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Filed under: Contests / Giveaways

Well, another week has come to a close and so has another giveaway. The winner of this will, as you already know, receive our review copy of The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night and some goodies from the fine folks over at RedBeard. It's a fairly sweet prize pack that will bring happiness to the winner, we hope. And, let' get to choosing one!

Our winner, chosen at random, is:

• Diana Lindeman, who said she wanted to win because "A new game means new ideas and fun."

Well, we couldn't agree more, Diana! Congratulations on your win and thanks to the rest of you for entering! Better luck next time!

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Filed under: Contests / Giveaways

Following our review of The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, we must do what any responsible blogging outfit should do: give it away. We may not have given it the best review score imaginable, but we know that there are Spyro junkies out there who would love to give the game a try. If you don't like it, sell it or trade it for something else. To sweeten the deal, the fine folks at RedBeard have provided us with the Wiimote and nunchuk skin, along with the classic controller skin, you see above.

So, what must you do before you can get your hands on all of this? Well, first off you need to be 18 years of age and a legal resident of the United States. Second, you need to leave a comment before 11:59PM EST on Thursday, November 8th, telling us why you think you deserve this prize pack. And third, you need to sit back and wait to see if you won. We'll select a winner come Friday, November 9th. Before entering, you'll have to be sure to read the rules, however.

Just to make things clear:

• One grand prize winner will receive The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night ($50), one RedBeard Wiimote and nunchuk skin ($10) and one classic controller skin ($10).

Best of luck to all of you and thanks for reading Wii Fanboy!

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Filed under: Reviews

I'm going to be honest with you: this is the first Spyro game I've actually completed. I remember playing a friend's copy of the original Spyro back on the original Playstation in bits and pieces, here and there, but never sitting down to actually play through the entire title. Platformers were never my favorite genre, so at a time where my age limited my game selection (developers didn't want to send me copies for review when I was a teenager, sadly), I often overlooked titles that were considered good or great by the mainstream.

And, based on what I've read and heard of past Spyro games, I can confidently say that The Legend of Spyro: Eternal Night fails to fill the shoes left by its predecessors.

From a control standpoint, the game really doesn't present effective use of the Wii's control scheme. The little motion-based controls in the game are often handled better using the buttons on the Wiimote and nunchuk themselves, such as in combat and stringing attacks together. You can double jump, glide, and use different elemental abilities. Everything here is pretty much run-of-the-mill and, because of that, becomes fairly mundane and tired early on in the game. Combined with the overall ease of the title, this makes for one jaunt that is without any kind of challenge.

Developed by Krome Studios, The Legend of Spyro: Eternal Night has a real problem letting go of the player's hand. Throughout the entire title, the game seems to have this kind of attitude for the player that an over-protective mother might have for her child. It coddles you, making sure you have plenty of health and magic by situating small crystal structures that may be destroyed for several meter's worth of filling in just about every room or area you traverse in the game. And, there are also crystals that allow you to beef up Spyro's elemental attacks and powers, generously spread out as the others. Combine this with the abundance of crystals defeated enemies drop and you'll find an experience that is easily best by most.

Then, there are the times when this coddling mother seems to be out on a smoke break, as you're forced to navigate these odd platforming segments where your failure to get from point A to point B results in death after death after death. It's this stark contrast between the usual segments of gameplay that see you entering a room or area, clearing it of enemies and moving on to rinse and repeat that make it incredibly frustrating to play at points.

But, that's not to say that The Eternal Night doesn't have some value within. The combo of Frodo and Fry Elijah Wood and Billy West are a welcome addition to the otherwise boring voice work of "sounds like Ian McKellen" guy and "generic teenage girl". Oh, Gary Oldman also lends his voice talent, but sadly you'll spend more time playing the game than listening to its expensive cast of voices.

Overall, it's not enough to save the title from falling to the bottom of the sea. A sea called Mediocrity, as The Eternal Night fails to validate itself beyond the slew of other cookie-cutter action platformers out there. While they may not all be on the Wii, the lack of compelling titles surely doesn't make this one any better. Unless you're a Spyro junkie, we feel you'd be better off avoiding this game.

Final Score: 5.5/10

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Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced the following PlayStation Network downloadable games, demos and videos were released for PlayStation 3 this week.

American Games (Content):
* Spyro The Dragon (PS1) - $5.99
* MotorStorm in-game update - Version 3.0
* Ninja Gaiden: Sigma Downloadable Content - Rachel Master - Survival Mode - $2.99
* Piyotama Downloadable Content - Halloween skin - free

American Trailers:
* Bionic Commando
* Time Crisis 4

American Wallpapers:
* 3 Eye of Judgement

European Games (Content):
* PixelJunk Racers - £4.99/€7.99
* PlayStation Eye - Aqua Vita - £1.99/€2.99
* PlayStation Eye - Eye Create (video/picture editing software) - free
* PlayStation Eye - Operation Creature Feature - £3.49/€4.99
* PlayStation Eye - Trials of Topoq - £3.49/€4.99
* Folklore Downloadable Content - Kidnapped Pack - £1.49/€1.99
* MotorStorm Downloadable Content - Halloween livery - free
* MotorStorm in-game update - Version 3.0

European Demos:
* Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction demo
* Tony Hawk: Proving Ground demo

European Trailers:
-Eye of Judgment - “Introduction”
-Metal Gear Online - “TGS 2007″
-Midnight Club LA
-Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection Online
-Toy Home

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