Avatar: The Game Review by: 1sam234 - 6.7/10
Could it be worse? Well, for a movie-game, yeah."Avatar"(Not "The Last Airbender") was one of the biggest hit recent movies made be returning director James Cameron, the director of the "Aliens" and "Terminator" series in the 80's and 90's. It had spectacular imagery and great action, and it used the CG to its advantage as well, and it melded well when the real people were on screen too. The story however was less than original, with it sending a subtle environmental message to its viewers. Then we have the game. Created by Ubisoft Montreal, the same company behind the Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy series, this... Rather less than spectacular game doesn't really deliver. Why? Well, strap on the O2 masks and prepare the AMP Suits, this is gonna be a doozy.
The graphics, while not the worst I've seen and I can look at them without hurting my eyes, don't really reflect the console's rendering power. The environments, from the Pandorian forests to the human bases are vast and huge, though. The character animations are also fluent and well done, but it's the appearance of the characters that bothered me a bit, plus some of the forest elements. Nothing too bad, other than some screen tear if things move too fast, but I think they could've done better and fixed some of the clipping issues if they wanted it to look really amazing. "Avatar" was already a big hit, so there was no rush to make even more money. More time and effort could've easily been put in to fix the issues it had, but they didn't cause of the movie to game syndrome: Movie makes money, game must be made ASAP to make more. Doesn't matter if the movie was a big hit or not, gotta push it out with laughable effort put into it for even more cash.
The sound effects are cool to listen to and have some kick to them when you shoot or slash an enemy, and the death grunts are also realistic. The voices however, are less than convincing at times, and feel like they're just reading off the script rather than putting emotion into their lines. The Na'vi sound like cavemen sometimes with the lines they've been given, with incomplete sentences and everything. In the movie, they could talk as well as any human could, but here, they're way downgraded. As for the music... What music? They're barely any music when you're outside of a fight, just ambient noises of the forest and human bases, and when the music DOES come on in a fight, it's not engaging or cool to listen to, at least after you've been listening to it for a few minutes too many, then it's tolerable. Again, it feels like they were in that usual "turn this movie to a game to make more money ASAP" kinds of rushes, and it shows here.
This game didn't hook me in for long. The conquest mode was a neat touch and is essentially your upgrade menu if you do it right, giving stat boosts to your character with the more territories you take over. That was good until I conquered the whole planet, then it was essentially worthless. The multiplayer wasn't that good either, and I doubt I'll find anyone requesting a game to play there today. There are no side quests, just achievement quests which you're better off not doing since you can rank up to maximum without those. As a Na'vi, you'll essentially breeze through the game, with one-hit-kill weapons and as a human, you'll die again and again with having less health than them. The rank system was a good touch too, which kept me going at killing off Na'vi and/or humans. But again, when I was done, I was done. No more motivation to keep going. Not even the trophies on PS3 would make me play it again to get them. So yeah, it sucks you in during the main part, but once the story's over and the game's done, there's little replay value to keep you there, like they're saying "Oh, it's over now, you can go now, thanks for spending your money on this". I'm both grateful and disappointed for it, and don't expect to be hooked for very long after the game's ending.
The story fares a bit better. It's set a while (2 years) before the movie, so they could get away with a bit more. It starts with a Signal Specialist named Able Ryder(Name doesn't change regardless of gender, which is a bit sad) arriving to Pandora and being recruited by the RDA due to his expertise in the field. After some fixing of animal repulsors(Human tutorial) and cell sample collecting(Avatar tutorial), they learn of a mole in the RDA that is feeding the Na'vi secrets that could overthrow them. Ryder is sent on a hunt for the mole and when he is found, you either shoot the commander that ordered you, or the mole. Either choice will have you play as either an Avatar or human, respectively. After a great majority of repetitive missions, also learning about collecting harmonics to control the planet in the process, you're given one last chance to change your side if you chose to be human, to stay by your own side or betray them to save the planet. The multiple endings depending on your side aren't that spectacular for a modern game, but it fares a little better than the other aspects of the game. It's essentially the same as the movie, a high-powered human goes insane with wanting to control the planet, and one lucky person tries to stop him from doing so. Standard good vs. evil, nothing to scorn at, but not to be praised either.
There isn't much depth to the characters outside of files you get on them through scanning them. When I looked though the stuff I found out about the characters, I'm actually glad that the people I want to care about have a lot to their story. Too bad that nearly all of it is never referenced in any part of the game, or even any subtle hints. If you want to find out who that person is and what's about them and why they're on Pandora, you have to scan them. Even then, some of the characters have barely any info on them. Granted, a good part of of that is on throwaway characters, but still, I didn't learn a lot of the characters outside of Ryder. Again, it's kinda sad. The fact about how linear the game can get is also annoying, having little exploration to do in each area outside of missions. The missions are also essentially the same thing, you either defend, eliminate enemies, or go get a harmonic. Other than that, there's nothing else to do other than conquest, which is just a character upgrade mini-game.
Then there's the difficulty... It ranges from "so easy that why bother" to "HOLY JEEBUS GET ME OUT OF HERE" hard. There's too many spots where there's difficulty spikes up and down, and the controls and camera are less than average. It's too fast and jerky sometimes, and sometimes I pass over the enemy I'm supposed to shoot or swing at cause I either panic when I'm outnumbered or the camera just wants to do what it wants. The slo-mo effect when you try to choose buffs is cool and can help to see what's attacking and actually try to avoid it. Other than that, the controls are jerky, camera's too fast no matter what setting, and the 3D setting it has is also unnecessary, even hindering the game more so. The extra lives you get from collecting 10 cell samples at a time, from plants or enemies, will be wasted fast if you get too reckless, which is easy to do so if you play as the powerful Na'vi. Add the limit of 9 to it and you'll be slowed down by the constant deaths. If you're outnumbered and outgunned, it'd be best to just die and restart at the last checkpoint, which you shouldn't have to, but there's no invulnerability period after you get hit, and even after you lose a life, not even for a second, meaning enemies can easily combo you if there's more than one attacking you. So if you don't sprint away and get to better cover and ground, you'll keep dying over and over and lose your lives. Even upgrading your health and armor in Conquest won't help much, and there's only slight differences in armor and vitality with the suits you get through rank increases.
To be honest, it isn't really the worst movie-game I've played ever, it's pretty neat to play for a while, but there's certainly things about it that needed to be polished to make it better and more worthwhile. It only got mediocre and ok scores on all platforms, even though the PS3 version is a superior version of the game. I'd give it a rental at best since it's fairly short, you'll beat it within hours. This clearly was not Ubisoft Montreal's best work, as shown in its contrasting success with the "Assassin's Creed" and "Tom Clancy" series. This game is just a mixed bag, I don't hate it that much, but there's just so much potential here that they didn't go for. Trust me, there are worse movie-games out there, so don't dismiss this game just yet. But just rent the game, or go see the movie, one of them won't disappoint you when it's over.
Graphics
8 Sound
6 Addictive
5 Depth
4 Story
6 Difficulty
3
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