The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon
Fire and forget.
On the subject of technical issues, it's important to mention the screen-tearing, texture pop-up and incredibly frustrating camera. This is a cross-platform title which shows its greying last-gen roots, despite a liberal application of bloom-coloured Just For Men. The camera in particular is a real pain; it appears to be possessed by gremlins at points where you'd quite like it to behave and show you where you're bloody well going thank you very much. When the camera is free - as it is for some of the larger open areas - it works very well, making the regular frustrations all the more apparent.
What's clear with Spyro is where the priorities did lie: the flattery to deceive. Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman and Christina Ricci all provide voiceovers, but Spyro remains a dull, vaguely annoying character. Sparx, the dragonfly who has accompanied Spyro for so long, is royally smug, with just enough flatness in delivery to render him utterly forgetable. The story suffers from the same problem; it's generic fantasy fare which will keep you entertained long enough to remind you what you're supposed to be doing, but for no longer.
Co-op is handled well, with a few tasks which require joint actions. However, these simple jobs are occasionally turned into repetetive nightmares buy astonishingly beligerent and annoying AI decisions. One reccurring puzzle requires you to carry small 'titanium lanterns' across levels to weigh down pressure plates and open doors. So far, so 1994. However, these lanterns are so heavy that they restrict your ability to fly, keeping you within a few feet of the ground and forcing you to clamber up vines attached to walls instead of swooping up to your objective.
To begin with it seems like a reasonable set-up, encouraging resourcefulness and stopping you from feeling over-powered. However, the 20th time your computer-controlled compatriot decides your needs are best served by jumping off the cliff-face you just scaled, dragging you down by the mystical chain which binds you, will be considerably less entertaining than the first. Your partner offers little help in combat either, although you'll die so rarely in the normal course of things this may be a good thing.
Spyro isn't an easy game, however, and boss battles can be particularly tough. There's one boss, a shameless filch from God of War, who evoked expletives we are neither proud of nor prepared to repeat. In fact, talking of 'inspiration', there is a whole section of the game which so closely resembles a scene from Lord of the Rings in sight and subject you could almost imagine Tolkien himself was on the development team.
Stealing the best parts of your game from other sources will never win you the big prizes, and the clichéd nature of much of the game makes it forgettable and repetitive. When you're tip-toeing along the tightrope of mediocrity above the gaping chasm of the bargain bins, tiny frustrations like having to mash X to open chests and trip switches can be the breeze which topples you. If you're the lucky parent of patient children or you're happy enough to relive faded old glories, then you might just find enough here to justify the price. Everyone else should probably steer clear of what could have been a solid platformer, but quickly becomes an all-too-familiar grind.