I don’t like the look of James Cameron’s Avatar movie because it’s got blue people in it. I’ve never liked The Smurfs and I don’t like tall blue people either. Anyway, people tell me it’s actually quite good so I may have to go and see it but in the meantime I’ll tell you about the game.
Using the same idea but not following the plot of the film, you play as Ryder, a soldier for a military group called the RDA who are inhabiting a planet called Pandora full of viscous creatures and plants and an indigenous race of those blue people called the Na’vi. Thanks to an invention called the Avatar you can enter a chamber and have your spirit put into one of these blue creatures and thus use their abilities. You begin the game shooting your rifle and doing fetch quests and soon have to face a dilemma. Do you side with a traitor in your ranks and join the Na’vi to prevent the RDA committing genocide as they plunder the planet or do you stay as a human and annihilate all the Na’vi?
Well, I’ll tell you now, playing as a human gives you the best gear and a better gameplay experience but you’ll feel pretty bad doing all those nasty things. Likewise, being a Na’vi gives you a flimsy bow and arrow and some poor melee attacks but at least you can sleep with a clear conscience.
So effectively this is two games with very different stories as you play either side of the war. One common factor is it takes place in the same world which looks very nice thanks to a modified Far Cry 2 engine. Flora and fauna are very colourful and there’s some very imaginative creatures and even vicious plants that can bite your arms off!
When it comes to combat you have your weapons but also special commands you can use with the d-pad. These range from making shock waves, giving yourself speed boosts or calling in air strikes or other animals to help you depending on which side you’re on.
It adds some variety but to be honest you’ll probably end up just using only some of the special moves and stick with them for the entire game.
What Avatar gives us then is a game that’s tricky to score. If you don’t mind slaying innocents in games then playing as a human can be an enjoyable if repetitive experience. If, however, like me, you just can’t be bad in games, you won’t have much fun trying to be a good guy as one of the Na’vi.
The game’s not terrible, it’s just another movie license that’s just ok. James Cameron’s Avatar gets an average 5 out of 10.
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Related: Lost Planet 2, Far Cry 2, Avatar The Game Youtube review
