Dragons, swords and sourcery...
Eragon is a new film from 20th Century Fox based on the fantasy books by Christopher Paolini. I have to admit, I’d never heard of him or the books before sitting down for a screening of Eragon, the game. Before we saw the game though, we were treated to a preview of the film. As it’s still in production we only saw what amounts to an as yet unreleased trailer, but it looks pretty cool.
Click for larger imageThe cast features Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich and the upcoming Edward Speleers and follows the fortunes of Eragon, a young chap who discovers a dragon’s egg. It turns out dragon eggs only hatch when they’re in the presence of the one born to be their rider… which luckily happens to be Eragon, played by Speleers.
Click for larger imageThe basic plotline is that Eragon must use his developing powers and abilities as a dragon rider to face down and overthrow evil King Galbatorix, played by Malkovich. And so the game follows Eragon in his escapades and adventures as our hero and his faithful dragon, Saphira battle the bad guys and win the day… oh, and it’s got Joss Stone in it too, which is no bad thing.
Click for larger imageSo anyway, after having watched a bit of the film, we were then shown live gameplay of the work so far. Basically it’s a one or two player (in co-op) action beat-em-up with magic and weapons thrown in. It goes a bit deeper than that though with more skills, attacks and spells being unlocked as you progress.
Click for larger imageA novel bit of gameplay is the ability to call on Saphira and get her to take out baddies from above whilst you battle on the ground. You also get plenty of flight time on your dragon too, letting you either whack bad guys with your dragon’s tail or turn them into over-done marshmallows with a blast of fire.
Click for larger imageWhilst flying on Saphira you can still independently control Eragon, so he can let off a few arrows to take out nasties too. In melee combat there’s a ‘degradable blocking system’ which essentially means that both you and the bad guys can’t block attacks forever… so you can go on a Luke Skywalker style hacking frenzy and wear your opponent down…. but obviously without the lightsabre… or the guy with the asthma problems in the dark cape…
Eragon is slated for an Autumn release on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, GBA, Nintendo DS and PC
