Sierra showcased the Krome Studios-developed 'The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night'- wii.ign.com/ at its E3 2007 booth and we managed a couple brief, but revealing gameplay sessions with the title. If you ever played the GameCube or PlayStation 2 A New Beginning, you'll already have a very educated idea of what to expect from this direct sequel, which picks up where the last game left off, according to the publisher. If you never played the prequel, don't worry because The Eternal Night is also a self-contained experience. In the game, the Ape King has come to the Temple of Souls to resurrect the Dark Master, and the storyline builds from there.
You play as Spyro, a cute, purple dragon who can breathe fire and glide through levels. You maneuver the character through the colorful environments, which are filled with platforms and enemies to fight, with a real sense of tight control, as Spyro quickly reacts to your every move. With the tap of a button, you'll glide into the air, which is helpful for crossing chasms. In one scenario, we had to soar from one sky-bound ship to another to advance. Since Spyro cannot actually fly, if you're timing is off, he may not quite make it across any crossed chasm and will instead plummet to the ground below.
Spyro can breathe fire, electricity, ice, and earth, each with different effects. Each of the projectiles is complemented by a secondary melee attack for u-close battle. The character can also deal out a special fury attack, which actually slows time and destroys just about anything and everything in the vicinity. The fury moves look great, since a cinematic camera sweeps around the environment as time slows and particle explosions erupt in every direction.
New to the game is dragon time, which is basically bullet time for dragons. When activated, this special slows down time, enabling Spyro to run through the environments and take down enemies in slow motion without worry of reacting to speedy foes.
The game looks good on both Wii and PlayStation 2 thanks to very clean textures, smooth animation and colorful locations to explore. The lighting and particle effects make full use of the consoles, too. The polygonal make-up of characters and environments is, however, a little on the light side, and as a result objects tend to lack curve and appear angular. If you're expecting a major graphic leap over the already-released GCN or PS2 titles, don't, because The Eternal Night looks more or less the same. The good news is that most of the major voice talent that powered the characters in the original game are back for the sequel.
Our play time with the title was ultimately brief, but we can already tell that it will probably live up to the standards of the first outing, which earned a high seven on GameCube and PlayStation 2. Still, nothing about the experience feels particularly new, despite some extra fire attacks, a slow-motion mode and fresh locales to explore.
Thanks!
-Dan
Submitted by DANisCOOL
13/07/2007
29
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