Avatar The Game is one of the few times I took Gamespot's official review of the game for granted, so instead of going out and buying the game, I went and rented it from Blockbuster. As with most of the games I review, I want to focus on a single point which most may miss. The basis of my point is that, despite the Halo/Mass Effect-esque appearance of the game, any "Gamers" who buy the game will quickly become bored by the lack of substance involved in the game, however younger and more casual players will have a great time "playing with the Na'vi" or just blasting everything in sight. The most obvious feature which makes the game as such is a complete lack of penalisation if you die, having Ryder respawn at an earlier checkpoint with everything he did before he lost the life intact, this means that when faced by a whole team of enemies, as long as you can shoot at least one of them, the battle will become less and less as you repeatedly enter into the enemy camp. While this, in a few places, becomes an annoyance, it is not as severe as dying, losing all progress and having to kill the same enemies again and again. The enemies themselves also cater to younger gamers, with soldiers so mind-bogglingly stupid it is clear they are just in there to act as a distraction to the plot itself, having said that though some of the mid-fight banter can be entertaining, and somewhat intelligent with humans responding to each others' commands. The best thing about the game, by far, is the Metroid Prime-esque scanning goggles, with a simple press of the RB or R1 (guessing the controls are similar between versions) a visor comes up with a reticule, aim the reticule at a scannable object and the scanning process begins, after the scan is finished that object is added to your "Pandorapedia" and can be read about in some impressive detail. The only downside to the scanning is that there is no lock-on function, meaning when faced with an enemy you either have to get into position where the enemy can't see you or quickly scan the enemy after killing it. The Pandorapedia also gives the percentage of data collected, giving a level of somewhat fun replay value.
My verdict: Don't buy if you're over 13 years old, if you're an older gamer who just plain adores Pandora and the Na'vi, do what I did; RENT IT! (All the same, I wish I could be younger and experience Pandora like its some kind of massive magical world... same with Ocarina of Time and others...)
Other Helpful Reviews for James Cameron's Avatar: The Game
Yep, that's right. Maybe it's just me, but a commercial that features little else but some unexplained graphics, a plug about the director who did Terminator 2, and the assurance that it's going to blow my freaking mind ... Read Full Review
well this game suprised me, the jungle graffics were really good, run and shoot mechanics were decent. Nice amount of exploration. And lots of little tid bits to keep you busy, like scanning flora and fauna, finding all... Read Full Review
