Hopefully you paid attention in your Classics 101 class because come early near year you're going to use that knowledge to save your own hide. From nailing werewolves with silver bullets to slaughtering griffins in mid-flight, those mythical references you once thought useless take on a whole new meaning in Legendary: The Box. First-person gun play meets dusty old mythology in this intense shooter. We recently opened The Box in a private hands-on look and like what we saw inside.

While the game skips the written pop quizzes, it will test your practical know-how in surviving against an onslaught of modernized mythical creatures. You take the role of an art thief hired to extract an antiquity from a museum in the heart of Manhattan. Caring more about the money than the implications of the heist, he's entirely too eager to grab the goods and go; however, in the midst of stealing the item--an elaborately locked box--it opens. What transpires is nothing short of Hell arriving on Earth as monsters come screaming from the box and deep rifts rip through the city as they emanate across the globe. You just opened Pandora's Box. Well played.

Your first priority, after coming to grips with the fact that you've set humanity on the path to destruction, is to begin dealing with the literally monstrous problem. Producer John Garcia-Shelton explains the philosophy behind the game: "When you open that box, you're going to feel wonder at the sheer magnitude of what happens--you just changed the entire world. Once that wears off, though, you move to surprise, shock, and finally run-like-hell terror." In the moments following the box's opening, huge griffins (in Greek mythology a creature possessing the body of a lion, head and wings of an eagle) indiscriminately begin killing and people can be seen fleeing the city center. Once a skyscraper-tall golem appears and starts taking its own bites of the Big Apple, the scope and intensity of Legendary: The Box become clear.

"It's all about the creatures," declares Garcia-Shelton. Playing like a who's who of mythology, the game promises an impressive slate of creatures ranging from werewolves to griffins to minotaurs to golems. More than just a gimmick, these mythical beasts are fundamental to the game's dynamic action. "Legendary isn't another generic shooter with creatures thrown in as a lame attempt to spice things up," says Garcia-Shelton. "Creatures change the environment because of their presence." Fully destructible levels can be affected as much by creatures' actions as yours.

Every creature possesses sophisticated behavior patterns that enable them to act with remarkable intelligence in combat. These are vicious beings that work together, utilize the surrounding environment, and change their tactics in order to survive. Weaving through the corridors of clandestine laboratory filled with alpha wolves--a heartier variant of werewolf--the realistic behavior of these creatures becomes clear. Garcia-Shelton points out, "These guys will come from everywhere. The action is going to have you looking to the sides, up, down--it isn't just move forward and shoot." Alpha wolves cling high up on the walls, claws primed for the first opportunity to strike; meanwhile, their buddies stream in from adjacent rooms. It's an intense fight, one that involves whipping the camera around to quickly blast back foes. Killing alpha wolves takes a lot of effort, Garcia-Shelton explains, requiring full decapitation. A 12-gauge shotgun practically disintegrates their heads, eliminating the threat and making for a nice visual.

Not every enemy you come across is mythical. Our jaunt through the laboratory featured several shots fired against human opponents, who obviously aim to stymie your efforts to close the box. While not nearly as vicious as the creatures, they're formidable nonetheless. Interestingly, these human fighters are equally an object of blood lust for the creatures; as such, it's a three-sided conflict that can be manipulated to your advantage. Walking into a battle between soldiers and a few alpha wolves, for example, you could either let the soldiers finish off the creatures or work with the wolves to kill the soldiers themselves. Standing back and allowing the soldiers to work over the alpha wolves isn't a half bad idea, mainly since dealing with them on your own would be challenging. These sorts of situations pop up frequently through the course of the game and instill a dynamic feel to the action.