 |
|
6.0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE LEGEND OF SPYRO: DAWN OF THE DRAGON Posted by Dan Pearson on Nov 26, 2008 17:08 (Nov 26, 2008 17:08) |
||||||||||||||||
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon is now with us and is the final part of the Legend of Spyro storyline, following three years after the last game, Spyro and Cynder have been freed from their crystal prison by a band of evil Grublins who have also tethered them together with some magical snake necklaces. With the aid of Hunter they escape and set off on a huge quest to defeat Malefor once and for all.
Though a platform game at heart, Spyro is a dragon and therefore he has the ability to fly, causing most platforming to be made redundant, to counter this in some instances he is unable to fly high enough so you need to grab vines with the press of the B button and climbing your way to the top. As with most 3D platformers, the game itself is not difficult, but the camera position causes more headaches and stress than anything else and Spyro is no exception, the camera at times will make it impossible to judge a distance or position of a platform, causing you to fall and start the process all over again.
 Both Spyro and Cynder have combo attacks plus four special powers each, Spyro has fire, ice, electricity and earth and Cynder has poison, wind, shadow and fear. Each move can be used in an offensive way or to assist with puzzles, for example wind can blow characters away but also activated a horn to open a gate. You can upgrade each special by collecting blue crystals that are scattered around the levels, allowing for more powerful attacks and new combos. Whilst you have a large range of attacks and at times a load of enemies on screen there are so many special effects and glitter and sparks flying everywhere that it is impossible to tell where you are, what you are doing and who to hit. This leads to one of the biggest crimes of modern gaming, the slowdown, at first I thought it was a cool slow-motion effect but I was very wrong, on the bigger fights the game will slow to a crawl for a few seconds then catch up with itself, inexcusable.
The ability to upgrade your powers are similar to God of War and you can collect new armour to help protect your dragon, plus you have the great co-op play, allowing two players to control both Spyro and Cynder at the same time. Some of the levels themselves are perfectly made for this mode, like swinging from the tether to gain higher ground.
 Overall the game is very colourful and has the quality of an animated movie, but this can vary, the first boss Golem and some of the baddies like the Grublins are well designed and imposing but some of the cut scenes are quit grainy and look similar to what the Gamecube games used to look like. Thankfully the voice acting on the cut scenes is of Hollywood quality with numerous stars lending their voices including Elijah Wood as Spyro, Christina Ricci as Cynder, Gary Oldman as Ignitus and Mark Hamill as Malefor.
Spyro started off as a kid’s game on the PS1 but somewhere along the way it has lost its way, it is trying to do too much, alienating its core audience and teenagers wont get over the cutesy looks and would rather play God of War.
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
Comments |  |
