Once I understood the way the controls worked, I quit the tutorial and started the first (and only) level in the copy provided to us. The level featured a really long bridge with thousands of soldiers from both factions, standing prepared for the impending battle. The bridge was poised over a huge sea, with a mixed landscape of water and mountains around it, all of which looked breathtaking. The detail on the dragon, as well as the soldiers was simply brilliant! There's no doubt that this game is certainly among the best looking upcoming PS3 games, but there was still something missing. Although the detailing seemed quite astounding, the lighting and post-render effects seemed a bit off. In other words, all the elements in the visuals didn't come together too well; but then again, that's understandable since the build I played was from sometime last year, and I'm quite certain that at least a few visual changes have been made till now.
Before I get too carried away by the game's looks, let me catch my breath and get to the best part—the gameplay. While atop our trusty airborne dragon, we could fly all around the bridge, below it, besides it, and at times, inside it (WTF! 'clipping issues' were prevalent, but they probably won't stick around when the game hits shelves)—so the game gave me quite a lot of freedom to stretch my wings. The first objective given to me was to take out a group of Mokai dragons that had come to flame our forces. On centering a dragon on your screen, you get the option to lock onto it by pressing the L1 button. When locked on, you can order your dragon to breath out some pretty impressive looking fireballs that hurl towards the enemy, by pressing the 'square' button. Alternately, if you like getting up close and personal, pressing the 'X' button allows our dragon to dash towards the Mokai dragon. Once we got close enough, we'd go into a melee battle mode, where tugging the controller in the direction of the enemy dragon would make us bang against and weaken them.
HANDS ON!
