Eragon

"Well that was a huge waste of 16 hours of my life..."

I pop the game in my sister's Gameboy (yeah, I'm an evil sister), turn it on, and expect something half-decent to show up. What I get instead is a massive travesty of the entire Eragon movie, book, and phenomenon.

It leaves the plot behind early on. Rather than letting Arya be captured in a timely fashion, you have to wander around Du Weldenvarden for about half an hou, slaughtering orcs, grabbing various things out of chests, and escaping from orcs too "powerful" for you to kill. Wait, did I say orcs? Haha, silly me. I meant urgals. But what does it matter? They're essentially the same thing, anyway. However, it is at this vitally important stage in the game that you make a decision that will affect the rest of the game dramatically. Do you start with the east cave or the west cave. I will advise you now: EAST CAVE FIRST! Else you will be dealing with a hemophiliac Eragon for the rest of your long and miserable game.

Don't get me wrong. This game does have some good points. Once you start it, you feel the need to keep playing even though it is incredibly stupid. The graphics aren't half-bad either, though because of the glitches in the game, I often couldn't see enemies until they were chasing me, and by that time, it was too late to avoid them.

One of the main points of the game is that you have to gain focus points in order to do things such as read books (despite the fact that Eragon is illiterate), follow tracks (although Eragon is Carvahall's "master hunter"), and fight. Shall I continue no this train of thought, or have I proven my point with focuses?

But the game really starts to get annoying once you get to Teirm. This is something you can't avoid. You have to go and talk to Brom's friend, Jeod, who's main comment is about Brom's clothing. Once you enter Teirm, if you started with the Western cave in Du Weldenvarden, the glitch fest will begin. It starts with Eragon's hitherto undiscovered hemophilia surfaces, making him die before he accomplishes anything useful in a battle. The fighting order becomes completely random, with your enemies occasionally fighting you while you're attack them, and shooting themselves. Enemies randomly appear and reappear while doing more damage to themselves then you. They are granted strength that is absolutely impossible, thus killing you before you can say "Stupid game."

But it's sort of based on the book. That's the good part. It's called Eragon.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/18/07