MWUHAaHaHAhHaHahAhAh!!!!! un bete de news aujourd´hui! le compte rendu de l´E3:
The Only Complete, Detailed, and One-Hundred Percent Exclusive Review of the Eragon Movie and Game Online!
An Extensive Review By Mike Macauley
After that, we went out to dinner with my aunt’s sister, then to Target for batteries. We headed back to the hotel, where I sat outside on the lawn with my laptop and updated the site. Bob and I uploaded the pictures, I made the news post, and Bob launched the layout that Joelle and I designed.
The E3 mania had officially begun.
Day Two: No Sleep, E3, Website, Excitement, Thousands Of People, Important People From Big Companies
I woke up around 8 AM on Wednesday morning, got ready, and gathered all of my stuff. I ended up taking my laptop with me to E3, in addition to my digital camera and video camera. I left the laptop in the car, though.
Before heading in, I recorded a little introduction for Shur’tugal’s E3 video. It’s corny, and there were many bloopers, but still funny. After this, my aunt and I walked up to the west wing of the convention center, where we got a few free things (free things rock) and then headed over to the south wing, or hall, or whatever they were calling it, where the giant Eragon poster was. We took some pictures and video, got some free Mountain Dew, gawked at the idiots protesting “war games” at E3, and then headed in.
Because our badges were for Exhibitors, and not just Exhibit Viewers, we were able to get into E3 an hour before it opened to everyone else. This was awesome because there was hardly anyone inside, so we got to play some games and walk around without having to walk through giant crowds of people.
I saw games like World of Warcraft’s new expansion, The Burning Crusade, Quake 4, the Zelda booth, EVE Online, Magic The Gathering PC game, and more. Then we went to check out the new Playstation 3, as well as Nintendo’s Wii. We were able to see PS3, not play it, and take pictures. However, Nintendo had Wii hidden behind a huge towering wall. The line to get in to see and play Wii was at least 700 people long. Not appealing.
Dear Playstation People: The price you’ve set for your game console is ridiculous. Sincerely, Mike Macauley.
We scoped out the Eragon booth for a bit… the booth was more of a giant castle built in the middle of E3. Inside of the castle was the Eragon movie theater, where they were showing the Eragon movie and game trailer, as well as showing a live game demo to anyone daring enough to wait in the very long line.
At around 11:30 AM, my aunt and I headed out to the car to grab my laptop, then into a café area, where I used wifi to update the site with some pictures and an account of what I had done so far. I also called Jack, my friend from Vivendi Universal Games, who had organized this entire trip for me, and he told me to meet him upstairs at the Eragon booth at 1 PM.
At 12:30 PM, my aunt and I headed back to the south hall-place-wing-area-thing, and slowly made our way towards the giant Eragon theater. There we ran into Erik (I think – I’m getting Erik and Evo both very confused, so my apologies to the both of them!), who didn’t realize who we were until we said so. He brought me around to meet various people, and then I ended up meeting with the owner of Stormfront. We talked for a while, and then Ray Gresko came over to join us.
I was able to talk with him for a few minutes before it was finally time to go inside of the theater. It turns out that Ray is a big fan of both Eragon books, as well as the Harry Potter books, so we had a nice discussion about those. He was hoping I knew the five words that Brom spoke to Saphira, but I had to unfortunately let him know that I too am very much in the dark about that!
To prevent upsetting the people who had waited in line to see the trailer in the theater, we were lead into the exit door on the other side of the theater to go in and sit down. At this point, I was very excited, because I wasn’t sure what to expect. One part of me was panicking, in case I hated it all, because as well all know… I’m a hardcore, die-hard Eragon book fan.
Now’s a good time to mention that video cameras, camcorders, cell phone cameras, recording devices, etc. were not allowed in. Common sense tells you that one, though.
The Movie
The scene where Eragon, Murtagh, and the horses emerge from under the waterfall right as they reach the Varden is in the movie, however, I don’t know exactly how it’s done. In the preview, I did see Eragon and Murtagh come out of the water with a few warriors pointing swords at their heads.
Another scene’s existence that I’m able to confirm is the prologue. I’m not sure what order it appears in, but in the clip I was shown, Durza is standing on the top of the small cliff, lights flashing and wind blowing around him, performing magic.
For those of you complaining about Galbatorix being in the movie, and for the opposites who were saying “he’s just in flashbacks!!”… well, the complainers were correct. Galbatorix is in the movie, however, not in any kind of role he plays in the book, from the scenes I saw. He could be playing in flashbacks, but I can at least tell you that he’s definitely playing a character in the actual current plotline. There were a few occasions where he’d look like a lush, spoiled… jerk, laying around and acting like he was high on caffeine. There were other parts where he’d be conversing with Durza about the current happenings (Arya, Eragon, etc.).
It was also confirmed to me that the town on the water that we’ve been showing you pictures of (the most recent had what looked like lizard skins hanging on a store front) is Daret.
The Movie and Console Versions of Eragon
First on was the director of the Eragon movie, who couldn’t be at E3 because he’s still at ILM working on the movie. He talked a little, and then some Eragon movie footage came on. I noticed a lot of plot changes, minor mostly, which didn’t really bother me. There wasn’t enough movie footage there for me to give a full, accurate review of, but I was pretty impressed with what I saw.
I saw a glimpse of Saphira, but never enough to actually describe her to you… from the movie footage. From the video game, however, I saw a lot more.
Saphira was shown wearing a few different things. Towards the beginning of the movie preview, I saw her as just an egg. The egg was a bit larger than Ed Speleers’ face. The beginning of the game preview showed Saphira wearing only a saddle. In the live demo they showed us, Saphira was wearing her full body armor. The armor on her tail had spikes going along the entire thing.
Saphira’s skin was most definitely scales, and it wasn’t the color blue that you see on the cover of the Eragon book, or in any of the Eragon movie advertisements. Saphira was more of a turquoise color, with darker blue adding the details.
In the earlier parts of the game, which I saw first, Saphira is not always by Eragon’s side. You, as the player, have the option to call in Saphira telepathically, because you share a link with her at all times, when you see a blue dragon-like shape appear on the screen where you will call her to aid you.
In the particular instance which I was able to see, the blue dragon shape would appear on the bridges Urgals were attacking from. Saphira would then fly in when told by hitting a certain button on the game controller and take out the bridge. After doing this, Saphira would say one of her more witty comments (though I can’t remember them off the top of my head).
Ah yes, Saphira’s voice… I’ll tell you right now, Fox still hasn’t told me a thing about who is doing the voice for Saphira in the movie, however, I’m positive Saphira had a voice in the game. Because Ed Speleers did the voice for Eragon in the video game, and Garrett Hedlund did the voice for Murtagh in the game, this leads me to believe that a female actress did the voice for Saphira in the game… a.k.a. they cast a voice for Saphira. This isn’t confirmed, but it seems to be common sense.
Some of the things Eragon and Murtagh would say as they completed something or killed someone tended to be slightly corny and definitely out of character. These things, however, were pretty much unnoticeable… you don’t really have time to register what they’re saying before another Urgal jumps up and tries to kill you.
By the way, the voice reminded me of the female voice from the computer in your helmet in Halo, and the voice that greets the Professor when he goes into his giant chamber in the X-Men movies.
I’m fairly positive that the crew at Vivendi got Saphira’s size correct, though I haven’t been able to figure it out myself. They stayed true to the book by making Saphira unable to breathe fire until the end of the game, where your goal is to circle around in Farthen Dur to eliminate the Empire’s army with your tail whip, a move where Saphira whips her tail, taking out ground enemies, and with your flame breathe, which can be aimed almost like you would with a hose.
Another thing I noticed right away were the Urgals. For those of you in the site comments insisting that Urgal horns will be added in to the movie with CGI, I’m sorry to say that you were wrong. In both the movie, though for only a glimpse, and in the game (they were in every scene of the game), the Urgals did not have horns. They were, however, distinguishable from a human or elf – they were a few feet taller and a lot thicker.
I was told that in the game (not sure if it’d be for the movie too), that there’d be three types of Urgals: Urgals, Burzerkers, and Kull. What the hell’s a Burzerker, you might wonder? One step up from an Urgal, and one step below a Kull. Each group is more powerful than the one preceding it. Basically, they needed to add different levels of Urgals into the game to make it more interesting.
In the game, Eragon has his sword to fight with, starting off in Carvahall with just daggers, and ending up with Zar’roc from Brom. Eragon also uses his bow for long range attacks. If he has enough magic in his magic bar, located under his health bar, he is able to turn those into what Ray called “brisingr arrows”… basically, the arrows of fire that deal a lot more damage than normal.
Murtagh also fights with a sword and bow, though I noticed that he tended to use his bow more than his sword, as he would be behind Eragon for the majority of the time. Speaking of Murtagh, one cool feature in the game is the ability for a friend to join in the game at any time. If your friend plugs in a second controller, s/he will automatically play as whichever character is with you at the time (Brom before his death, Murtagh after).
During the game play, one major thing to focus on is collecting little glowing orbs that fly around in the air as you’re walking around, fighting, et cetera. A blue bar running between you and the second player grows as you collect more of these orbs. Once it gets all the way across, you’re able to use what I’m going to code name an “insane move”. Ben, who was explaining this to me, said that most players will choose to save this up for boss mode, when it’ll come in really handy. One that I do recall was Eragon’s sword going ablaze and him going on a banhammer rampage.
tadaaaaaa 
que je rigole