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With the size of the Electronic Articles team in its
current guise, it’s not uncommon for the discerning public
passers-by to be catching a glimpse of a tall shadowy figure howling
from the hallowed halls of Electronic Theatre. You may simply
excuse that statement if you know any of us, but for those who
haven’t had the pleasure of measuring out our medication – this
isn’t because we’re simply mad; well, not all of us. It’s more
to do with our drastically different tastes in games. There’ll
normally be at least one of us who’s been waiting for the latest
piece of code for quite some time. But Peter Jackson’s King
Kong was quite different. After a handful of videos, hundreds of
screenshots and countless Press Releases; there wasn’t a member of
the team that didn’t shriek with excitement upon the arrival of
our first Preview Code of the title.
As you can tell from the screenshots, the title looks
stunning. It has to be said that the bar is actually dropped when
seeing the title in motion – and there are many titles holding up
better than Peter Jackson’s King Kong that have already
been released – but the whole title reflects the hugely cinematic
presentation that Ubi Soft have been so desperate to convey whilst
trying to conceal the actual gameplay through their minimal releases
so far.
The two gameplay sections the writers at Electronic
Articles were treated to play were what appeared to be two early
sections; one from each story – Man and Kong. Firstly, playing as
Jack, we had to escape from a hungry T-Rex. Running through a small,
linear, densely wooded area we approach a bridge only to be told of
the impending doom – here’s comes the big green boy. Although
the final version is no doubt going to be a complete puzzle-based
First Person Adventure, the puzzle in the Preview Code was rather
limited. Having to stand and defend my colleagues by distracting the
dinosaur with my limited ammunition was challenging, but hardly
enterprisingly original.
The later section, playing as King Kong, was slightly more
inventive. Protecting a girl, the game pits you against a rampaging
T-Rex. Defeated by using basic punches, throws and drop-kicks from
over-head vines the section was fun if quickly tedious. In the first
room of the section, you fend off a single T-Rex, killing him by
knocking him to the floor, jumping on him and repeatedly pressing
the X Button. Fairly gruesome is the outcome, before moving after
your buxom blonde. The next room sees you fending off two of the
blighters, in a more open-plan arena, whilst trying to stop them
from reaching your girly.
The title features some interesting ideas; for the duration
of the Preview Code, there were no Energy Bars on display. Health is
determined simply by the amount of damage to your normal movement
when as a human, and by how much harder it gets to fend of the
T-Rex’s when playing as Kong. However, this doesn’t detract from
the fact that, for as much as we sampled, the game feels like a
miss-match of a variety of set-pieces; without any appreciation for
the seams between. Only time will tell if the cinematic presentation
will stand alongside the production that will no doubt be classified
as “Film of the Year”, but as the title stands in its current
form, it’s certainly not going to be hailed as “Game of the
Year”.
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