Eragon demo on Xbox Live

By Tom Bramwell Published 2 November, 2006

Only for Gold users though.

Xbox Live Gold subscribers looking forward to the videogame version of Eragon can download a 415MB demo today to see whether it's any good.

Developed by Stormfront, Eragon is based on the forthcoming film which is, in turn, based on books by a chap called Christopher Paolini.

The books follow a young chap called Eragon who discovers that he's actually a Dragon Rider, and gets "swept into a world of magic and power".

Given Stormfront's pedigree of Lord of the Rings adaptations, you'd be right to guess that this translates into a bit of a hackandslash in game terms.

Anyway, it's due out later this month - on PC, PS2, PSP, Xbox, DS and GBA as well as our pal the 360, so watch out for a review in the nearish future.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (42) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Thamuhacha #1 5 years ago

    Yep. That'll force me to subscribe for sure.

    This had better not be a common thing. If anyone thinks I am paying money to play demos then they can get stuffed.

  • mattigan #2 5 years ago

    Here we go again

  • Nige #3 5 years ago

    I expect once those of us who've paid for our slice of the XBL farm have got it, they'll open it up to the rest of you.

    Patience.

  • dbeamish #4 5 years ago

    I think its good that paid users get first access. It keeps free loaders off the network to give the paying users more bandwidth. Then open it up later for the cheapskates.

    Although from what I hear silver users aren't missing out on much by missing out on this one!

  • mikewl #5 5 years ago

    Could be a way of distributing the server load more efficiently, often new demos take an age to download, giving Gold subscribers priority seems fair enough, then open it up for silver subscribers.

  • SeesThroughAll #6 5 years ago

    So, effectively, people have to pay for the demos? :/

  • pinhead #7 5 years ago

    /* Looks forward to first dibs on a Halo 3 demo.

    /* Polishes gold live membership.

  • mikewl #8 5 years ago

    SeesThroughAll, silver members just get the demos a bit after gold members, so you dont have to pay to get them, just to get them sooner.

  • SeesThroughAll #9 5 years ago

    SeesThroughAll, silver members just get the demos a bit after gold members, so you dont have to pay to get them, just to get them sooner.

    Ah, OK. Thanks.

  • LOLLERS #10 5 years ago

    If I have to pay for a demo, i'd rather the money went to MS to help pay for the bandwidth to get it faster, than to some shitty magazine that i'll never read.

  • Zero Beat #11 5 years ago

    Anybody that buys this game after trying the demo deserves to be shot.

  • cyacomini #12 5 years ago

    f@ck sake !

    You do realise we've all been paying for demos for years and never complained ?
    Would you really pay £5.99 for a copy of OXM if it didnt have demos on the cover ?

    thought not.

  • Darren #13 5 years ago

    Stormfront.... didn't they write that boat combat game, Blood Wake, that was a launch game for the original Xbox? I quite liked that game even though it had numerous flaws...

  • urban #14 5 years ago

    ofcourse its a common thing, demo bandwidth must munch alot, surely its worth it if people get to test your game though?

  • Machiavel #15 5 years ago

    It keeps free loaders off the network to give the paying users more bandwidth.

    I think Microsoft should be inspired by this comment and offer a choice of Gold Account and Smelly Freeloader (Silver) Account :)

    Microsoft's on the hoof policy: "Come, come to our Live service, only pay if you want to play online! ... Actually, we're very disappointed you don't want Gold anyway ... In fact, we should have put some discrimination in there from the beginning but, here you go now!"

  • thinktank #16 5 years ago

    this article gives the impression that silver members arn't getting this demo or any further content MS decide to deliver in this manner. Which isnt true, gold members just get it first and silver cheepo's get it later. Which is fair.

    You DONT have to pay for any content delivered in this way you do have to wait.

    /Waits for the enivitable "I have to pay for demo's!" post.

    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 15:30

  • mattigan #17 5 years ago

    No need to wait thinktank, it was in the first post!

  • crazyhorse174 #18 5 years ago

    For fuck sake people...you all make it sound like they're charging a fortune!

    What is it...about 30 quid or something A YEAR for Xbox Live Gold membership??? And there are a ton of downloads.

    Thats hardly a hardship is it??

    And isn't it about time that us subscribers actually had something to croon about? What would be the point in playing if we could get the same stuff for free anyway?

    And as someone else pointed out, its not like the non-subscribers arent getting the demos...they just have to wait a bit longer for them...

  • peterfll #19 5 years ago

    Oh! It didn't take MS long then to take the plunge with this.

    I still think this is incredibly short-sighted of them. I hear all the arguments about "they never used to be free" and "give priority to Gold users" and Silver users will get them just later" etc and don't disagree with the persee but.........

    If I was publisher I'd want my demo to get to as many people as quickly as possible as it helps to SELL games and oh, it puts a few quid in MS pocket too I believe.

    But there you go. Elitism is nothing new.

  • jamesbee #20 5 years ago

    About time the gold members got a little more than just online play. I'm all for it!

    @ Peterfil, the demo's are often coming out weeks before the final game. In this respect both MS and the publishers have been great. I hardly doubt the week delay between gold and silver will prevent sales of the game. The demo will still be in the hands of everyone well before the release date.

    I have never personally had trouble with download speeds from xbox marketplace but the amount of posts that do shows it only makes sense for MS to limit the intial download usage of demos. Gold members, do afterall, make a contribution to the servers and bandwidth.
    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 15:43

  • Nostromo13 #21 5 years ago

    the people who have a gold membership don't have it for demos. we have it for online gaming...

  • jamesbee #22 5 years ago

    yellowtruck: it sucks no worse than fileplanet, ign and the like offering high-speed downloads at a fee or exclusive beta's.

  • peterfll #23 5 years ago

    Silver membership was one of the best things MS did when it introduced the revamped Live! service and I think moving away from that is a shame. Again, I've never really had that much of a problem with the speeds, and they get better and better as time goes on.

    You know, once you've given something to people for free it's much harder to take it away as it becomes expected.

    If MS decide to keep to this "one week later for Silver" policy for demos then it's not too bad. If they extend it to exlcusive demos and put longer delays I think it's bad for their business in the longer term, that's all.

    BTW I am a Gold subscriber.

    @Yellowtruck. Get your hands dirty by looking it up for yourself on Xbox.com if you're really that interested, however I feel that you probably have little or nothing constructive to add.....

  • Fairlane #24 5 years ago

    No pay, No play :-)

  • crazyhorse174 #25 5 years ago

    "Silver membership was one of the best things MS did when it introduced the revamped Live! service and I think moving away from that is a shame."

    They're not moving away from anything...Silver subscribers are still getting exactly what they got before.

    All it means is that Gold subscribers are getting demos, etc, about a week before the Silver subscribers.

    Whats the big bloody deal about that??

  • pjmaybe #26 5 years ago

    Sounds shit.

    NEXT!

    Peej

  • McGeeza #27 5 years ago

    @ Yellowtruck

    Remember Live has always been a pay service. Silver was introduced as a freebie alternative with the 360.

    I personally think that MS will wait to see what happens with the PS3 before they make a decision. If it turns out to be a disaster they won't feel the need to drop Live Gold...

  • peterfll #28 5 years ago

    @crazyhorse
    @crazyhorse

    They are moving away from it, they are differentiating between the two levels when it comes to the availability of demos, which they didn't do when they launched the 360. Presently the difference is limited to a weeks delay, accepted, but with MS making coy statements about this being "a sign of things to come" it maybe they plan to do more in this area.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Gold subs getting other things Silver subs don't like access to themes, interviews, possibly cheaper arcade games... there's a whole other way to make the Gold proposition substantially *better* than silver. I just think limiting demos and trailers isn't the way to do it.

    Here's to Sony \ Nintendo getting into this space and potentially* giving MS some competition.

    * note the potentially as no-one will know until these services are up and running, established and real comparisons can be made.

  • optimusprym8 #29 5 years ago

    Everyone gets a silver account for free. Those who choose to pay, get to play a bit sooner. Seems fair to me. That's the trouble these days, everyone expects everything for free or someone else to do it for them. Just think, if you stopped being tight and got a Gold membership you could be playing with all the other happy people rather than venting your spleen and taking years off your life getting worked up over games comments :p

  • neilka #30 5 years ago

    You can get Gold for less than £1.50 a month, e.g.
    [link url= http://www.netdirect-overstock.com/Items/12monthxbox
    ]http://ww w.netdirect-overstock.com/Items...[/link]

    They're hardly asking for your firstborn.

  • Steroyd #31 5 years ago

    I still think delaying an advert for a game to justify gold is a poor decision IMO.

    And I get OPM because of the magazine. :-(

  • bloodflowers #32 5 years ago

    I quite liked the demo. Few things need fixing (or may even be in the game) - video calibration - another overly dark 360 game - none of my other consoles have this problem. Also, they should give people a 'switch AA off' option, because it just looks shit on a lot of low res displays. Controls could do with being a little more logical. Smooth frame rate MUCH appreciated.

  • souljah #33 5 years ago

    /bets fiver on 200+ comments

  • LittleVoice #34 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 18:03:32 01-02-2012

  • spongebob #35 5 years ago

    So how's the game like? Anyone had the chance to check out the demo yet?

  • optimusprym8 #36 5 years ago

    no we're too busy bitching about silver and gold accounts


    or working, *ahem

  • Super_Zee #37 5 years ago

    Don't bother even finding out. It's bloody awful.

  • HarryB #38 5 years ago

    I think it's fair us Gold members get it a week early (I'm guessing it'll be a week from now on?) as like people have said, faster downloads for us ... and we DO pay so why not?

  • Sl1pstream #39 5 years ago

    How about timed exclusives that actually make sense? It's not like Eragon is going to be any good. Then again, might still download it so that I have something to play until I get Marvel UA tomorrow.

  • Max_Powers #40 5 years ago

    The demo is AWFUL!!

  • mattigan #41 5 years ago

    I for one would like the Gold membership exclusivity thing taken further to include discounts for DLC when it's chargeable, like the NFS Carbon DLC that's just been anounced, I think the 80 point stuff on the list should be 50 points for gold members. This would be a much bigger incentive for people to sign up for enhanced membership, than getting a demo a week early.

    And it would only cost them pennies to get people in the door on the premise that they are saving money by joining up to gold, the psycological "bargain" factor is incredibly strong when used correctly.

    My missus is always "saving me money" in the sales :(

    BTW I'm a gold member already.

  • numptyboymatt #42 5 years ago

    I agree - this demo is awful - it looks like a port from the C64 (it looks THAT dated)!