Eragon
If you love games based on movies about farm boys having a destiny far greater than worrying about what's getting planted next season, then Vivendi Universal Games' upcoming Eragon, a game based on the movie, which is in turn is based on the novel by Christopher Paolini (he began the book when he was 15 and got published when he was 17!) should be right up your proverbial alley. The game is a 3rd Person Action Adventure RPG where the combat is shaping up to be fun, fast, and furious.
According to lore, Stormfront Studios' Eragon will be available for PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, GBA, Nintendo DS, the PSP, and the PC in November 2006. Rocking your fantasy world, there's a single player mode, four player multi-player skirmishes, and a co-op mode. The co-op mode was designed to be integrated into the game from the ground up, unlike so many other games where such inclusion feels "tacked on". Also, the co-op can be jumped into at any point during the single player game, so there's no need to back out of a game already in progress when a friend decides to join in. It's a simple philosophy: plug, play and enjoy. Thank you, Stormfront.
For those who may be wondering about the story, Eragon is about a young farm boy named (surprise!) Eragon who finds a dragon's egg, that hatches Saphira, his dragon companion. They soon embark on a journey where they have to fight many enemies while learning life lessons along the way as they both grow up. The world of Eragon is home to the usual fantasy myriad races of elves, dwarves, and orc-ish and gobliny monsters, as well as frightening undead beasties and an evil king who rules them all… with one ring… no, wait, wrong story. Sorry about that.
There are a variety of finishing moves which are all well-animated, as well as brutal-looking. An innovative concept is that the combat system has evades and blocks that can also be used as offensive maneuvers. The other types of attacks are the typical ones found in any fantasy title: melee, magic and ranged combat round out the plethora of ways with which to dispatch enemies. The enemies themselves vary according to their race and also their military rank. This dynamic is meant to ensure no two battles go exactly the same way each time. As if all of the action happening on the ground wasn't enough, you can also call Saphira in for an "air strike" during the ground missions.
On the subject of your dragon companion, there will also be missions where Eragon rides on Saphira's back while they fly around accomplishing mission objectives. During these flying missions you will see a variety of breath weapons from Saphira, as well as some other devastating dragon attacks. Tail smash anyone? As an example of the tasks required during flying missions, the first flying mission Eragon and Saphira must protect some towers from the assault of some Urgalls (one of the "orc-ish" races I mentioned earlier). You can use Saphira's breath to light oil pools on fire, blaze the Urgalls and destroy their war machines by setting them on fire with Saphira's breath, or attack them directly with Saphira's tail smash. The Urgalls flying off ledges and burning were well-animated and somewhat amusing to watch. I almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
Speaking of some of the graphical and animation techniques employed in Stormfront's latest offering, Stormfront's President and CEO, <?xml:namespace prefix = st2 />
Encouragingly, actors from the movie provide their voices for the game – Edward Speleers as Eragon, Garrett Hedlund (Four Brohters, Friday Night Lights, and Troy) as Murtagh, Jeremy Irons (Die Hard 3, The Lion King) as Brom, Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting) as Durza, and Sienna Guillory (Resident Evil: Apocalypse, The Time Machine) as Arya, among others. Showing good faith in securing the voice talent, VU Games and Twentieth Century Fox (the movie's studio) came to Stormfront two years before the movie had to be released. With that much of a lead-in time, Stormfront felt that they could make a high quality game. When it came to the rest of the relationship with their publishers, Stormfront was very happy with the situation. Everyone involved in decision-making with the project was willing to let areas of the world be designed so that gameplay could be crafted.
All in all, the demo left me with the impression that Stormfront is on the right track with this one. The gameplay, co-op, music, voice acting are all adding up to a veritable wizard's brew of gaming goodness. I'll be wearing my Eragon T-shirt, gulping down my Eragon Slurpee while getting my game on with this one. The only question is: Who will be nerdy enough to be my nerdy sidekick?
-Supermonkey
