Depending on how nice you want to be, the new film Eragon (and the novel that it’s based on) are either a loving homage or heavily inspired by the Lord of the Rings series.  Any way you slice it, Christopher Paolini’s work owes a lot to the works of Mr. Tolkien and Mr. Jackson.  Now we have the videogame adaptation of the film, and it plays a lot like…EA’s Lord of the Rings games.  But if you’re imitating a licensed game, you could certainly do a lot worse.

Actually, in terms of the basic plot, Eragon has as much in common with Star Wars as it does with Lord of the Rings.  A young farm boy learns of his destiny to become a great warrior, must fight against a corrupt Empire, and must save a captured princess, all with the help of an old man and a selfish young rouge.  The parallel became evident early on, and without giving away too much, I’ll simply say that few of the plot’s twists were any surprise at all. 

The gameplay doesn’t offer many surprises, either.  The combat system has quick and strong attacks, a fairly deep combo system, archery, and timing-based blocking/parrying; in short, everything one would expect from a third-person action adventure game.  Comparisons to EA’s Two Towers and Return of the King are unfortunate, but practically unavoidable.  Eragon also borrows liberally from God of War, with scripted death sequences for some larger enemies, balancing acts that must be carefully navigated, and, in the hands of a skilled player, a choreographed feel to the combat. The game does strive to make improvements in some areas; a handful of useful magic spells add some depth to combat, as does an archery system that rewards taking a moment to line up your shot before letting the arrow fly.

Unfortunately, despite all of this, combat gets repetitive very quickly.  By the third level, you’ve seen more or less all the on-foot portions the game has to offer.  Adding to the repetition is the fact that there are only a few different types of enemies throughout which you will be fighting over and over.  And although the combat system has some depth to it, there’s really no need to go in-depth; the first two combos you learn work better in all situations than any of the subsequent ones, and one could make it through the game using only them.  The same could be said for the archery and magic systems, as well; once you can fire magic arrows, there’s no need to perfect any other skills, as it is the most powerful and often used.

At certain points in the game, Eragon rides his dragon, Saphira.  These stages play out as an on-rails shooter, along the lines of the Star Fox series.  They certainly make for a good change of pace from the third-person levels; Saphira feels satisfyingly powerful, but she’s not really under your control.  Aside from some slight steering out of the way of obstacles and choosing between branching pathways, Saphira flies herself, and you merely tell her when to attack.  Still, these were some of my favorite stages in the game, and they occur too infrequently-with only three in the entire game, the dragon stages are underused.

The game also tries to add some innovation in the form of the partner character; another character accompanies Eragon on his quest at all times and fights at his side.  Occasionally, the system works well, like when my partner would hold an enemy so that I could hit him, or when he would fight off enemies so I would have time to pull off a powerful spell.  Usually, however, it feels like simply a tactic used to keep the game from becoming too difficult, by adding some AI support. 

The partner character does, however, lead to one of the high points of the game: multiplayer.  At any time, a second player can drop into the action and take control of the partner seamlessly.  If player two decides to quit, he can jump out at any time, and the AI resumes control.  Co-op is much more fun than the standard single player; being able to strategize with a real-life friend will always be more fun than having the computer watching your back.

The game has other flaws, however.  Although the environments are well done, graphically, character models are disappointingly bland.  It seems as though most of the character’s polygons went into their faces, so as to make them resemble the film’s actors as much as possible.  Poor collision detection and other graphical glitches occur fairly frequently; at times, these problems distracted me to the point that I had trouble focusing on the events of the stage.  The game also drags quite badly during the middle section; a series of boring stages in a row could have some players losing interest.  One stage, in particular, contains the unfortunate combination of repetitive level design and incredible length (seriously, it’s longer than the first three levels combined); it was all I could do to find the patience to see it through to the end. 

Despite all of its problems, Eragon is a not a bad game; it’s merely a bland and, at times, uninteresting one.  If you’re an action-adventure fan whose exhausted the genre and you’re trying to bide your time until God of War 2 comes out, this could be an okay diversion; don’t expect too much, and you could find a decent hack-and-slash fix here.
 

Gameplay:  6.8

Graphics:  7.0

The environments range from good to, at times, beautiful.  The character models were unfortunately very bland.

Sound:  6.9

The music is fitting, if not entirely memorable.  Voice-overs are well done.

Difficulty:  Medium

Nothing revolutionary here; an action-adventure film gets translated into a by-the-numbers action-adventure game.  Sticks to the source material, at the very least.

Concept:  6.5

Nothing revolutionary here, but it does justice to the source material suitably. 

Multiplayer:  7.2

Elevates the game from “meh” to “fairly fun”.  If you play this game, make sure you’ve got a buddy to play through it with.

Overall:  6.7

You’ve seen this before, often and better.  Recommended only to die-hard adventure fans only.