The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night

Needless to say, Spyro's not going to stand for that, and aided by mystery visions sent to him by an old dragon voiced by someone who sounds suspiciously like the bloke who played Gandalf in Lord of the Rings (who presumably got the job because he's mates with Elijah – they stick together these Hollywood types) the little purple dragon sets out to kick some bad guy ass.

The story this time is that after foiling the bad guys (or girls – as it was an enchanted female dragon causing Spyro problems in the last game… women, eh?) young Spyro is kicking back and relaxing in the dragon 'hood' when some unsavoury individuals in the form of minions of the 'Ape King' mount an attack on the 'Temple of Souls'. Presumably the previous game must've been fairly successful if they've been able to fork out for celebrity voice-talents again, so that must count for something, right?

The Legend Of Spyro: A New Beginning was launched in 2006, launching the little purple dragon onto a new audience, and cleverly suggesting both that this was a well-established and well-loved character (a 'legend' no less!) and also that this latest game was actually totally different to the ones that came before it (because it's a 'New Beginning', see?). For this 'second in the trilogy', Spyro is voiced once again by Elijah 'Frodo in Lord of the Rings' Wood, with Gary Oldman reprising his role as 'Ignitus' from the previous game and Futurama's Billy West voicing Sparx, Spyro's comedy side-kick.

What happened was that the Spyro games that started out as compelling, cutesy, actually quite decent platform adventure titles, gradually – as games console technology advanced and yet they stayed more-or-less the same – pretty-much dropped off the radar as far as most gamers were concerned, with Spyro becoming something of an also-ran next to more successful characters like Sonic, Crash and Mario. This confused me a little, as I can remember the first Spyro game way back on the PSone, and to my knowledge there have been at least eight Spyro titles so far, so what was with all this 'second in the trilogy' business? Then I twigged – it's not the second 'Spyro' game, it's the second 'The Legend Of Spyro' game. The Legend Of Spyro: The Eternal Night was hailed in advance by a Sierra press release as 'the second instalment of The Legend Of Spyro trilogy'.

Legend of spyro the eternal night