Two Handheld Eragon Games Announced

April 18, 2006, 4:17 pm EDT
Total comments: 5

GBA and DS get unique titles tailored to their strengths; nothing promised for GC or Rev.

Vivendi Universal Games Embarks On Its Most Epic Videogame Adventure Yet With Twentieth Century Fox's Highly Anticipated December 2006 Feature Film - Eragon

Vivendi Universal Games to Publish Video Games Based on New York Times Best-Selling Novel Turned 20th Century Fox's Highly Anticipated Feature Film; Fans Will Get a First Look at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3 Expo) May 10-12

LOS ANGELES, April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) announced today they are bringing the fantasy-adventure Eragon to the Sony PlayStation(R)2 computer entertainment system, Xbox(R) video game system from Microsoft, Xbox 360(R) video game system from Microsoft, Game Boy(R) Advance, Nintendo DS(TM), the Sony PSP(TM) portable entertainment system, and the PC in November 2006. Developed by Stormfront Studios for consoles and PC, and Amaze Entertainment for handhelds, Eragon is based on the upcoming Twentieth Century Fox feature film inspired by Christopher Paolini's best-selling fantasy novel, featuring Edward Speleers, Djimon Hounsou and Robert Carlyle.

"Christopher Paolini's amazing fantasy worlds, characters and adventures portrayed in Eragon offer fans of the genre an opportunity to step into Eragon's world and live out the dragon rider legacy," said Bruce Hack, CEO of VU Games. "Eragon is sure to be one of the most anticipated movies of 2006 and we are excited to bring this rich story to gamers worldwide."

Elie Dekel, Executive Vice President Licensing & Merchandising for 20th Century Fox added, "VU Games has done a wonderful job adapting many of our top films to the interactive format. Eragon has proven to be the best example to date of what can happen when true collaboration comes to fruition. Movie-goers are going to be hugely impressed with the film, and gamers will be blown away by this state-of-the-art video game.

Movie-goers and gamers will get to experience the rich fantasy of Eragon on the big screen when the film hits theaters December 12, 2006.

The Eragon Story

Based on the best-selling novel, this epic fantasy-adventure centers on a young farm boy named Eragon whose destiny is revealed with the help of a dragon. Eragon, now a Dragon Rider, is swept into a world of magic and power, discovering that he alone has the power to save -- or destroy -- an Empire.

The Dragon Rider Legacy will be revealed at the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3 Expo) when Fox and Vivendi Universal Games will be premiering exclusive footage from the studio and a first look at gameplay from Xbox 360, PS2, Xbox, Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance.

About Eragon for Console and PC

Based on the worldwide literary phenomenon and Fox 2006 tentpole film starring Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons and Academy Award nominee John Malkovich, Eragon immerses the player in a magical world of dragons, destiny and adventure. Gamers will engage in intense battles with an unparalleled combo and magic-based combat system, including stunning finishing moves, multiple grapples and degradable blocks with unique counter attacks. The adventure is heightened with breathless dragon flight-based combat and devastating dragon summon attacks. Fantasy fans can also share the adventure with 2 player co-op featuring team attack bonuses and dragon fight/flight combo gameplay.

About Eragon for Handheld

Offering a completely different gaming experience on all major handheld platforms, Eragon will offer Nintendo DS gamers an action-filled combat-RPG with touch screen spell casting and unique dual screen attack mode. Gamers can also sharpen their magic and dragon riding skills in unlockable mini-games.

Delving further into the rich story of the Eragon universe, Eragon for the GameBoy Advance is a deep, story-driven turn-based RPG with nine playable characters and fully customizable character skills, along with weapon forging and potion crafting.

Eragon and Saphira take flight in this aerial combat game, featuring four person multiplayer in seven different arenas with 12 unlockable arena game types for the Sony PSP. An extensive single player story mode allows gamers to experience the epic Eragon saga from the dragon's perspective.

Talkback

SvevanEvan Burchfield, Staff AlumnusApril 18, 2006

Aside from the stupidity of slighting the Nintendo consoles, I'm very excited to see how it will play on PS2 and GBA. The DS version doesn't excite me (combat RPG, woo), but GBA is a perfect system for turn-based fun. Here's hoping they don't suck!

18 DaysApril 18, 2006

Why do you guys post press releases? They're terrible and you make them worse by insisting ont his tiny unreable font size. I want to hear the news I dont want to have to extract it from paragraphs and paragraphs of ridiculous, over optimistic, corporate, biased waffle.

SvevanEvan Burchfield, Staff AlumnusApril 18, 2006

Most of the time, (and in this instance), the information we receive in a press release is all we know about a game. If we had written a news article off of this text, we would have merely reworded what was already stated (from a direct source) and speculated a little more. There is an advantage to primary source material, and through PGC you get to have access to it. In the case of Eragon, the only comments I had about the announcement I posted right underneath the release. Also the abstract below the headline adds further description. Though the company is overly optimistic (they always will be), we can't be overly negative in spite. Their words are much better than ours since we don't even have screens yet.

KDR_11kApril 19, 2006

Eragon sounds like the brother of Amagon.

I want to hear the news I dont want to have to extract it from paragraphs and paragraphs of ridiculous, over optimistic, corporate, biased waffle.

Mmmmh, waffle.

Jonnyboy117Jonathan Metts, Associate EditorApril 19, 2006

We use small text to identify words that we did not write ourselves. It's more proper than quotation marks when quoting a large block of text. And we don't rewrite press releases because it's basically a waste of time, plus it makes it's arguably dishonest in that it can make it look like we dug around and collected this information ourselves, when it was really just served to us (and every other website) on a platter.

Add to the discussion!