Spyro 2

Sony is aiming to drop this game into the stockings of every young Playstation owner come Christmas. But will they be waking up their parents with squeals of joy, or spending the afternoon crying into their turkey? For those who missed out the first time around, Spyro is a purple dragon. Originally his mission was to wander around a well-implemented 3D world, jumping over things and beating the bad guys with his flame breath and deadly charge. Releasing the other dragons and collecting gems were his aims. Equipped with some gorgeous graphics, an excellent Stewart Copeland soundtrack and a simple-but-addictive nature, it was critically acclaimed.

Developer Insomnia has changed none of the things that made the original so playable. Graphically, Spyro 2 is just as strong - Copeland is back to provide the soundtrack and the game is held together with simple controls and imaginative level design. The game is a little more objectives based - no doubt to help sustain young minds' interest - so now Spyro is not just a collect 'em up. Each level, of which there are 29, has several tasks, which when completed, reward Spyro with either a talisman or a rune. Just as before, Spyro can breathe fire, glide, and mow down his enemies by stampeding into them.

Spyro 2 features some new skills also, like the ability to swim, ice skate, spit items at enemies, and head butt. His life meter, Spark the Dragonfly, shines brighter the more hit points Spyro has. To gain more, all Spyro has to do is gather some of the benign animals that litter most of the levels. Spark swallows them down and lights up brightly again. Spark also helps Spyro collect the gems that provide the world's currency, by darting off and grabbing them himself. This is a clever feature, as it is not necessary to walk Spyro into a gem to collect it - just nearby will do fine. Gems can be exchanged with the game's characters for new moves and access to new areas. Now Spyro can learn to swim, climb walls and use different types of attacks to defeat his enemies. If he manages to eliminate enough enemies within a level, a power-up will be activated. There are eight types of these - high-power flame breath, shields and super bounces to name but a few - obtaining one of these generally opens the way for one of the sub-quests within the levels. Spyro is littered with sub-games. These include a manta ray piloting section in the underwater level, an ice-hockey game, or flying through a series of tunnels trying to hit spiders. These manage to be quite challenging and, again, will help to hold the interest.

It seems Spyro's only major problem will be getting the kids to stop playing it long enough for you to watch the Queen's Speech after lunch. It looks sufficiently good to have colleagues across the office enquiring if it was a Dreamcast game, sounds excellent, and although the gameplay is a little simple to have experienced gamers coming back for more, everyone else will probably love it. As a kid's Christmas treat it comes highly recommended.