James Cameron's Avatar: The Game

After seeing James Cameron's Avatar at the cinema, I was enthralled by the huge and diverse world of Pandora. Naturally I bought this game to experience the world of Avatar once more. The previous reviewer stated that the graphics were nothing special... try turning the settings up a few notches; the game is built on Ubisoft's Dunia engine and so contrary to previous comments,it is actually a gorgeous game - there is one scene in particular that stands out when you venture into the 'Willowglade': just like in the film the trees and vegetation gain this ethereal glow, your footsteps are traced by a soft green glow and there are hundreds of particles on screen, your Avatar even sparkles in the dense light, so the game's visuals are a treat. Also in this respect, the vehicles and creatures are diverse and detailed, often accompanied by a pandora-pedia entry that explains the world in greater detail - great for fans of the film.

Aside from the graphics, the gameplay is generally pretty good, perhaps a little clunky - especially at points in the game when you have to fight large groups of enemies and have to respawn, after a short loading screen, pressing enter and then going back to the checkpoint - it would have been nice for a quicker respawn like in the Halo games, bringing you back into the action quicker. The controls are easy to master, especially for regular PC gamers and can be remapped anyway. The game plays a little like an RPG/3rd person shooter; you have a levelling up system (albeit a limited one) and additional weapons and armour that a especially rewarding should you play as the Na'vi. However, again this could have been better - it would have been nice to have more powers to chose from, more weapons and more armour too. Overall it keeps the game interesting.

The storyline is perhaps where the game falls down a little bit - it pretty much mirrors the film narrative but changes the characters, becoming a little bit annoying at times, leaving you wondering why you couldn't just play as Jake Sully. Another thing that fails to impress is the way most of the Na'vi's sacred ways as depicted in the film are absent; like the connection between Na'vi and their creatures - in the game you simply jump on whatever beast is closest and ride on, which seems a little careless of the developers, seeing as they worked so close with the film production; which begs another question - why not use the original soundtrack? James Horner's compositions would have sealed the 'authenticity' of the game, adding a cinematic touch the game suggests. Finally, the ending is quite anti-climatic, ironically failing to mirror the films epic finish, it seems Ubisoft just decided to cut the production short...

Overall this adds up to a pretty enjoyable game, while flawed in many ways, it is much better than some reviews have suggested and certainly kept me entertained for several hours - I would definitely recommend this to those who are craving more from the world of Avatar.

Despite reading some absolutely shocking reviews from the gaming press I thought I would try this game when I discovered it uses the Dunia engine. This is the engine which powers Far Cry 2 the open world shooter set in African jungles, savannas and deserts. I thought that game looked superb and ran very smoothly on my system which is still fairly high end (Core i7 920 DO, GeForce 2GB GTX285, 6GB DDR3 RAM). This game does not disappoint graphically although it looks quite different from Far Cry 2. I played it using the DX9 API with all settings maxed apart from antialiasing which I set to 4x rather than the 8x allowed in the graphics options. When you get away from the human encampments into the jungles you probably do not even need this as there were not many jaggies in the jungle. I got an average framerate in the mid fifties at 1920x1200 with vsync enabled and a minimum around thirty and the game ran remarkably smoothly with no trace of stutter or hitching. This is obviously a quality game engine and there is no feeling of the framerate struggling at all even in heavy combat scenes. I did not use DX10 although that is an option with this engine because I cannot really tell the difference graphically and it knocks roughly ten fps off the framerates. All I can see is the images are slightly darker which I can get by turning down the gamma or brightness without a framerate hit. This is not a criticism of this game engine by the way just of the DX10 API in general.

The game uses very high resolution textures throughout and probably still gets such high framerates due to the skilful use of background fog to cut down the draw distances. This also reduces pop-in which I found less prevalent and annoying than in Far Cry 2 but did not ruin the feeling this was a large world we were exploring. The graphics options are extensive and most can be set at low, medium, high or ultra high so should still run well on older systems. The best thing about the presentation of the graphics is the colours. Far Cry 2 used fairly muted colour tones for artistic effect but this game uses the most vibrant colour palette I have ever seen in a game. From memory Prey, the science fiction shooter, and the original Mass Effect were very colourful but they cannot compete with this. My monitor is a HP 2475w which has a H-IPS panel well known for good colour and it is games like this that make me remember why I paid £400 for it. The colour scheme is practically psychedelic but anyone who has seen a tropical rain forest will know this is fairly realistic. The strangest effects occur at night because all the local plants and animals are bioluminescent so glow in the dark.

The story is set before the events of the film apparently (I have not seen the film) and is not well explained - for example nowhere does it explain why humans use avatars of the native race, the Na'vi. However even I know from newspaper reports about the film there is a war going on between the natives who want to preserve the planet and the humans who want to mine it for resources. Humans use avatars because they are more suited to conditions on the planet. Anyway, all this and much more information can be found in the game encyclopedia. After a few quests you have to choose whether to side with the humans or the Na'vi. If you side with the humans you have access to conventional weapons and vehicles. If you side with the Na'vi you effectively play as a Na'vi by using an avatar and use their traditional low tech weaponry and native horses and dragon-like flying creatures called Banshees instead of vehicles. I played both but found playing as the Na'vi more interesting and you do not get attacked constantly by the local beasts and plants which can get repetitive.

The game is close to a RPG in the mould of Mass Effect as your weapons and special abilities are upgradeable by spending experience points. The special abilities are similar no matter who you play and include bursts of increased speed and periods of invisibility very reminiscent of the functions of the Nanosuit in Crysis. I found the controls for vehicles hard to get used to particularly the Banshee which was a pity. I recently played Dark Void where you can use a jetpack to fly around simply using the mouse and the walk button (before you try any fancy aerial moves). Here you needed W, A and D to steer as with most vehicles but then space and shift to control vertical movement which became very cumbersome. The game has a lot of verticality if that is the correct word - you are often trying to navigate to a place, using your radar, which is either above or below you vertically. However the radar does not show whether the target is on the same level as yourself or above or below which could make navigating confusing.

The artificial intelligence of the enemies could be poor at times. It was quite funny sometimes when an enemy was shooting at you from a distant ledge then saved you the trouble of shooting back by simply falling off the ledge and plunging to their death. The game uses the third person view but is not centred - your character is well to the left of the screen. This means that when firing sometimes you hit an obstruction in front of you despite it not appearing in the aiming reticle. If a more centred over-the-shoulder view were used this would not happen. In addition the game lacks the normal zoom for ranged weapons which is unusual - the conventional right mouse button for zooming is assigned for a quick 180 degree spin which might be useful if you are using an Xbox controller but not if you have a quick mouse. I found the Na'vi bow was useless as it was horribly inaccurate until I used the aim assist which is a feature of many console games then it was fine.

The game is not a true sandbox open world game in the mould of Far Cry 2 or Oblivion as the missions follow a set order and the game maps used are not that large. However the route you take to your objectives is up to you and there are always alternative tactics you can try. In addition there are a few optional missions that can be attempted at any time. I personally enjoyed wandering around the game world looking at the unusual scenery in the gameworld of Pandora. One area where the game seems rather amateurish is the voice acting. Everyone sounds like they are reading scripts and the Na'vi characters have a range of rather strange accents, some of them sounding decidedly West African. In addition the character you play sounds like a young college boy/girl rather than a soldier and is not convincing at all. In addition the Na'vi storyline had a rather limp ending without a proper boss fight.

Overall I found the game quite entertaining despite these occasional niggles which you get used to fairly quickly. It is a good mix of traditional shooter and RPG and is effectively two games in one as you can play as a human or a Na'vi. However the feature that sets it aside from most modern games is the engine. In my opinion the Dunia engine is better than the Crytek engine used in Crysis and Crysis Warhead. It can look as good but is much easier to run than that engine. I personally am sick of lazy console ports using the ubiquitous Unreal 3 Engine which often do not even seem to improve the texture resolution for the PC so end up looking horrible. This game shows you why the PC is so superior to the console for gaming and I cannot understand why it has been so badly received other than the fact no-one is prepared to give movie tie-ins a chance. If you want a great visual experience and are prepared to overlook a couple of gameplay faults this should prove an enjoyable game for you.

Hope this helps

i play loads of games and for me like the film this is one of the best i have played the graphics are top notch and i was suprised that even though i dont have the best graphic card i managed to play on max settings on a 23 inch monitor as smooth as can be ,also the game is not overhard which i hate so many games are to tough and end up in the local charity shop or ebay as you just give up