Customer Reviews

Avatar

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

After coming off of a month of Modern Warfare 2 and Dragon age, I decided, against my better judgement, to give Avatar a try. Gamers know the quality of most movie based games, but I played this one because Im really looking foward to James Camerons return to cinema with the movie Avatar. This game has been pretty hyped as a revolution in movie based games, and while it isnt exactly that, it was far better than I expected. First, the good:

-It plays and controls fairly well
-The graphics are outstanding. Its obvious that the main character is actually Pandora itself.
-Its of a pretty decent length
-lots of weapons and armor
-The AMP suit is pretty cool
-A branching story give you an excuse to play through twice
-The 'pandora-pedia' is awesome if you have an interest in the background of Avatar
-If your a fan of Mass effect, you'll find a familiar voice.
The bad:
-It can get a bit repetitive
-everybody knows: guns and mechs vs. spears and bows= guns and mechs win pretty much everytime
-Its supposed to be a prequel, but I get the feeling that its pretty much the same story as the movie is going to be
-the buggy has some major control issues compared to the rest of the vehicles
- the pc version comes with some pretty nasty drm. I didnt realize that until after I bought it. GET THE CONSOLE VERSION.
-multiplayer isnt dragging anyone away from Modern Warfare.

I usually avoid reviewing movie games, but I did because I like the fact that it seems Ubisoft actually cared about what they were making, rather that just throw something together and call it a game. Its not a fantastic, jaw dropping game by any means, and theres a lot better this holiday season. For a movie game, its really good. Its most certainly worth a rental and possibly a buy if your really looking foward to the movie.

Note: I didnt get the chance to play it that way, but its my understanding that the 3d tech this game can do makes it look even better.

Despite my unhappiness with the TAGES DRM, I went ahead and bought this game for the sole reason that it's one of the first games made to specifically work with nVidia's 3D Vision (and other stereoscopic 3D options). I'm glad I did because the game looks amazing in 3D. The gameplay itself is average at best but better than most movie tie-in games. The multi-player is DOA. So I recommend this game if you have a way to play it in true stereoscopic 3D (not anaglyph), otherwise I would pass or wait for a price drop.

For $20.00, Avatar is a fun game. The graphics are good. I play with mouse/keyboard and the controls are smooth. If you're a fan of the film you will enjoy lots of Pandora/Polyphemus/Alpha Centari info. Registration is required upon install so don't buy a used copy. The disc does not need to be in the drive to play. The Tages DRM is noted on the back of the box. It doesn't say how many installs you get (other reviewers say 3).
The game starts out with you as an RDA (human) soldier, Runnning errands through the jungle, fighting viperwolves with a variety of weapons. You also get to use buggies and boats. After a while you switch to a Navi character who moves through the landscape with greater ease than the human. After playing the early stages of the game I highly recommend it.

I enjoyed this game a lot.

It has built in stereoscopic 3d support. I didn't know that from the start, I tried using iz3d and it crashed, when I disabled iz3d I discovered in the menus that it had built in support for stereo 3d. I couldn't believe it! I've never seen a game with built in support for it, and not only that but it supports my DLP 3D Ready TV!

The graphics in stereo 3d are amazing. I beat the game in stereo3d and I tried to play with out it and at first I felt like I was playing with one eye and when I got used to it the graphics didn't look as good, it's hard to make things out in the jungle. Stereo3D really makes the game look better and some what easier as you can see things better. The only strange thing is that the characters and vehicles look like toys instead of looking life size.

The story takes place before the Avatar movie (in the RDA campaign you even run into some of the movie characters), but the story feels kind of out of place, it almost feels like a looser version of the movie. There are 2 main paths you can take in the story, the Navi path and the RDA path. The Navi path seems easier to me then the RDA one, simply because you can easily kills things with melee attacks. Either way I'd recommend playing both.

It has a mini strategy game called conquest that is unlocked when you choose your path. The mini game is simple but not bad. It gives you xp and extra health and damage bonuses in the simple player game, though I don't think I felt a real impact on it.

The game mechanics at times felt incomplete. Like there is more they could have done. For example I wish I could do more from mounts, like having an attack from dire horses and banshees, amp suits with a melee attack, control the aim of the guns on the gunship, being able to look down from the gunship when landing, etc.

The enemy conversations also seemed broken and can confuse you. Sometimes you will hear 2 enemies talking to each other but there is only ever really 1 of them, so you kill the one and search around to find no one else.

But the only thing that really got me was a jump bug, it seems if you are running down a sloped surface that your avatar will lose contact with the ground and if you press jump at that time your avatar will ignore that command and simple fall to his death.

In the end it was still a great gaming experience, even more so if you are an Avatar fan and can play in stereoscopic 3d!

I hope Ubisoft starts putting stereoscopic 3d support in all their games.

Oh my goodness, this game uses Tages DRM (Digital Rights Management) and requires online activation with a limit of 3 total activations. Apparently Ubisoft thinks online activation won't bother anyone if SecuROM (another controversial DRM scheme) isn't involved.

Too bad though, I saw the movie and loved it and almost made an impulse buy of this game before I found out of the online activation requirement.

not even going to play this one due to the DRM part of it
so it will be never be use at all and seal-up as it came to me.

if it didn't come with the DRM i would use it, but do to that i place it with the DVD movie for a collector item complete set then DVD movie.

love the movie! but i keep my DVD writer in safe from all DRM & root kits!

i don't trust any DRM anti-pirate software at all. like the Sony root kit the DRM can go bad too. beside if my computer goes bad and need to re-install windows i basic screw on the game being install only 3x that's suck.

i order it before i read about it having a DRM to it, i not mad i keep it as a collector item, buying it at a cheap price i am happy as hell

I would probably rate this game higher if it was not for the fact that they charge for customer support and will not refund your money even when they don't solve your problem. Overall the quality is similar to TV cartoon animation and not the same level of detail you have seen in the movie. If they could have done that, then this game would have been much better.

If you compare this game for example to BC2, there is no comparison, Bad Company 2 has video quality background making it seem like you are actually there for example in the jungle, a real jungle not a cartoon animation of the jungle. I don't know why they can't do something similar with other games that are currently coming out.

After seeing the movie, I had to try the game, just to get some more Avatar story into me. I pretty much agree with everyone on terms of the pros and cons. Though, as I played this game, I could tell that the people making this game really wanted to make it, a good game, but fell short due to deadlines. In a weird sort of way the game reminds me of KOTOR II where there just empty plot holes that could of been explored more either with cutscenes or gameplay. Everything is also straight to the point with no real side stories.Then again this isn't Bioware who made this game. The ending is disappointing and kinda leaves you hanging wondering what happens to your amazing character and wondering "hey, but how does this play into the movie?". Though, since I had fun with this game and can tell that the makers poured what they had into it. I'm giving it a 5 just to bump up the rating, though I'd really given it a 3 or 4 because the story is what games and this one had a not so original one, that wasn't finished.

BTW if you don't like DRM's buy the console version, if you don't have one buy an Xbox they are what 200 bucks now?

ONce again a movie based game lets us all down.....

clearly this was made for the consoles, and ported for the PC......controls are horrible, aiming is non existant (ironsights would have rocked), as was said, AI is abysmal....just overall a waste of a game.....

not to mention the PC version is the most expensive copy....must be cause of the DRM...lol....

save your money and dont buy this....the movie was AWESOME, and here i thought the same enthusiasm would have been put into this game....couldn't have been more wrong.

This game is a standard run around shooter with limits on where you can go.The graphics are very nice which is the only thing this game has going for it.After playing you tend to get bored and don't even care how the game turns out.Bad voice over characters and even though you can play the game from both sides still does not make up for how bad the gameplay is.All to bad this game had to be released like this and not even play balanced.When fighting some big boses in the game you can get your player in a spot where you cannot be reached by the enemy you are fighting and just keep shooting until you destroy the boss you are trying to kill.Very bad AI the enemies are all over the place moving towards you and away.Since the world is so huge they run all over the place and you can shoot at them at a distance like a shooting gallery.Another bad mark against this game is DRM.You buy the game on the PC you get 3 activations.So instead of owning the game you are renting the game.As nice as this game looks and with all the improvments in video hardware this would be a very nice game like Crysis to be able to benchmark your video card or new computer that you may want to build or upgrade.I just don't understand when publishers are going to wake up and quite using DRM is bad for business becuase any game that has it I will not purchase it.