Everyone wishes they had a pet dragon, myself included. In 2010, gamers will have the opportunity to create and train a dragon of their own when Activision releases How to Train Your Dragon, based off the upcoming DreamWorks animated-adventure film starring Hiccup. The plot of the game picks up after the events of the DreamWorks film as you will take up the role as either Hiccup or Astrid exploring the island of Berk. Hiccup is a young Viking who doesn’t quite fit in with his tribe, and tries to prove himself by capturing a dragon. When Hiccup befriends the dragon he captures, his world turns upside down as he tries to prove to his tribe that dragons aren’t as bad as they seem. Details of the plot within the game are sparse, but it will be interesting to see a continuation of the movie. Over the past couple days we spent some time playing a near-final build of How to Train Your Dragon and although it was obviously created for the younger gamer in mind we were still able to have a bit of fun with it.
For a movie game, the gameplay is actually shaping up to be really interesting and somewhat original. Players have the opportunity to create dragons as they see fit and then go through the process of training each dragon using mini-games such as ice sculpting, memorization puzzles or races. You aren’t training an army of dragons for no reason, there will be a heavy multiplayer segment in the game in which you can challenge your friends with the dragons that you have created and raised. As far as whether or not the multiplayer will be limited to local play or playable over Xbox LIVE is unknown at this point. However, the multiplayer sounds like a enjoyable experience.
After spending a good bit of time with a preview build of the game it's obviously aimed at kids, that being said it is one of those titles that is fun to sit back and watch your child play. Some of the gameplay features are specific to the film while others could be snagged from a slew of movie tie-ins, even so we had a good time playing it and look forward to seeing the film in a couple weeks. In a sea of games based off of movies, How to Train Your Dragon plays like it has the potential to be a great family game as well as one of the better movie tie-ins releasing this year, especially for the fantasy-driven children in your family. We will certainly find out at the end of March, as the game should release on March 23, 2010.
