James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game
03/24/2010 11:24 pm By Kushan Dodanwala | Articles: 5
The year is 2152AD, and you are a signal specialist working for the military on earth. You have been transferred to a different location. Specifically, a moon, orbiting a gas giant which in turn orbits around Alpha Centauri A, 4.3 light years from home. Pandora.
If you are new to the Avatar franchise, here’s a quick heads up. In the not too distant future, life has been found in a distant planet. When researchers reach this planet (or moon rather) they find a world full of life which seems to somehow harmonize their existence with that of the planet. What they also find is a rare mineral called ‘unobtanium’ which costs US $ 20 million a pound. And so, human greed takes over and the mining starts, which outrages the main intelligent life form on Pandora, the Na’vi. The Avatar program is set up so that human scientist can study the planet up close, through the eyes of a Na’vi – Human hybrid, an Avatar which you can control by transferring your consciousness into it. The game contains a ‘Pandorapedia’ which contains a goldmine of information on Pandora, which I particularly enjoyed since it lightened most of the areas left in the dark by the movie.
Once on Pandora, your character, ‘Able’ Ryder (note that there’s no first name) is greeted by Officer Kendra Midori on arrival and she leads you through most of the initial stages of the game. Your character can be male or female but that doesn’t affect the gameplay much.
It’s time to choose
The first hour or so of the campaign is more of a tutorial of sorts. You get to try out a few vehicles and a few sample missions from the RDA (Resource Development Administration) side as well as enter your avatar and roam around Pandora for a while. Here you can get a feel for both of your characters so that your choice will be easier when it comes to decision time. Yes, at some point in the game you will have to choose which side you are going to fight for.
If you go in the path of the Na’vi, you start off on the wrong foot as the Na'vi understandably don’t trust someone who has betrayed their own people. You have to gain the trust of the Na’vi leaders by repelling the RDA forces and running pointless errands. As a Na’vi you get access to a full range of melee weapons, a one-hot-kill bow and a machine gun. The Na’vi weapons are much more powerful compared to the human ones and using melee weapons in hack and slash combat keeps the gameplay interesting. You will have the blessing of Pandora as well, as the wildlife goes easy on you.
As a human on the RDA side, you get access to a large variety of vehicles, equipment and weapons. On the downside, the whole of Pandora will be trying to get you from the wildlife to the plants. Even the weapons are not very effective against the carbon-fiber bones of the Na’vi, as you will have to empty a full clip of ammo to put down one. A-pods which distribute ammunition are scattered at regular intervals so you don’t have to go scavenging for ammo often. The main drawback of the RDA campaign is familiarity. It’s basically just gunplay with nothing much else, and the numerous other third person shooters which offer great gameplay makes this feel pale in comparison.
Burn baby, Burn!
Whichever side you choose, your character has a number of skills that can be used in game. These range from healing, invisibility to stuns. Up to four can be selected and used at a time. Similarly, up to four weapons can be carried at a time and can be switched on the fly. Both campaigns feature a few boss battles which don’t offer much in the sense of variety as a quick combo of skills and heavy weapons could be used to take them down. In the latter stages of both campaigns, the combat becomes tedious and you end up zipping through your objectives on a vehicle or horse and not really bothering about anything else. Overall, the Na’vi campaign scores a point over the RDA campaign, but sadly none of the campaigns really sparkle.
You will come across the occasional glitch in gameplay, most of which can’t be officially called glitches singe they were probably built that way. There is countless number of ledges that you fall onto which you can only get off by dying. There are also several occasions where you drive, ride or fly into a narrow space, leaving no room for maneuver or dismount, with the only option being to reload the save game. The AI is also not stellar, especially in the Na’vi campaign, as enemies will ignore you most of the time and focus on the critters around them, leaving you little to worry about.
This neat mini-game is all too easy to miss
However, there’s a neat little mini game built into the campaign which is all too easy to miss. Walk up to any teleporting device on the map and activate it and you are given an option to enter the ‘Conquest Mode’. This is a sort of turn-based strategy mini game where Pandora is divided into territories, which can be captured by moving units onto them. Think tactical map on a Total War game. You can use experience points you’ve gained in the campaign to buy units and fortifications and in return, the territories you capture in conquest mode boost the abilities of your character in the campaign. It’s simple and fun to play for a change but is all too easy to overlook.
Arguably the worst element in the game is the story line. It just isn’t heavy enough to warrant a game that takes around 15 hours to complete on average. The plot is pretty thin and even moments that could have been brilliant have been watered down by the dull and uninspiring dialogue and storytelling. The characters are too stereotypic and most NPC never join in the gameplay. And the worst part of it all is the ending, where the game just, well, ends. No boss battle, no mega cut scene, no story conclusion; just an end will leave most people saying ‘is that it?’
If you’ve watched the movie, then prepare to be disappointed with the graphics. On first look Pandora doesn’t look as brilliant and sharp as it did in the movie. Considering the fact that most of the movie was computer generated itself, it’s a shame that none of the visual charm has been brought over into the game. This is not to say that the graphics are bad. There are a few breathtaking areas in the game, such as the first mission in the RDA campaign and the Dx10 rendering does a decent job in making the environments detailed, but most of the dark greens and blues get to you before long. Most character animations and attack animations are decent, but nothing special to talk about.
audio quality of the game is below par as well. The voice acting is just horrible. All voices are monotonous and carry no life, bar that of officer Midori to some degree. Your character retains its matter-of-fact monotonous voice throughout the game, even at some moments such s when you first enter your avatar and when you first fly on a banshee, when better voice acting and music could have brought life into the game. Your character just takes these moments like he’s done it a million times before. The sound effects are also pretty dull with a severe lack of variety. All guns sound same and the directional sounds don’t work very well, that is, it’s hard to pick up the location of an enemy by listening to the direction of the sound. There’s very little ambient sound in the forests which are supposed to be teeming with life.
Horseshoe Gorge; Probably the best looking area of the game
All being said, this is not a bad game as it has some degree of competence, and is definitely recommended for those intrigued by the movie. However, the numerous shortcomings are too great and leave us wondering if the sub genre of movie-game tie-ins has run its course in time.
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