OK, I'm not quite that bad with my gamerscore on XBox Live at the moment because I'm at a few thousand and I can live with that but since I'm going to be accused of getting an easy 1000points for the sake of it I thought I'd stand up for myself.
An easy 1000 points I say? That can only mean one thing, and it's not ranking first in the world at G.R.A.W. (probably the hardest achievement there is I believe). Yes, I played and completed the Monkey Game, or King Kong as it likes to be known. I thought I'd give you my thoughts on the game since it's re-released as one of the new ¨budget¨ 360 games.
King Kong is an interesting game to look at for two reasons. The first is that it uses the achievement system totally differently than everybody else and the other is that it's generally considered to be an awful game. I wanted to see if what was said was true so after a brief bit of covert ops work I secured a copy of the game and had a go.
First off: It has the most expensive intro of any game I've ever seen. Proper movie stars and those sets sure look expensive. Some nice CGI in there too. OK, the intro is ripped from the film and manages to condense the whole beginning of the film down up until the getting to the island part to a few minutes in a quite satisfactorily way. Sure you loose the character motivation but since it's a movie tie in you can be expected to remember all that personal talky-feely stuff that has no place in a game about killing. Or something.
The achievements are derided and it's considered to be the easiest 1000 points available on the 360. Yes, this is true as you get achievements (at 100 a pop) for completing certain levels and a whopping 200 for just getting killed and falling off the Empire State Building (if the ending was a spoiler then shame on you!). The strange thing is that there are unlockables in the game already. You get artwork and the like unlocked for different percentage completeness and point scores. At 250k points and 100% complete you even get an alternative ending where Kong gets to go home. I think they just missed the meeting where the use of achievements was decided with the other games.
So the achievements are easy. Does this make it a bad game? It's got a reputation as a terrible game, and is this fair? I don't think it is, but it's not a great game. The running around the jungle parts as Jack start off well but are all a bit similar to each other and the two different puzzles (use fire on undergrowth and find stick to use on door mechanism) are used over and over again. By the end you're desperate to get off the damn island and see what New York is like. It's a shame, but when you get there it's graphically disappointing. It's a very stingy game for guns and bullets so you never have quite as much ammo as you would like, but you can pick up Spears from conveniently located native spear racks or bones from bone piles that can be used as spears. Both spears and bones can be set on fire so that they do more damage or can be used for burning things.
I actually really liked the Jack bits to start off with, but as I say they got a tad repetitive. The game looks nice with very lovingly crafted areas to run through although some of the rocks have that strange shiney plastic look that Oblivion has but that can be ignored if you try really hard.
The best part of the graphics has to be the dinosours though, the V-Rex especially. The skin is great and the movement of the muscles as it moves show some real love an attention has gone into animating that part of the game. The Monkey also gets a rather nice treatment, although his fur is a little strange close up.
Ah yes, the Monkey. Every so often you get to play as the Monkey and the game turns into a cross between Tomb Raider and a beat-em-up. Lots of running and jumping across the scenery that works quite nicely and doesn't get too repetative with the limited number of levels you have to do it in. Then you get the Kong-on-Dinosaur action that isn't as bad as I thought it would be, in fact it's quite enjoyable considering I hate that sort of game normally.
What's Good:
- Nice graphics
- Monkey bits are fun
- Voice acting is good and uses the actual actors
- 1000 easy gamer points.
What's Bad:
- The game gets quite repetative and samey
- The game is far too short, even considering this.
- The New York section looks dull and uninspired and your goal is ¨Go to building. Climb building. Get shot by planes. Descend from top of the building as fast as gravity will allow.¨
- 1000 too easy gamer points.
So is it worth it? As a budget game I'd say yes, but not at full price. Will I play it again? Yes, I need to get some scores for levels that allow me to unlock the alternative ending and the game is really set up for being able to replay levels you like when you want to. It's just a shame the achievements aren't keyed to that instead.
posted @ Wednesday, October 25, 2006 4:02 PM