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Wednesday 07 Oct 2009
A new third-person action adventure title, Avatar, or to give it its full title, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game (based on the movie, James Cameron’s Avatar, but we’ll stick with Avatar) was playable at rAge 2009, and despite the fine tradition of extremely poor games based on movies, comic books and TV licenses, Avatar breaks the mould, going against this tradition and looking set to deliver an experience that will definitely surprise players with its quality.
Avatar’s story is very much the context for actions in the game, as well as the existence of the strange, wonderful and primitive world of Pandora, home of the tribal N’avi and intruded upon by the RDA Corporation, a militant, space-faring group seeking out new resources for their resource-less home planet.
The story is integral to the game, providing the reason for players to traverse the lush, rainforest-like environments, either as a gun-toting, mech suit-using, technology-driven RDA soldier, or the melee attacking, quick and nimble N’avi tribesman, telling two sides of a story where not everything is as it seems, as two factions fight each other for entirely different purposes, but both, in the end, for survival.
As an RDA soldier, you’ll have access to all manner of technology and weaponry, either flying in a futuristic plane/helicopter hybrid and shooting rockets to clear paths and to destroy flying enemies, or hoofing it on the ground in a powerful mech suit or your basic combat boots. On foot, you’ll have your standard assault rifle and access to things like cloaking devices, a quick healing ability, and the option to call in air-strikes, but in the mech suit, you’ll be a lot more resilient to enemy assaults, while using much more powerful chaingun attacks.
As a N’avi tribesman, you’ll be a lot faster than your RDA counterpart, and will be forced to fight up close against RDA enemies with a hefty, bladed staff, performing acrobatic moves to close in for the kill, jump to higher, more advantageous platforms, and make quick escapes in order to get out of the way of an incoming hail of bullets.
Avatar will give you the opportunity to play as either the RDA or N’avi throughout specific sections of the game to help players better understand the motivations of each faction, but at a certain point, you’ll have to choose who to play as for the remainder of the story to delve deeper into the specific histories of each group, and help them along the path to victory.
All combat, either melee or ranged, is surprisingly beefy, with powerful sounds and meaty animations providing that extra layer of combat feedback and satisfaction. The jungle-like environments can also be an enemy, with hostile plant life attacking you while highly creative and aggressive creatures attack you on sight if you intrude on their turf.
The world of Avatar, and the planet of Pandora, is amazingly well realised as a lush rainforest, filled with alien-like, bioluminescent flora (and the aforementioned fauna), which is demonstrated excellently during the night time portions of the game (which change from day to night in real-time), transforming an already vibrant paradise into an eerily beautiful wonderland.
Objectives to complete within Avatar are always clearly marked on the on-screen map, with a variety of mini-objectives showing up along the way, such as enabling waypoint markers and helping out a few allies in need. The preview code on hand showed progression paths to be a tad linear, as you move from waypoint to waypoint, but areas of conflict have enough space and movement options to make every individual battle a unique and intense experience, with enough enemy types to mix up the action, especially when you need to attack fast, slow, airborne and emplaced, turret-like enemies all at once.
Avatar is a sure bet for one of the surprises of the year, and is anything but your typical movie-license game, delivering a story based on the universe of the movie instead of based directly on events of the film itself, having been in development for almost three years with a high degree of collaboration with the movie studio, as well as James Cameron himself.
Avatar (or James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game) releases later this year on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC (as well as Wii, DS and PSP) in early to mid December, just in time for you to explore the universe with the release of the movie.
Be sure to listen to El33tonline’s interview with the Art/Animation Director working on Avatar, Brent George, to find out further details about the game, his background and thoughts on the convergence of games and movies.
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