If you have a 3D TV, then Avatar looks pretty sweet. I managed to playtest it this way at 'Eurogamer Expo', and whilst you can tell it’s just several layers pasted on top of each other, it’s still pretty neat. However, only a few thousand sets were sold that were capable of such a display last year, so 99.9% of players will experience the game in 2D. And it looks, well, a bit flat.

 

 

The game uses the FarCry 2 engine, but doesn’t look anywhere near as good- presumably because of the effort needed for the 3D no-one will ever see. Animations can be pretty poor, and the control system is jerky and laggy, presumably as a result of the frame-rate, which normally lurches about the 20-25 mark. Buildings also look pretty rough, although they are rare, whilst the flaura and fauna of the pandoran jungle is good enough. It’s a wierd mix of good and bad, as explosions are also laughably bad.

 

Sound is ok, but nothing special. There is some music, but most of it I didn’t recognise as being from the film. The bits that do, sound great, but the rest of it is typically low-budget, forgettable rubbish. The same goes for the voice acting- most of the more professional stuff sounds fine, but the rest itsn’t up to scratch. The sound effects are also fine, but nothing special. The game is also annoying quiet as a whole- and I really had to turn everything up to hear what was going on- which might worry those of you without a surround system, because it can sound quite tinny on TV speakers turned up high.

 

 

 

There’s a multiplayer mode for up to 16 players here. Which is unusual for a game like this. Unfortunately, it’s not great. Whilst a decent enough number of people appear to be playing online, i found the experience to be a) pretty laggy, and b) not all that much fun to be honest. The game is always humans vs Na’vi, and not having a gun can be pretty frustrating, although you are obviously very powerful in melee. Either way, once the novelty wears off, you’ll soon realise that the uninspired mps and vanilla modes such as TDM and CTF have been done much better recently (Modern Warfare 2, cough cough).

 

 

"James Cameron's Avatar" is a pretty odd game. It offers way more content and ideas than the majority of licensed games out there, but then does its best to screw up the execution at every single turn. Shoddy controls, loading times, generic multiplayer (and gameplay in general) and a boring mission structure just can’t be forgiven.

 

The game does look nice enough at times, and has a mildly diverting story, but the only reason why I could think that this game would be worth buying is if you are one of the lucky ones with a 3D capable TV. Then it makes an awesome tech demo. For 2D players, there are far better shooters out there.

 

 

 

 

+ 2 campaigns
+ Beautiful world
+ 3D!