4.4 /10 1 Votes
4.9/10 GameSpot Designer(s) Oliver Sykes Genre Adventure game Mode Single-player video game | 3.6/10 IGN 46% Metacritic Initial release date 9 August 2001 Publisher Ubisoft Developers Ubisoft, Ubi Studios UK | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Release date(s) Dreamcast
NA: August 9, 2001
PAL: February 8, 2002
PC
NA: August 12, 2001 Platforms Dreamcast, Microsoft Windows Similar Dragonriders of Pern, Deep Fighter, Coaster Works, AeroWings 2: Airstrike, Charge 'n Blast | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The game takes place on the fictional planet Pern created by science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey for her Dragonriders of Pern series of novels. The story, divided into four chapters, follows the dragonrider D'kor who, with the help of his dragon Zenth, searches for girls to be candidates for Impressing a new young gold dragon. Various side-plots are developed throughout the game including a bit of intrigue involving an epidemic sickness that is somewhat reminiscent of the storyline in McCaffrey's novel Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern. The game contains over 120 locations on three continents. The player interacts and speaks with over 170 characters.
The game did not sell well, and was derided both by the gaming community and fans of the series for inconsistencies, poor storyline, and poor gameplay.
Critical reception
Critical reviews were generally negative. GameSpot said "Not a good game. It takes the primary elements of the Pern novels and uses them to fashion a run-of-the-mill adventure game that offers very little actual adventure and too many frustrating mechanical issues." PC Gamer said "A tiny bit of truly awful combat has been thrown in when it should have been thrown out, and this may be the last third-person game in existence that doesn’t support the mouse in any way." IGN said "Too bad, as is, one of those lazy dragons needs to turn its fat ass around and blow some fire directly at the game from which it came, as a little smoldering action is the only salvation I can fathom for this beast. Steer clear, far clear." GameSpy said "A bad adventure game based on far better books. Go read them." Computer Gaming Magazine said "Only for blindly hardcore fans of Anne McCaffrey...Everyone else will find the entire experience tired and uninspiring." The initial version also caused performance problems for users with Pentium 4 processors until a patch was released.
Several sites reviewed the game more positively, particularly praising the story. Yahoo! Games said "An absolute must for fans of the series – it's as engrossing and complex as the best of Anne McCaffrey's novels, and as a stand-alone story, it's fun and well worth it." Quandary said "It's an absorbing adventure-cum-interactive story with a lot of people to converse with, a lot of good deeds to do, and an arch baddie to expose." The Dreamcast version was better received than the PC version, with GameSpot saying "Dragonriders is hardly a terrible game, but it has its share of issues and won't appeal to a large group of gamers. "
