What doth seek the invaders?What doth seek the invaders?
One of few movie-based games that I own for the DS, I received the game as a gift in the month following the release of the movie.
I hope that my critique will be of use to you, if you are looking into this game.
While I loved the movie, I will not let that have any influence over this review of the game.
Released in 2009,
Avatar: The Game places you in Pandora, an earth-like planet with intelligent beings called the Na’vi. Similar to the movie, you face the RDA corporation. This time, however, you’re not Jake Sully but Nok, a Navi warrior.
You can find the game for really cheap prices online, so my primary goal is to help you decide whether it would be fun to own or a waste of space.
So without further ado, let’s jump in!
Graphics: 7 / 10
While not impressive, the graphics look decent. Most of the levels have simple layouts; While there several constructions make the levels less barren, the vast majority of the screen shows ground / grass.
While the constructions have decent detail, it’s often the graphics off of the playing field that I enjoyed seeing. That they looked nice when non-essential to the game, shows the effort of the designers on all aspects. Still, I find their choice of time spent regrettable, since impressive in-game graphics would have boosted game-play much more than the non-essentials do now.
On the other hand, the pictures of characters while they speak, while looking animated, does offer quality detail. Areas of quality detail are equally offset by other areas of weak graphics, such as the objective notification graphics and ramped stairways.
While both good and bad graphics make an appears, most of the game has decent detail.
7 / 10
Sound / Music: 5 / 10
While many of the soundtracks fits with the natural theme of the outdoor levels, I found the tracks repetitive. I found the title music slightly more decent than the average track, but it still got annoying from its repetitiveness within a very short time.
The instrumentation did not work well together. While the repeating drum pieces were only a little annoying, the interspersed flute parts compounded the problem. When you find yourself repeating levels, hearing the same music once more will most likely make you mute the game. However, leaving it on, it’s easy to dissect the instrumentation and see that the music tracks break one of the fundamental laws of music; They’re simply not pleasant to the ear.
The sound effects, on the other hand, proved decent. They could have played slightly softer in comparison with the music, but they made the actions feel realistic. I did not find them excessive, save when repeated attacks make Nok repeatedly yell out. Variation within the effect produced during an action, would have helped.
Mediocre music could only be brought up a little with decent, but not impressive, sound effects. 5 / 10.
Addictiveness: 5 / 10
When I first bought the game, I could play for a couple of hours at a time. Quickly, I lost interest in prolonged sessions and would only play on drive trips. Without impressive graphics or music, getting stuck on a portion makes you more likely to quit for a few hours than keep trying.
With larger maps, the amount of time spent walking around does get tiring. Originally, I found running through sections with little health thrilling, I soon found it annoying how easy it is to lose health.
Initially, you’ll find yourself playing for several hours at a time but only addicted slightly. Any true addiction is quickly overcome by the presentation and repetitiveness of gameplay during subsequent plays.
With only temporary addiction possible, the addictiveness only rates a 5 / 10.
Story: 6 / 10
Rather than copy the story from the movie, the game provides its own storyline, showing innovation. However, this may have been the case because the game released before the movie. In any case, the story provides helpful details about Pandora that you would not have known otherwise.
Instead of playing as Jake Sully, a human, you play as Nok, a Na’vi. The Na’vi don’t know much about the “Sky People” and while you face the evil Dr. Ossman, it ends up a personal battle between his directives and the Na’vi instead of the whole RDA Corporation. The game ends with the humans remaining on the planet, but the Na’vi now wiser.
The game acts a precursor to the movie. Not only do we see a definitive outcome in the movie, but we also see the cautiousness around Jake, who may bring back bitter memories of Dr. Ossman.
The story of natives versus advanced foreign powers is incredibly overused; I found this made the story-line a little boring. However, the Avatar makes the story work decently, which I find impressive.
Because of its innovation, the overused story-line only lowers the score to a decent 6 / 10.
Depth: 5 / 10
With little reason to replay levels, the game focuses on level breadth than depth. Large levels mean you have plenty to do, but it gets repetitive surviving your way across one map location to another.
While there are a few, important interactive objects, many of the graphically displayed objects are not interactive, leaving few options besides progressing in the way you’re supposed to and destroying / pushing the few objects you can.
On the other hand, the search for lore does provide slight depth, since you must look back through levels that you’ve already beaten.
With only few opportunities besides playing through the game, the section rates 5 / 10.
Difficulty: 8 / 10The underwhelming difficulty of most grass enemies allows you to pass them with little damage. However, the sheer number of them can cause major damage when you’re simply going through the maze-like maps to reach point B from point A.
At the start, you only start with three health bars, which can deplete really quickly. Once you get more health storage, the difficulty does decrease. At the same time, the boss difficulty increases, making it easier to lose lives. All in all, it’s slightly harder to go through the minimaps at the beginning than after you progress.
The minimap does help with difficulty with colored indicators to tell where you need to go next. These are often spread out over the map, so while you don’t have to find them, it does take using the minimap to move all over the map.
Finding hidden lore does increase the difficulty, since they’re widespread and numerous. Since you have to replay long, harder levels to find each one, they increase difficulty if you’re a completionist.
Since the difficulty arises from hard bosses and lots of enemies while moving, this category scores 8 / 10.
Overall: 5.3 / 10
A mathematical comparison of important categories leads to a mediocre overall score of 5.3 / 10.
While few strengths appeared, the weaknesses were pronounced and recurring. While an instant sale from the release of the movie, the game was profitable to the creators, but will not fulfill your needs as a player. Since the game was a gift, I keep it in my collection. I would only recommend the game in very specific instances.
You may decide to buy the game if:
1. you loved the movie and would like to learn more about Pandora
2. you want a challenging game to beat deathless
3. you want to give a gift that interests kids but won’t cause addiction
For those three cases specifically, the game should be a fitting choice.
I had much difficulty trying to come up with positive feedback for the game during the time I reacquainted with it. I’m interested to see how your experiences were.
Thank you for reading!
Graphics
7 Sound
5 Addictive
5 Depth
5 Story
6 Difficulty
8
User Notice 
