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    Legend Entertainment Company

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    A Virginia based studio founded and staffed by Infocom alumni such as Bob Bates and Steve Meretzky. Legend produced a number of adventure games in Infocom's interactive fiction style, before transitioning to point & click adventures, and eventually first person shooters.

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    Legend Entertainment was founded in 1989 by Bob Bates (of Infocom fame) and Mike Verdu. The company's initial games were Infocom-style interactive fiction games using classic gameplay systems but with the addition of graphics and an optional mouse-driven interface.

    Interactive Fiction & Classic Adventure

    Their first games included the "Harry Potter meets Animal House" Spellcasting trilogy and Frederik Pohl's Gateway, based on the novels by the well-known author. Legend went on to develop the notoriously difficult time travel adventure TimeQuest, another humorous fantasy adventure called Eric the Unready, and a sequel to Gateway, Gateway II: Homeworld.

    In 1993, Legend's style of gameplay evolved to use a purely point & click interface, more similar to modern adventure games than to Infocom text adventures. Like Gateway, most of these titles were based on fantasy and science fiction novels. These titles licensed from books included Companions of Xanth (based on Piers Anthony's Xanth series), Death Gate (based on the series of the same name by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman), Shannara (based on the series by Terry Brooks), Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (based on the short stories by Spider Robinson) and John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles (based on the horror novels by John Saul).

    Legend also released two games based on original IP during this period, including the space adventure Mission Critical, and the post-apocalyptic superhero parody Superhero League of Hoboken. Both of these games are notable for including extensive gameplay elements not normally found in adventure games. Mission Critical featured a lengthy strategy section in which the player commands a starship in battle, and Superhero League of Hoboken was structured as a first-person RPG similar to Bard's Tale, with adventure game style puzzle scenes occurring at important locations.

    During this period, the company also developed Star Control 3, sequel to the much loved Star Control 2 created by Toys for Bob. The game was not well-received by fans and suffered from poor sales.

    Action & First-Person Shooters

    In 1998, the company was acquired by GT Interactive, which was then itself acquired by Infogrames, and for the most part stopped production on the adventure games it had been known for, focusing instead on first-person shooters. Post acquisition, Legend released Wheel of Time, a shooter based on the book series by Robert Jordan, worked on an expansion to seminal shooter Unreal, and developed Unreal II: The Awakening. Unreal II was another sequel that was sadly not well-received, and in 2004, Legend Entertainment was shut down.

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