How to Train Your Dragon game review and giveaway

DreamWorks' How to Train your Dragon is a great hit, on the big screen and off! My kids keep clamoring for me to buy them the little dragon figurines (I relented and gave them each a dragon egg instead of an Easter egg for Easter) and the Happy Meal toys (unfortunately we missed out on it, it's no longer available) because they want to keep imagining further adventures for Hiccup and Astrid and Toothless and all their friends. Fortunately there's the How to Train Your Dragon videogame -- we were given a copy of this game to review, and my kids can't stop playing it on their DS! Keep reading below to find out how you can enter to win a copy of your own....


The Basics
Here's how Activision describes the game:
How to Train Your Dragon launches gamers into a third-person action-adventure as a Viking hero where they must embark upon an epic quest to become the ultimate dragon trainer. Gamers can play as characters Hiccup or Astrid on the vast Island of Berk, which features expanded locales from the film including Vikings Village, Wild Zone, Training Zone and Fight Arena. In this truly larger-than-life adventure, players will train dragons, explore environments and battle in prestigious dragon tournaments as they battle for Viking victory. Plus, gamers can become the Dragon hero of their living room as they square-off with friends and family in endless head-to-head multi-player combat!

The Bongga

My kids are really loving this game! They get to take care of dragons, train with them and complete challenges with them. We haven't even watched the movie yet and they feel like they know all the dragons already. There's a lot of confidence building and instant gratification in this game, like getting rewarded for completing challenges by gaining the ability to customize your dragon, or getting more dragons to take care of. which is great for young kids (my 6-year olds have no problem figuring out how to play this game, even though it's supposed to be for ages 10+ and they're not too good at reading instructions that show up on the DS screen).


The graphics in this videogame are really superb, and look like scenes straight out of the movie (here's a screenshot from the Xbox360 version of the game). As a parent with 3 kids, I like that the game is "funny" rather than "violent". I also love the fact that they can play on separate accounts, which minimizes the bickering and "why did you mess up my game!" complaints.

The Blah

Even though you can have separate accounts in a single DS game, all the accounts are represented by either a girl or a boy icon -- so The Pea would have to play as a boy since 3Po and Jammy already started playing as boys. I don't know how it works with the other platforms but I think this is an unfortunate limitation that would have been easy to do away with.

The Bottom Line

How to Train Your Dragon, the videogame, is a great way for kids to take all the fun of the movie home with them and continue their dragon adventures!

Win It!
Three lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will receive a copy of the How to Train Your Dragon videogame. To enter, simply leave a comment on this post and tell me which platform you want -- Nintendo DS, PS3 or Xbox360 . Note: I have one game for each platform to give away, so pick the platform you really want because that's the drawing you'll be entered in!

For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following, (you can only do each extra entry once; please leave a separate comment for each extra entry):

1) Grab my blog button and post it up on your blog (leave a comment with your blog URL).

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6) Follow Bonggamom Finds on Blogger(leave a comment with your Blogger profile name).

7) Tweet this giveaway (leave a comment with a link to your tweet). Here is a sample tweet you can copy and paste:

Enter to win a How to Train Your Dragon videogame for DS, PS3 or XBox360 from @bonggafinds http://ow.ly/1GlJe #giveaway pls RT

8) Click on this link and enter the CafePress American Idol sweepstakes (leave a comment here telling me you've joined -- this is only valid till April 30, 2010).

The Rules
Maximum of 9 entries per person. This giveaway ends at midnight PST on May 20, 2010; I will draw three winners at random on May 21 (1 winner from the pool of commenters who want a DS game, 1 winner from the pool of commenters who want a PS3 game and 1 winner from the pool of commenters who want an Xbox360 game) and post the winner's name after the winner confirms acceptance. For additional giveaway rules, click here. Good luck!

Disclosure: I received a product sample to review, and additional samples to give away, but was not paid to review the product or give my opinions. Unless clearly stated, the views and opinions expressed here are my own.