Reign of Fire

Pros • Awesome looking dragons • You get to play as the dragons • Four vehicles to drive when playing the humans, love that firetruck • Pretty fire effects	Cons • Muddy control pretty much spoils the game • No multiplayer: two player dragons vs. humans would have been great • Many missions too long, with no save points
Bottom Line A decent vehicular/flying combat game--sabotaged by poor controls--that could have been much more. When watching the movie Reign of Fire it might have occurred to you that it would make a fantastic premise for a videogame: Humans vs. Dragons in a post-apocalyptic future. The Reign of Fire game takes this premise and extrapolates, adding creatures, scenes, and ideas that weren't actually in the movie, but follow well enough from what the movie presented. Reign of Fire has the makings of a solid and fun game, but it's spoiled by poor control, which is a shame. There's still some fun to be had here, but be prepared for frustration as you learn how to make the best out of murky controls.

This third person vehicular combat game is presented mission-style and at first you are only able to play as the humans. You're one of the dragon-slaying Kentucky Irregulars and you receive your mission objectives from Van Zan via radio. It's pretty typical videogame stuff, but a good mixture. You'll be protecting a chopper as it gets repaired, rescuing farmers from the crop fields and putting out the fires, stealing dragon eggs, and fighting the bull dragon. There are a variety of vehicles to drive (tank, buggy, 4x4 Jeep, fire truck) equipped with guns--or a water cannon in the case of the fire truck--and you have the ability to pick up heat-seeking missiles and rocket launcher ammo.

I really enjoyed driving around and putting out fires with the water cannon. Another nifty feature is the ability to shoot a water tower and douse yourself when your vehicle is on fire.

You've got to complete one mission to get to the next, and you're rated on your stats (enemies killed, health remaining, etc.) at the end of each mission and will earn a medal if your stats are high enough.

The environments are large and open (though I did sometimes run into invisible barriers that would go "clunk" as I bounced off them) and you have a great deal of freedom. Even though the palette is one of browns and greys, the landscape is well textured and the buildings, crops, water-towers and other set dressing are detailed and realistic looking. The vehicles and humans are quite well animated. Dust kicks up from the tires as you drive and your gunner bounces along convincingly. Where the game is really remarkable though, is the modeling and animation of the dragons. They look fantastic and fly with a frightful grace. The fire effects are also noteworthy, showing up brilliantly against the bland landscape.

Along with several sizes of flying dragons, there are a couple of varieties of land-lubbing ones. Smaller ones that look like small T-Rexes that will ram and bite your vehicle, and much larger crawling ones that will relish barbequing you.

So we've got a good variety of missions, really nice graphics, the ability to play as the dragons, what's the problem here? Control. Simple as that. Reign of Fire's controls are muddy and sluggish, making the game far more difficult than it needs to be and making it frustratingly difficult to execute all the things you want to do. There are two possible configurations for the driving/shooting control of the humans, and you have the ability to invert the Y axis, but things are just not responsive enough. The "simple" configuration has you using the left thumbstick to turn your vehicle and aim your guns, meaning that you can't drive in one direction and fire in another. Useless. The "advanced" config is better, but I still never felt like I was able to move my aim fast enough to track the dragons.

The dragon missions (which you must unlock) will have you attacking convoys of humans, ships, and fortresses, burning crops and livestock, and rescuing captured dragons. You can shoot fireballs, use your napalm breath, and pick up things to use as weapons, or simply pluck a poor human from the ground and drop him from about 10 000 feet or so. Playing as the dragons should be the high point of the game--and make no mistake, laying waste to a field of crops and livestock with your fiery breath is satisfying. However, once again control is an issue. The dragons are unwieldy to manage. They are in perpetual motion and do not have the ability to land and stay still. If you take your hands off the controls, your dragon will still fly around. You're constantly fighting this movement. All the soaring around looks fabulous, but makes it tough to maneuver your creature to precise locations--and those wee people and tin can military vehicles are quite small down there.

The sound effects and voice work are serviceable and the musical score a bit better than that. There are a couple of extras, like the film trailer, some concept art and a music video. If the control situation could have been rectified and some multiplayer added, this would have been a fine game.

I did manage to have some fun with Reign of Fire, but never got past the frustration with the controls. Here's the code to win the level you're on: Press X, Black, Y, Black, X, White Y during gameplay. Chances are you'll need it.

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