At a Glance: “Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon”

A prettier Mario Galaxy would be too much to ask for, I guess.

There's an article over at http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52755 right now which lays claim to the announcement of the the third and concluding Spyro game in the “mature Spyro” trilogy which was started with “The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning” back in 06. For me, the most impressive thing about this article, is the above screen shot, taken on the 360 version of the game, which sent shivers down my spine when I first laid eyes on it.

At first glance, I thought that Sierra, the game's Publisher, had seen the huge success of Mario Galaxy and tried to emulate it. However, I was obviously wrong, with journalists describing the new game as being “Spyro meets God of War”, which certainly sounds intriguing. I love God of War, and I kind of loved Spyro, back in the days when it was developed by Insomniac, so perhaps this game will be enough to revitalize the Franchise. Along with Spyro's “God of War-like” qualities, Dawn of the Dragon will come with three main new features:

-overhauled visuals
-drop-in cooperative play
-free flight

The prospect of free flying sounds totally fascinating, although I'm hoping that they don't do a Lair on us and implement terrible flight controls. With E3 coming up veeeery soon, I'm sure Microsoft will be dying to show off their new motion controller for the first time, and Dawn of the Dragon would be a perfect candidate for gyroscopic flight controls, so expect more on that I guess. Co-operative play excite me to no end. Supposedly, a second player is going to be able to drop into the game and play as Cynder; and the game itself is completable with both Spyro and Cynder in one player. Overall, I don't think I've ever personally been more excited about a Spyro game as the idea of limitless free flight and co-operative play seem to be great additions to the usual formulaic development of a Spyro sequal. Here's hoping this year's E3, (July 15 -18) will shed more light on this remarkable comeback.

--Tom Rhodes, 360Stage Editor--