Thoughts About Avatar (The Xbox 360 Game)

A funny thing happened about half way through my playtime with Avatar – I switched teams. I enjoyed Avatar the movie, though I didn’t swoon over it like most other movie goers did. The content of the movie is not unique, it’s really just Dances with Wolves with blue people — but the presentation of the content was exquisite.

Though Avatar did eventually end up annoying me. It just tries too hard to be preach. Almost instantly you’re made to feel pity upon the giant blue tree huggers from the overly evil, corporate run, invading human force. By the time the movie was over, I was feeling a little sick from the text book, leftest, propaganda machine. So, when Avatar the game gives you the choice of choosing which side you can play for — either the blue tree huggers or the evil humans — I jumped at the change to play as the invading human force. And that was fun.

Being the evading force on a planet where even the flora present danger, the only course of action you’re left with is to pretty much shoot everything. Luckily, the game boasts an impressive arsenal to do just that. From machine guns to grenade launchers, flame throwers to mech suits, helicopters to atvs, there is no munitions shortage in you’re pursuit of the planetary conquest. Along side a variety of mission objectives, this weapon selection keeps the game fresh through it’s 6 levels.

I did end up playing through the game twice, once as a human, then again as a Na’vi (blue person), and the play-through as the Na’vi was certainly the weakest part of the game. I could go into detail to try and describe just how different the two play-throughs were, but I could sum it up nicely as: there’s any so many times you can shoot at something with a bow and arrow before you get bored to tears. The exception to the Na’vi play-through would be the levels were you can fly through the skies on a banshee. That was fun.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Avatar. For a movie licensed game, which are notorious for being bad, it had an unusually high quality standard. My final score is a strong 6.5/10

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