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Yet Another Avatar review...
16 years ago
Ok, ok... My ass has tattooed the bandwagon on this one...
I've seen both the movie (in 3d) and the game (PS3 edition). I'll do my best to go over both titles with as limited amount of spoilers as I can.
I have a few things to say about both.
First and foremost: Both titles benefit from extensive world-building effort from the entire creative team on the project. I have not seen such a background effort on something that doesn't get any REAL screen-time in a project... Well, since my young days when it was considered the way to write a SciFi epic was to start by creating the world in nauseating detail first.
The Game:
The control scheme is fluid and simplistic (a good thing) and yet allows for decent two-stick control of both your Character and POV. This is hardly ground breaking. Fans of Nintendo's Metroid shooters will recognize the "scan and study" aspect of gameplay. The level of scan-able items is rather amazing. The interface to access this information is also rather impressive in that it is as smooth as you'd expect for a console while as effective the way web-browsing should be. The interface does suffer a little from constraining things to the format but the simple model doesn't loose much for it. The transistion and multiple pane scrolling (pan then scroll then pan to another page, etc al) makes it easy to scan for the important stuff and then later review for the fluff text.
The "Pandoapedia" as its called starts with several really impressive bits of puesdo-plasible-science that I found missing in the movie. Like "whats with those floating rocks..." "Reduced gravity..." "Increased air viscosity..." etc al.
The combat model is a good compromise between arcade style action and realistic FPS. Others might not like the blend of styles like this but I do. Its a game that can be put down mid-mission and picked back up later without difficulty. Also, the fact that pausing for a few moments when not under fire allows for your health to completely regenerate. I know this will be seen as a downside by some but for me there is nothing more annoying that having having to range back to the start of the level for health and not find it.
It seems to work similar to the weapon selection combo setup that has been used by various other games in the past. The Star Wars Starfighter series comes to mind, as does The Bard's Tale... Its not new, but it works rather well.
The game's story does not intersect with the characters from the movie. I'd add locations to that if I could remember for certain all of the location names from the movie.
It took me only three days to work my way through one of the two storylines and I must admit that I have not tried the multiplayer options. The thing that made it really fun was the fact that the system supported (and thankfully so did my monitor) 3D output and the glasses from the movie (which I kept rather than recycling) allowed me to see it! I turned it off after awhile but I must say the effects were a lot better than I expected.
Now, for the movie:
The story isn't amazing. I won't go on about it. But the whole literatary industry makes obcense amounts of money retelling stories all the time. But, as a writer I can admire and am in complete awe of the massive envirornment crafted for the story. Parts of it are fantastical and parts are plausible. Its the best current example of what the SciFi greats did when they were working for soup-money. Craft a place to tell a familar story with things that might could exsist.
The visuals are well planned and exacuted to give the grand cimena show that we have come to expect, but it also keeps from doing too much of the 'throw shit at the audiance' that many of the 3D movies I've seen do.
The tech captures the same magic that the movie Aliens did for me. Considering the two movies were done by Cameron its hardly surprizing there. The story that I kept seeing wasn't "Dances with Wolves... inn spaaAAACCCCEEEEE!" but more along the lines of "Thunderheart" and that movie touches me in potent and powerful ways.
There was a lot of hype about it changing the way we look at movies... I doubt it. Its a good movie and deserves the accolades and profits it gets. Bottom line, you can SEE the strength of the homework that went into it. Its a story well told. And that is, what we look for when we wish to be entertained.
James Cameron managed to bring it all together well. From the music (James Horner of Alien series fame) to even getting Sigourney Weaver to play a supporting role... It comes off very well told even if the story itself isn't as exciting as some had hoped.
Oh, and BTW just in case it needs saying... Sigourney Weaver + tail = <3
I've seen both the movie (in 3d) and the game (PS3 edition). I'll do my best to go over both titles with as limited amount of spoilers as I can.
I have a few things to say about both.
First and foremost: Both titles benefit from extensive world-building effort from the entire creative team on the project. I have not seen such a background effort on something that doesn't get any REAL screen-time in a project... Well, since my young days when it was considered the way to write a SciFi epic was to start by creating the world in nauseating detail first.
The Game:
The control scheme is fluid and simplistic (a good thing) and yet allows for decent two-stick control of both your Character and POV. This is hardly ground breaking. Fans of Nintendo's Metroid shooters will recognize the "scan and study" aspect of gameplay. The level of scan-able items is rather amazing. The interface to access this information is also rather impressive in that it is as smooth as you'd expect for a console while as effective the way web-browsing should be. The interface does suffer a little from constraining things to the format but the simple model doesn't loose much for it. The transistion and multiple pane scrolling (pan then scroll then pan to another page, etc al) makes it easy to scan for the important stuff and then later review for the fluff text.
The "Pandoapedia" as its called starts with several really impressive bits of puesdo-plasible-science that I found missing in the movie. Like "whats with those floating rocks..." "Reduced gravity..." "Increased air viscosity..." etc al.
The combat model is a good compromise between arcade style action and realistic FPS. Others might not like the blend of styles like this but I do. Its a game that can be put down mid-mission and picked back up later without difficulty. Also, the fact that pausing for a few moments when not under fire allows for your health to completely regenerate. I know this will be seen as a downside by some but for me there is nothing more annoying that having having to range back to the start of the level for health and not find it.
It seems to work similar to the weapon selection combo setup that has been used by various other games in the past. The Star Wars Starfighter series comes to mind, as does The Bard's Tale... Its not new, but it works rather well.
The game's story does not intersect with the characters from the movie. I'd add locations to that if I could remember for certain all of the location names from the movie.
It took me only three days to work my way through one of the two storylines and I must admit that I have not tried the multiplayer options. The thing that made it really fun was the fact that the system supported (and thankfully so did my monitor) 3D output and the glasses from the movie (which I kept rather than recycling) allowed me to see it! I turned it off after awhile but I must say the effects were a lot better than I expected.
Now, for the movie:
The story isn't amazing. I won't go on about it. But the whole literatary industry makes obcense amounts of money retelling stories all the time. But, as a writer I can admire and am in complete awe of the massive envirornment crafted for the story. Parts of it are fantastical and parts are plausible. Its the best current example of what the SciFi greats did when they were working for soup-money. Craft a place to tell a familar story with things that might could exsist.
The visuals are well planned and exacuted to give the grand cimena show that we have come to expect, but it also keeps from doing too much of the 'throw shit at the audiance' that many of the 3D movies I've seen do.
The tech captures the same magic that the movie Aliens did for me. Considering the two movies were done by Cameron its hardly surprizing there. The story that I kept seeing wasn't "Dances with Wolves... inn spaaAAACCCCEEEEE!" but more along the lines of "Thunderheart" and that movie touches me in potent and powerful ways.
There was a lot of hype about it changing the way we look at movies... I doubt it. Its a good movie and deserves the accolades and profits it gets. Bottom line, you can SEE the strength of the homework that went into it. Its a story well told. And that is, what we look for when we wish to be entertained.
James Cameron managed to bring it all together well. From the music (James Horner of Alien series fame) to even getting Sigourney Weaver to play a supporting role... It comes off very well told even if the story itself isn't as exciting as some had hoped.
Oh, and BTW just in case it needs saying... Sigourney Weaver + tail = <3
Eclypse
~eclypse
This kind of storytelling is becoming a lost art. I am so glad someone is trying to revive it and bring it back.
