James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game Review
By Aiman Anwar| Monday, December 18, 2009
When James Cameron himself took stage at the Ubisoft E3 2009 press conference to talk about his latest project, there sure was excitement in the air. Excitement which constantly faded away as Cameron droned on and on for 30 minutes about Avatar and how the tie-in game will not ‘suck’. History is witness to the phenomenally horrid movie tie-in games, so excuse us Mr. Cameron, if we are slightly skeptical about your claims. James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game is finally out; has the guiding hand of Cameron saved it from damnation?
The Story
Instead of mimicking the events taking place in the upcoming movie, Ubisoft and Lightstorm (which is Cameron’s own studio) have decided to take the creative high road and weave a new story for the game. The game begins 5 years before the movie, as you wake up in the boots of one Abel Ryder, after a mandatory selection of your gender and face. Several events take place quickly as you are ushered onto the beautiful world of Pandora and synced with your Avatar – a controllable body of the blue-skinned, 10 foot tall locals called the Na’vi. There is no particular strong moment or crescendo in the story, which is disappointing, considering the rich source material. A few missions into the game, the player is forced to make the decision. Will he/she side with the corporate, evil human RDA faction, or will they defect to help the local Na’vi and fight to save their land?
The dual storylines do not enrich the story, if anything they affect gameplay and increase the play time.  The RDA storyline has you suppressing the Na’vi and imposing control over Pandora. As the Na’vi, players are tasked with repelling the human ‘invasion’. Anyone afraid that playing the game may spoil the movie’s plot for them can rest assured, as the game serves as a prequel and sets up the stage for the movie.
What deserves praise here is the Pandorapedia, which contains detailed descriptions of every single plant and animal species found on Pandora. There is an amazing amount of information here for people who want to get lost in the mythos of Avatar. It’s a fine way getting geared-up for the movie.
The Gameplay
The RDA and the Na’vi, each have distinct gameplay styles, with the RDA segment playing as a straight up third person shooter and the Na’vi campaign focuses mainly on melee combat. If you have time for playing just one campaign, I strongly suggest selecting the RDA campaign.
Playing as the Na’vi may seem like the more interesting option, but in reality the extreme focus on melee combat against an enemy which uses guns, amounts to sheer frustration. The Na’vi are also surprisingly weak and take only a few rounds of RDA gunfire to go down. Add a wonky camera into the mix and soon you are not only fighting the RDA but the nauseating camera as well. The developers tried to balance this out by giving players a bow for ranged combat. However, with limited arrows, it becomes apparent that the best way to fight the enemy is rush in up-close and pummel them to death.  The challenge here lies in getting near the enemy. Once in vicinity, mashing the attack button will get the job done. Landing a 5 attack combo will allow you to unleash a special flurry attack but that’s as far the combat goes.  You also get to ride the local fauna, which are marked as triangles on the map.
The RDA gameplay is slightly more interesting with guns and more guns at your disposal. You pull the trigger and stuff blows up in a cloud of orange, it’s as simple as that. Ever wanted to play a ‘Predator’ game? This is the closest you are going to get. Walking through a lush, green forest and shooting anything that moves is way more fun than playing as a weak Na’vi.
To spice up things, players get access to MMO style skills, complete with tremendously long cool down timers. One would think that both factions will have different set of skills, but the RDA and Na’vi skills are basically the same, with different names. I have to make special mention of the Na’vi skill which allows you to call a viperwolf by your side. Sounds awesome on paper, having an animal chewing down your enemies and distracting them while you smash someone on the head. Most of the times, however, the viperwolf will prance away, staring at the beautiful flowers. The more useful skills have such a long cool down time that you are better off fighting the enemy yourself.
The gameplay is heavily hampered by the repetitive mission structure which quickly devolves into ‘Go here, kill this, get that.’ It may hold your attention for a couple of hours, but soon the monotonous nature of the game rears its ugly head. I recommend playing the game in short intervals to fight tedium.
I’m not saying it’s a bad game, it’s just bloody darn run-of-the-mill mediocre.
Next Page – The look, audio and multiplayer…
