6 / 10
13 Jul 2006 at 23:30
Review by: Graeme Lunn
The nearest comparison I could give you for King Kong would be similar to watching the latest summer blockbuster, i.e. Superman/Jurassic Park/Independence Day etc. You pay your money realising that you have chosen to watch some unplausible & completely unrealistic film which you have decided you are going to enjoy anyway.
Approach King Kong in the same way, and I do not believe you will be disappointed. Let me get this straight - I HATED THE FILM. I purchased the title as, to be honest, I already had all of the other titles out at the time bar THAW, and seemed to be lacking any sort of enjoyable platformer type action.
If you expect this to be some kind of deep experience akin to COD2 you are going to be heavily, heavily disappointed. As a check-your-brain-at-the-door title, this one would rank right up there.
So, the good points from King Kong? Well, firstly, the game characters are fantastically like those in the film (although Jack Black would be happiest - he seems to have lost some podge), and the game environment is amazingly recreated from the murky swampy marshes to the chlostrophobic ruins and caves which are around. This lets you know that your eyes are in for a visual treat. OK, it doesn't push the xbox 360 as far as it could, but again, accept this for what it is. It's a movie tie-in. If you are a gamer who's been buying these rushed often incomplete titles then you will appreciate that these are generally poor titles. This, however, in my opinion is one of the best movie tie-ins i have played. The xbox 360 lends itself to creating the lightning effects and makes other effects such as the flaming bushes look so great you almost feel like they could jump from your HDTV and burn you.
The perspective used in the title was a surprise as i expected this to be more lara croft than COD but this helps the atmosphere as when some of the crawlies attack, they fly right out at you. Also there's no HUD, indeed when you take excessive damage the screen gets increasingly red before greying out as you perish (wonder where they borrowed that from, eh, COD2 fans?). The best things you will come up against in this title are the dinosaurs - especially the V-Rex. I am surprised that the "stampede" episode (not a blatant Jurassic Park rip-off at all) wasn't used to show off the 360 whilst in it's early days as i think that the feeling of having to rush and weave between the onrushing dinos, especially when coupled with a deepend bass low frequency effect from a good home theatre kit, is a great point of the game which could actually gives you a great sense of achievement of coming out of the other side alive. That brings me into a negative (or positive in some viewpoints) and that is that the achievements in this title to earn a whopping 1000 Gamerpoints are earned for, well, just completing the game from start to finish. No having to collect hidden artifacts or any of that malarky, just finish it. This actually got this game a lot of flak from a lot of magazines and xbox live afficionados but really - is not enjoying finishing a game not the ultimate achievement??
The inspired choice of playing as man or kong, isn't really a choice at all, but just as your interest begins to wane at throwing sharp bones through centipedes, a rip roaring bat killing, t-rex smashing escapade as Kong awaits, all whilst keeping the girl safe !!
The reason i didn't give this a high enough mark was that any experienced games could easily finish this in 8 hours flat - i'd expect more from my money.
For Kong fans, you'll absolutely love this, for the rest of us, i reiterate my opening point - don't think about it, just try to enjoy it and appreciate one of the best movie tie-ins around. Especially if you can pick it up for less than £20.
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