As well as an apparent lack of retailer support contributing to the reasons that the Wii and Wii U versions were canned, "quality issues" were another. Well, if that was the case, goodness knows what those Nintendo editions must have been like because there is certainly no ounce of quality in this PS3 release.

That is a PS3 sitting underneath the TV, isn't it? Young Justice: Legacy will make players question what year it actually is, because this looks like something the PS2 could have rolled out with considerable ease. Oh, but maybe the idea to use PS2-level graphics was so the game could run consistently smooth throughout? Wrong. A noticeably low frame rate, slowdown and constant screen-tearing left, right and centre, are about the only consistent things in this game.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Hordes of the same bland copies of enemies to fight through in every single stage, allies shouting annoying catchphrases over and over, and loading screens that actually occur in the middle of cut-scenes and menus are also guaranteed features of the game to look forward to. It's a nightmare to look at and it's just as bad to play.

Adjusting the camera angle in certain spots makes objects and entire floor overlays disappear completely, revealing the sky through the ground; crates can be thrown straight through walls to never be seen or heard again; teammates get stuck behind the outer walls and run around like headless chickens; shadows from platforms being walked on are non-existent, whilst characters' own shadows can be seen on the floor below, as if running in mid-air; the superheroes can walk through so many objects and parts of the environment, which looks ridiculous; sound effects are completely absent when there really should be some sort of audible feedback in cut-scenes… The list could go on.

Level after level is simply following a linear path, beating up bad guys with various special abilities from the current team of three allies that can be switched between at any time, and eventually fighting a boss, before moving onto the next location. Between each little mission, different superheroes can be picked to put into the three-man squad and their abilities levelled up in an RPG-like fashion. The game's hints advise on picking characters with various advantages in specific areas, like choosing one with good energy, one with good speed and one with good strength, but it doesn't matter at all. Picking whichever characters is enough to get through any stage.

In the end, the story is completely uninteresting, and some form of online co-op and challenge modes aren't enough to save Young Justice: Legacy from being the awful game it is.