{"id":12046,"date":"2014-06-27T00:01:06","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T00:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=12046"},"modified":"2014-06-21T01:30:11","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T01:30:11","slug":"how-to-train-your-dragon-2-360-ps3-wii-u-wii-3ds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/27\/how-to-train-your-dragon-2-360-ps3-wii-u-wii-3ds\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Train Your Dragon 2 (360, PS3, Wii U, Wii, 3DS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DRAGON_BOX\"<\/a>In the land of Berk, Vikings and dragons live and work together in harmony thanks to the heroic efforts of boy Hiccup and his dragon friend Toothless.\u00a0 Now, instead of fighting against each other, riders compete in friendly dragon tournaments in this video game based on the new DreamWorks computer animated movie (360 version reviewed here).<\/p>\n

When you first start the game, you\u2019re given a quick interactive tutorial on how to fly your dragon.\u00a0 Then you are free to soar around and explore the village of Berk and the surrounding mountains and islands.\u00a0 This is actually the most fun part of the game, as you can find all sorts of secrets around the land.\u00a0 You can even earn special (yet seemingly useless) dragon tokens by finding hidden coins and performing daredevil stunts.\u00a0 You can also switch dragons and riders, including all of Hiccup\u2019s friends and their dragon pals.<\/p>\n

Scattered about Berk are special dragon perches.\u00a0 Land on one to start a mini-game challenge.\u00a0 Most of these involve racing through rings, but sometimes you\u2019ll have to cough up fireballs in shooting gallery challenges, or swoop down and catch sheep and bring them back to a goal for points.\u00a0 Other times you\u2019ll compete in tournaments with other dragons and play several mini-games in succession.\u00a0 By doing well, you can earn bronze, silver, and gold medals.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the game has several problems.\u00a0 For starters, the tutorial at the beginning of the game fails to explain how to use items (press Y) and brake (press B).\u00a0 I had to fumble around and figure that stuff out on my own.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if the physical retail version of the game has better printed instructions, but my digital review copy sure didn\u2019t have any extra control help.\u00a0 Also, most of what you do in the game is fly through rings, and Superman 64 proved that wasn\u2019t very fun after a while.\u00a0 Plus, the computer-controlled opponents are way too hard and goals and objectives in the mini-games aren\u2019t very clear.\u00a0 I think only players who REALLY like the characters in the movie will enjoy this game.\u00a0 Speaking of which, I guess that\u2019s one good thing about the game is that you don\u2019t have to see the new movie to play it and not get the plot spoiled for you, as I\u2019m sure the story of the new film doesn\u2019t involve flying through rings all the time.<\/p>\n

\"DRAGON_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Comic Mischief and Mild Fantasy Violence. \u00a0You can fall off your dragon if you hit something, and you can breathe fire and throw weapons at your opponents to slow them down, but that\u2019s it.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for the instructions, and younger gamers may get frustrated at the high difficulty and unclear goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the land of Berk, Vikings and dragons live and work together in harmony thanks to the heroic efforts of boy Hiccup and his dragon friend Toothless.\u00a0 Now, instead of fighting against each other, riders compete in friendly dragon tournaments in this video game based on the new DreamWorks computer animated movie (360 version reviewed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12046"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12049,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12046\/revisions\/12049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}