Eragon – PS2 review

25 March 2007 0:00 GMT / By Chris Hall

Following the movie of the book, this, as the name suggests, is the game of the movie of the book, and to a certain extent, it feels like it. But is this fantasy game spin-off worth getting out of bed for? We strap on our sword and find out.

I’ll not detail the story behind the game, as you’re likely to be looking at this only if you’re a fan of the books or have seen the film. Basically you play Eragon and Saphira, on occasions, on your quest through the game.

The game throws you straight into combat and you’ll need to learn some of the moves to get things running smoothly for you. You learn to use sword and bow before progressing onto magic, which comes in handy both in fighting opponents and in navigating the environment. The range of moves is expansive and you can really go to town with a good old button bashing session, but some tactical moves will help. When it comes to the magic parts, you are often left with little option – you have to use the magic to continue, and the magic options are a little lacklustre.

The environment is semi-destructible, which is fun, but after a while it starts to feel a little linear and from the opening it just seems to become more restrictive – there is little in the way of free roaming, and as a result, it gets a little tedious. Graphically it is nothing spectacular, and I’ll put my neck on the line and say Eragon could have appeared at any time in the platforms 7-year history. The music again offers little and the speech is often out of time or illogical.

Similarly the story line doesn’t offer much, you could have made more from the characters and the AI is rather predictable. The part that you’d expect to be the most fulfilling – controlling the dragon -is not really very exciting either, leaving you feeling a little short-changed.

Verdict

This is a spin-off through and through, and will probably leave you wishing you hadn’t bothered. There are better games of this ilk, such as Lord of the Rings, which are on the whole a lot more satisfying. Eragon is essentially a linear hack ‘em up with little going for it.