Eragon: The Dragon Rider Legacy
Is Eragon a better read than it is a game?
Tags: Eragon: The Dragon Rider Legacy Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews, Xbox Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Dec 19th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Eragon: The Dragon Rider Legacy (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
 |
Eragon is supposed to be a multimedia fantasy wonder of this holiday season, filling in the gap left by the absence of any Lord of the Rings, Narnia or Harry Potter films; but the Xbox and PS2 versions of the game based on the film, which is in turn based on the novel by teenage author Christopher Paolini, simply don’t deserve to walk among those giant franchises. The tale of a young farmboy who discovers what seems to be a gem while out hunting one day, but is actually a dragon’s egg that hatches, making him the surrogate parent and ultimately giving him the chance to become a kingdom-saving dragon-rider in the fantasy world of Alagaesia.
It’s rather standard wish-fulfillment fantasy work that owes more than a little to filmic and literary forebears, including the Anne McCaffrey Dragonriders of Pern novels, George Lucas’ Star Wars movies, as well as the more obvious Tolkein and C.S. Lewis influences. As a result, the story feels derivative – mostly because it is. In the same way, the game feels derivative of the Lord of the Rings games EA has been publishing, which is due in large part to the fact that Stormfront, who developed the Eragon game for Vivendi, was the developer of those games as well.
 |
 |
However, while most of Stormfront’s LOTR games were deep and well-developed, the Eragon game for Xbox and PS2 seems rushed and completely lacking in depth. Perhaps the developers were given too short a schedule in which to work on the game; it feels like something that was built out structurally and then quickly filled in, like a ballistics-gel dummy.
The licensed content of the Eragon game serves both as tie-in and promotional material for the film, released just after the games. The strategy works; both my wife and my nephew are interested in seeing the film after playing the game, and said they may not have been interested without playing the games first. However, the games based on the movie are all over the place.
 |
With Eragon, Vivendi has attempted a bit of an experiment. They have one version of the game that is standard on all the console platforms it appears on, from PS2 to Xbox to Xbox 360 to PC to whatever. Yet, on the handheld side, each platform is given a slightly different game. The GBA game is given a “turn-based RPG” treatment, while the DS version is a more action-based RPG that makes use of the touch-screen; the PSP, naturally, becomes more of an action game, using the larger, higher-res screen to given the game a more cinematic presentation that is closer in spirit to the console/PC versions of the game.
The focus of this review are the Xbox and PS2 versions, which are very close to each other from a graphic standpoint. There’s little graphical difference between the Xbox and PS2 versions of the game, other than the Xbox version has slightly better load times, due to that platform’s hard drive. What is less expected is that the game doesn’t look that much worse than their 360/PC versions of the same game.
For most games, that would be a previous-gen compliment. Not in this case, though. What looks blocky and muddy on PC/360 looks only slightly more blocky and muddy on PS2/original Xbox. The game looks okay, but don’t expect to be blown away; the graphics are still block-ugly and lacking in detail.
 |
Worse yet, the game’s controls are frequently buggy and unresponsive, hampered by restrictive camera angles, generally leading up to an unpleasant overall experience. The game design seeps more dampness into the woodpile, displaying a generally uncreative and simplistic approach to level design. Magic is introduced slowly into the game, keeping the focus largely on physical combat, and much of the magic is of a token variety used primarily to solve obstacles, puzzles and battles.
There are only 16 brief levels to conquer, and if the game play had been addictive enough to be appealing, is brevity would be a major handicap. However, since the game is such a slap-dash train wreck, it’s unlikely most gamers will possess the patience to futz around with it long enough to finish even that much of the game.
 |
 |
Collision detection is also a spotty affair, as is the enemy AI, which doesn’t really lend much to the gaming table. Enemies do not possess much in the way of varied strategies or different weaknesses, so the task of defeating them is boiled down to a fairly standard hack-n-slash-n-cast dynamic that quickly grows old. None of the enemies, even the boss-level opponents, ever poses much of a threat.
The game is brief and can be beaten in about six hours; however, the novel can possibly be read in just a bit more solid reading time than that, and would offer a more enjoyable experience in exchange for the sacrifice of time out of your life. In the final analysis, however entertaining the movie might be, Eragon is an experience that’s better to read than it is to play.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
| + The game loads up when you put it in your PS2 or original Xbox, no problem! | 4.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
– It’s actually playing the game that’s a problem; it’s unpleasant at best. – Terrible graphics, uninspired voice acting, generic level design, buggy control scheme, rotten camera angles, I mean… the list just goes on and on and on and on and on… |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Eragon is an experience better read than played! | |
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Eragon: The Dragon Rider Legacy
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Dec 19th, 2006 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
