Avatar: The Game [360/PS3] Preview page 2

14 Oct 2009 at 10:38:26 by John Robertson

The portion of the game we played had us in control of a member of the RDA's army, a suitably space marine-like chap with a formidable assortment of armaments. Played from an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective, Avatar - from what we've played, at least - seems primarily concerned with providing you things to kill. Those things come in the form of alien creatures, both large and small. The Na'Vi themselves are ten-foot tall, blue skinned, humanoid creatures armed with arrows the length of your body and the ability to use much of Pandora's larger examples of wildlife as a makeshift military arsenal - flying on dragons, charging on dinosaurs and the like.

Other creatures included six-legged, orange and black dogs that attacked in packs and were fairly difficult to shoot due to their speed; and a very large, very powerful four-legged elephant sized dinosaur that would charge you at every chance. However, your character is more than prepared to deal with the pressures of war. Despite the third-person perspective typically associated with games that offer a slower, more deliberate pace (Gears of War, Res Evil 5, for example), Avatar moves at pace much more akin to a standard first-person shooter.

That is to say that movement is responsive and fluid, strafing from side to side almost completely replaces the need to find cover and enemies tend to attack from all sides, meaning you're constantly on your toes, moving around the environment in order to prevent becoming swamped in any one area. You can perform a nifty little jump to the side to avoid immediate danger, as well as turn 180 degrees at the push of a button, both of which came in very handy during moments of high drama.

The RDA's standard issue, impressively meaty looking, machine gun does an admirable job of laying to waste anything that moves, but you're given plenty of opportunities to break out the serious hardware. There were a number of vehicles on hand to try our hand at, including a Mad Max inspired buggy and some kind of go-cart with a dozen or so rockets attached to its rear end. The star of the show though - as ever - was the heavy mech walker that looked like it had been plucked straight out of a Japanese anime movie, able to obliterate anything and everything stupid enough to get in its way.

We were told that only the opening portion of the full game forces you play as the RDA. Later on in the campaign you can select to play as the Na'Vi, which, one would be reasonable to expect, play entirely differently from their human counterparts. Just how that works, whether the game is split into two campaigns, or whether you can select a race prior to each mission is information unbeknownst to us mere mortals right now, but is something worth keeping an eye as more news becomes available closer to launch day.

From what we saw, Avatar is certainly an impressive looking project. The gameplay, while a lot of fun, didn't seem as in-depth or sophisticated as we've seen from other games in the past but, then again, we did only play one short segment of the game. Just how it manages to keep things fresh and engaging (after the initial visual feast wears off) throughout its entirety will be the key to providing a polished experience. But what the hey, it's got James Cameron's name on the box! Terminator! Aliens! It has to be good, right...?

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