I sure hope the trend of porting abbreviated console games over to the PSP comes to a halt and in a hurry because it’s starting to get really irritating.  It’s simply ridiculous for PSP gamers to pay the same price as a console release but only get three-quarters of the game or less.  We experienced this with Star Wars Battlefront 2 with its absence of the core online infrastructure multiplayer component and single player campaign mode.  At least, the stuff that was left over still captured the basic gameplay elements of its console brethren albeit in a limited offering.  Unfortunately, King Kong doesn't even have this to save it from mediocrity. 

Like its console counterparts, the game starts off with you, Jack Driscoll and the crew heading out to Skull Island to film a movie.  Things get hairy (no Kong yet) when the crew encounters rough waters on its way to the island.  The boats crash against the shores and you end up alone on the island looking for Ann Darrow.  Don't ask where the other members of the film crew end up since they do not accompany you in your journey.  At first, you presume they’re dead but if you've played any of the console versions, you know that Carl Denham (Jack Black’s character) should be there with camera in tow.  The lack of a HUD is something that is actually carried over so you have to pay close attention to the audio and visual cues, which tell you that you’re low on ammo (Jack’s voice) or your health is low (brooding music and red screen tint).

Since it is just you on the island looking for Ann Darrow, you would have hoped that the surroundings would be at least somewhat interesting to look at.  I’m sorry but this is one of the ugliest games that you will find on the PSP.  You've probably read the term "muddy brown” to describe bland looking games.  Well, I have to slightly modify it for Kong - muddy brown with a green tint.  The color in this game is so bad that everything starts to look the same.  It is really trippy to see walls that are almost identical to the ground in both color and texture.  The darkness doesn't help matters and if the game wasn't so linear, I’d probably still be searching for my way through it.  The other significant problem with the graphics is the clipping with the worst offender being Kong’s feet periodically disappearing into the ground.  Visible artifacts where various textures seams meet are also prevalent throughout the entire game.  The graphics are one area that I thought Ubi Soft would have nailed since the console versions have decent-looking graphics.  This is a major letdown to say the least.

This leads to more disappointment in the gameplay.  Like the console versions, the game locks you into a linear path but seems to be much more restrictive in the PSP version due to the lightly populated environments.   If you try to go off the beaten path, you just end up hitting an invisible wall.  The game uses puzzles as part of its path-finding, where for example you have to use fire to burn away brush that is blocking a trail.  This just comes across as a cheap method of introducing puzzles into the gameplay.  The same holds true with finding unique sticks that are necessary to crank open gates.  Why can’t you just use a spear as a lever?  I understand the approach of trying to use the environment as core part of the gameplay but these types of puzzles just end up being superficial.          

The weapon system has the same "use the environment" mentality and is a little bit more successful with its implementation of spears.  More conventional weapons (pistol, shotgun, machine gun and sniper rifle) appear as the game progresses but the limited availability of ammo forces you to rely more on primitive spears.  There is no aiming reticule for the weapons with the exception of the zoom mode on the sniper rifle.  This actually gives the game a much needed challenge and adds to the overall survival feel.  It also forces you to get close to the enemies in order to increase your odds of hitting them, which again adds to the challenge.  My only complaint is the wide hit zone of the weapons, which takes too much away from the challenge of killing creatures.  Shooter controls on the PSP aren’t the easiest to implement but the developers should have notched it down a bit since the game is already gracious in its health scheme (self-healing like Halo).

The segments where you play as Kong are actually where the gameplay improves but again, it falls short due to a lack of refinement.  King Kong combat is all about melee so punching and grabbing stuff is the primary mode of fighting.  There are some combo moves but as expected, they are kept to a minimum and are used primarily as finishing moves.  Fighting as Kong is very cool but the random camera angles are rather distracting.  One minute, you are up close in the thick of a battle and the next it’s a long zoom shot of you doing battle with a dinosaur.  It just doesn't feel right and has you wishing for a simple over-the-shoulder camera angle.  Moving Kong around is pretty cool with his ability to swing on branches and scale walls but tends to be a bit too to execute.  In other words, it feels more like Spiderman than a mammoth ape but I can’t complain too much since it is one of the few highlights of the gameplay.  I can complain about how you can’t pick up people when you’re playing as Kong.  You can pick up cars and toss them but that’s it.  On the other hand, it would be tough to grab the little human critters since they have the habit of running through the walls of buildings (in the New York City level), which is just flat-out ridiculous.

The single player mode is incredibly short and can be played in roughly 4 to 5 hours.  There are really brief levels that feel more like filler than anything else.  The multiplayer mode features co-op and competitive play in local ad-hoc mode only.  It still seems like you are playing single player mode since you do not actually see the other player.  The action of each player affects the other – kill an enemy in co-op mode and the other player has to look for another potential target.  Kill an enemy in competitive play and the enemies become more difficult to kill for your opponent.

When you look at the poor quality graphics, short gameplay and relatively empty environments, it becomes rather obvious that King Kong for the PSP was rushed to coincide with the theatrical release of the movie.  It’s unfortunate since a game combining shooting and melee fighting would have found a nice audience on the PSP.  Instead, we get a mess of a port that doesn’t even come close to being a worthwhile play on the PSP.  There is definitely no beauty to be found here.