Ask the average person on the street and they'll probably know who James Cameron is. He's been making big name movies for years and his recent film, Avatar, has already spawned a book and a series of action figures among other merchandise. Just like any other blockbuster movie with an enormous marketing budget, someone at the studio must've thought it'd be a great idea to slap the movie license onto a video game while they were at it. The result is a title that fares better than most movie spin-offs, but also suffers from many of the same flaws.
With a mouthful of a name like James Cameron's Avatar: The Game, it's surprising how far this title strays from the movie's narrative and characters. Both take place on Pandora, a beautiful, jungle-like world that's filled with tribes of strange blue aliens. In typical human fashion, we kick down the door and start slashing and burning the place in search of a rare material called (I kid you not) Unobtanium. While both the movie and the game center around this main theme, each story follows its own separate path. If you're looking for a chance to relive your favorite moments from the film, you won't find that here.
While the film's story isn't carried through to the game, the breathtaking world of Pandora is. Avatar's graphics are above average in many respects, and traveling around the world between missions is often a colorful experience. Vibrant as it is, however, the visuals suffer from the occasional problems. Certain animations seem somehow off, with one such example being the spasmatic way in which the Na'vi (the blue alien people) climb up vines and ropes. Many areas of the game world seem bland after traveling through them a couple of times, as the truly scenic areas only make up a small part of the overall area and are connected by narrow and repetitive "filler" areas.
Further adding to problems of this virtual Pandora are rough edges that I'm not surprised to see in a movie spin-off. With the number of plants and other bits of foliage filling the world, it would've been nice to see more attention paid to smoothing out the game's collision detection. The tiniest rocks will often stop vehicles, even while they're catapulting along at full tilt. Going down a narrow river in the hover boat can be a disaster when it takes an agonizing minute or two to turn around and back out of a dead end. Cliff edges seem to suck characters in and make you fall off, bumping up the often found jumping puzzles from frustrating to fits of rage that might make you throw a controller.
And with controls as bad as these, I sometimes felt like chucking my controller might have been more effective at making my character do what I wanted. Buttons sometimes seemed to stick, with the game acting as if I was holding down a button that I'd physically released seconds before. Mashing the key combination required to heal your character only to watch him keel over and die is a pain I experienced repeatedly with Avatar. Movement feels imprecise and sloppy, which is inexcusable in a title that demands precision fairly regularly. The controls don't fare much better in combat, and the shooting and melee combat are average at best.
When you're not struggling to control your character, the game will keep you busy by leading you down one of two story paths. Early on you're given the choice to side with the RDA (the human corporation that recently landed on Pandora) or the Na'vi (the tribe-like blue aliens). Depending on which side you choose, the game plays out drastically different. Siding with the humans makes the game into a third person shooter akin to a cheap imitation of Gears of War, while the Na'vi story features more primitive weapons and different characters and settings. Decent voice acting fleshes out the main characters, though none of them are noteworthy enough to last long in your memory.
A fairly light role-playing system adds a bit of depth to the game, allowing you to unlock new weapons or abilities as you gain experience in various ways. One surprise was that both the human and Na'vi characters have roughly the same powers, taking away from the added replay value of having two separate campaigns.
Another feature of note is that much like Avatar the movie, the game features support for 3D visuals. The technical requirements for this feature are quite high though, and anyone wishing to take advantage of them will need a 120hz capable display connected via HDMI. For the time being, most living rooms don't have a setup that'll support this.
For fans of the movie, the ability to return to Pandora might make this title worth picking up. Other gamers, however, should probably just stick to watching the film.
Title: James Cameron's Avatar: The Game
Price: $59.99 ($49.99 on PC)
Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Score: C
