By Ravi Sinha
With great power comes great responsibility, goes the old Spiderman axiom. But Peter Parker was permitted his douche-bag excesses every and now then, sans movie lore. So while Ubisoft Montreal, developer of Assassin’s Creed 2 with Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Splinter Cell Conviction to follow, delivers something a little bit less – okay, a hell of a lot less – than extraordinary, you’re inclined to forgive them. Even if it is a video game aiming to transform the big budget Avatar into a less linear, more involving experience. By some twist of fate that only a Freaky Friday sequel could achieve, Avatar The Game actually ends up being far less interesting, far less involving and certainly much more linear than 10 straight shows of the film ever could be.
You start as an RDA merc named Able Ryder, landing on the planet Pandora and enrolling in the Avatar program. We wish the name were not abused by the locales, but alas, the developers couldn’t resist. So look forward to the Na’vi war chief saying you “fly like a rock” despite “having the name Ryder”. Yup, we can totally see rocks forming bonds with Ikran and going where the Banshees are, hoo-rah. And yes, you’re quickly accosted to choose between the RDA and Na’vi, the catch being the difference in missions, equipment and skills. Every one hates you wherever you go though, so don’t count on making friends if you betray either side.
As it is, this a third person action adventure game whose camera ostensibly covering two-thirds of a single side on your screen. Super Mario 64′s Lakitu feels like a happy ending compared to this clunky, unintuitive nightmare of a camera system. The camera never subtly pulls back when you commence attacking, like any GRAW or Mass Effect – no, it stays latched in place as all of Pandora’s collective flora and fauna unite to massacre you. I can appreciate if my enemies are fast-moving and/or tough enough to evade and/or not die immediately from attacks, but if they attain victory simply because turning to face them is equivalent to getting a Star Destroyer to barrel-roll? Bullshit, plain and simple. Whatever responsive controls are available are sadly buried under the catastrophe of flying. Despite my intentions to best warn you, I don’t think there’s a harsh enough metaphor to properly encapsulate the mediocre flying controls. Except that it makes walking on foot and wrestling with the camera look like a walk in the park.
Ubisoft Montreal put a good amount of effort to make Avatar The Game visually pleasing, as the world is vibrant with life and James Horner, despite having to compete with the movie composer Chance Thomas, does an able job in the music department. Like the movie, the game at first presents a rich world brimming with unique wild-life and vistas but it’s destroyed by the linearity of the missions. Most times you’ll be on fetch quests or missions to destroy some post or the other, and offered little incentive to explore. And more so than the movie, this is where the game fails. The predictable yet moralistic conflicts in the movie are never explored; you’re more often than not on a fixed path; there are no interesting characters. Beautiful CG and 3D gimmicks may be enough for passive viewers but not so for gamers. Avatar The Game makes no such effort to cater to curious and experimental mind of the gamer. Participating in Conquest mode is testament to the fact that this – a simple 3D globe where you move animation-less icons around on hexes for conquering territory – is the developer’s way of showcasing even the illusion of planet-wide war.
This is not something you expect from an experienced dev given carte blanche to not follow a movie’s story, and certainly not what any one should expect from Ubisoft Montreal.
Avatar The Game is best approached with zero expectations. If you get it cheap or as a gift and want to waste a few hours, it’s a toss-up. Its mindless action, good graphics and hype versus nigh-untameable control/camera systems, ho-hum plot and limited depth. Almost like the movie, in fact.
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