Spyro: Season of Ice

[A Genius]

The logic behind a lot of Playstation games is simple. Take concept. Use it on a single series. Alter the levels slightly every game, repeat and make oodles of money. See, I hated the entire 64/32 bit era, Due to suckiness (in the N64's case) and unoriginality (in the Playstation's case). Both systems had some good moments, but frankly, I just didn't like the era.

One of Sony's milked concepts (actually, most of the 3rd party companies supplying for Sony were pretty good, better than the N64 at least) was Spyro the Dragon. He was a dragon the\at burnt innocent animals, and... that's it. Now, he's on the GBA, and is worse than ever!

Graphicwise, the game manages to cause problems right there by using the evil isometric perspective. Basically, this means that the view is slanted, so that everything is more setailed, and it's harder to move around. The control pad is not made for this, and you'll often have trouble navigating the thin bridges that are about the levels.

And of course, that also causes control issues. I've already explained some of them, but I also need to give a note on a big aspect of the game, charging. To charge, you press the R button, you then go of at 70 miles per hour, and then you'll probably fly off a cliff, and sometimes you can barely tell that it IS a cliff. When charging, you turn slowly, and due to the horribly frusterating moments of the game when you have to charge to catch a bandit running around a cliff requiring to make lots of turns, then you're screwed.

And to top it all off, the game is repetetive. you're mostly doing the same stuff all the time, running around, exploring for some easily discovered secret. The game is just horribly bopring. Every once and a while, you'll find a minigame in the games boring levels, but they're no good. In some of them, you fly around, going through rings and shooting... stuff. But they're all identical and control in these stages is confusing. Sometimes, you think you'll dodge an enemy, or fly through a ring, and you DON'T! Ugh.

The other minigame is pretty fun, you fly a dragonfly through linear but entertaining stages and blast the crap out of things. You're playing as Spyro's buddy Sparx the dragonfly, and his levels are fast and furious.

But they can't make up for the rest of the game, in which you are either bored to death, or frusterated by deaths that aren't your fault.

Oh, and the music is nothing special either. It's not horrible, and not great. Let's leave it at that.

Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 7/10
Control: 4/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Replay Value: 4/10
Overall: 5/10

-A Genius (Avoid.)

[Heroine of the Dragon]

I couldn't get through this game... boredom got the better of me.