James Cameron's Avatar: The Game

An action game developed and published by Ubisoft for the Nintendo Wii. Based on James Cameron’s Avatar (the movie that’s been the talk of 2009; for the people living under a rock), we have yet again, a video game based on a film. Let’s see how it plays.

First of all, I should say I haven’t seen the film. Yes, I know. I should crawl back under the particular rock that I’ve been under. I did intend to go and watch it, but a film like that you might as well see it in 3D. So I thought “right, a bunch of friends are going to see it anyways, I’ll go with them”. When it came to it, I couldn’t be bothered. Now, I’m made to feel like some idiot who didn’t watch “one of the greatest films of all-time” in 3D. So that, is my whole position on the Avatar craze. All you gamers that are in the same boat as me, stand strong brothers and sisters.
So as you can see, I will be strictly reviewing this game as a game; having no prior knowledge of the film that it’s based on. In some ways, that’s “better” isn’t it? Yes? No? Oh well, shut your face and enjoy the review.

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game is as an action adventure game. You play as an Anurai warrior whose planet is being exploited by the Humans and their armies. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike, you attempt to recover everything that was taken from your planet. As you manoeuvre through the tree tops and platforms, you’ll pick up Eywa Spirit points that you can use to improve your attacks. Jumping can only be performed at designated areas; e.g. from one ledge to another. Otherwise, the A button makes your character leap and roll forward.

When enemies are nearby, your character will crouch down to avoid being detected. Holding the Z button will make you character lock-on to the enemy as you move about. A nice feature to have but far from being problem-free. Selecting which enemy you want to lock onto is near-impossible. When you are close enough, actions will be displayed on-screen that allow you to perform stealth attacks. These tend to be a mixture of button-pressing and Wii Remote gestures. Holding the C button will show you the direction of your next objective.

Asides from the default staff, you’ll eventually pick up a bow as well. Within the menu screen, you can upgrade the attacks of your weapons by using the Eywa points that you have gathered. Each weapon is represented with a tree diagram and each ability you unlock will strengthen said weapon and give you more attack/defense manoeuvres. The more stealth attacks and combos you perform; the quicker your warrior meter will fill up. When full, you can shake the Nunchuk to activate the “Way of the Hunter”. In this mode, your health will replenish and your attack will temporarily increase, as does your defense.

For the most part, you’ll be required to creep around and take out nearby enemies without causing too much of a ruckus. Higher platforms can be climbed onto and any areas which this can be done will have on-screen displays telling you so. In the event that you enter into a fighting situation, left/right swings of the Wii Remote will perform horizontal attacks that are weak but affect multiple enemies, or vertical swings that perform stronger attacks but on the one enemy. As well as collecting Eywa points, there’s various items to find too, such as new weapons and artifacts.

Graphically, the game looks sharp and the levels are very detailed. With so much plant-life around, the developers have done a good job of rendering all of that but unfortunately, when there’s a lot happening on-screen, the game does suffer from lag. Especially when you have gun turrets and soldiers shooting at you.
The levels where you fly in the sky on top of your Banshee (a winged creature) look excellent. A lot of care has been put into making the environments look expansive and solid. Twisting the Nunchuk horizontally and vertically will make you fly in all directions, and the Wii Remote lets you point and shoot. It’s these scenarios that have the most effective control mechanics, with very little going wrong.

For the most part, the game is wonderful to look at. It’s a shame that game’s downfall is its controls. The camera system is awkward more often than not. Rotating the camera view horizontally using left and right on the d-pad feels very clumsy and not smooth at all. As stealth is a key method in this game, the less-than-impressive camera controls make it difficult to be aware of your surroundings effectively.

The game does support the Wii MotionPlus, as well as the Wii Balance Board; but I don’t think these features improve on the gameplay in any significant way. Throughout the levels are wasp hives which you can point the Wii Remote at and take control of one of the little things and buzz around, much like a probe. The control method is similar to that found in the Island Flyover event in Wii Sports Resort; in that the Wii MotionPlus picks up on how you turn and twist the controller and translates it into movement. Not really necessary, in my opinion, and the game works just as well without it. Although I haven’t connected a Wii Balance Board to the game, the fact that it controls your character’s movement is a bit of a turn-off for me. Sometimes, it’s fiddly enough using the Wii Remote/Nunchuk, I can only imagine how much more frustrating this game is to play using a Wii Balance Board.

The game’s thirteen levels can be play on easy, normal, or hard. Some are short and don’t pose much of a challenge; leaving you feeling robbed of a level. Others take longer to complete, but still, not challenging provided you have a bit of patience. Shame, really. Ignoring the shabby camera controls, it’s got potential to be a good game. A nice mixture of long range, and close combat fighting; but there aren’t any areas that Avatar: The Game excels in. The visuals probably win that category but unfortunately that doesn’t add much to the gameplay at heart. It’s almost like eating a meal that’s not very tasty, but it’s served on a really nice-looking plate.

What I didn’t see enough of; were the Quick Time Events (QTE) that came up during certain combat situations. These tend to pop up when fighting the larger enemies; like the ones in the mech-suits, and bosses. Hitting the correct buttons at the right time will string together a combination of attacks. These not only look cool, but also bring variety to what is otherwise a repetitive game. Too bad these are few and far between, and when they do pop up, they themselves are guilty of repetition.

There’s a two-player cooperative mode but that, again, doesn’t add anything worthwhile to the table. To be honest, I prefer to be playing this on my own. If you do play it with a friend, make sure you play on the hard difficulty setting to get the most out of this game.

Overall, it seems like it’s another easy cash-in to a very popular film. There’s a significant lack of imagination as far as level objectives are concerned. Kill badguys, open doors, and collect Eywa points along the way. Very boring. I would have gladly skipped the point-collecting part if it weren’t crucial to improving my attack/defense. The narrative is a let down; and at times it feels incomplete. Our protagonist simply goes from one location to another with half-baked intentions. Not a whole lot is explored, and half the time, I get the impression that the developers are relying on gamers to have watched the motion picture in order to fill in the many gaps that the plot contains.

The game tries to incorporate a bit of everything into it. You have your stealth element, platform-jumping about, long-range and close-quarters combat, and in-air pursuit/fight scenarios. Not a bad mixture, but just poorly executed. Due to the relatively short length of the game, the repetition that it suffers from, and lack of any meaningful reason to replay after completion; I find it very hard to recommend this title. Even if you thought the film which it was based on is amazing, that’s not enough to see this game for more than what it is. Younger gamers might find it more compelling, but the age of a gamer shouldn’t really be a factor whether a game is good or not.

+ Lush, vibrant, and detailed environments
+ A subtle mix of game genres

- Repetitive gameplay
- Shoddy camera controls
- Quite a short game
- Frequent drops in frame-rate

Score – 6/10