The Good
- Branching story provides replay value
- Some nice-looking environments
- Melee kills are fun
- Conquest mode is a neat idea.
The Bad
- Conquest mode is ultimately all but useless
- The story and characters stink
- The action gets tedious
- Absolutely awful vehicles.
Bigger doesn’t mean better. Developer Ubisoft Montreal disregarded this mantra when creating James Cameron’s Avatar, delivering a mediocre game loaded with unnecessary padding, rather than a tight and enjoyable package that could have gotten players excited about the upcoming film of the same name. In fact, if you’re eagerly anticipating the upcoming Avatar movie, it’s probably best that you avoid this bland and overlong third-person shooter altogether, because there’s nothing fantastical or compelling about its story or characters. That isn’t to say that Avatar is all bad. A branching story featuring two disparate factions makes this a two-games-in-one experience, so if you like wringing the last drop out of your $60, the single-player campaign might keep you busy for 15 hours or so. Unfortunately, while a few of those hours are entertaining, Avatar’s action is too bland and tedious to justify the game’s length, and a variety of bugs and bizarre design elements put a further damper on the fun.
Avatar takes place on the planet Pandora, which the human-controlled Resources Development Administration (RDA) is stripping of its resources–much to the dismay of Pandora’s indigenous population, the blue-skinned Na’vi. Meanwhile, the RDA has established a way of transferring a human’s consciousness into an artificially created human/Na’vi hybrid called an avatar. You play as Ryder, an RDA operative who soon finds himself (or herself, if you choose a female persona) in over his head as he discovers the consequences of the RDA’s destructive presence on Pandora. About an hour into the campaign, you’ll be faced with a choice: side with the RDA, or live as an avatar and take your chances with the Na’vi. Yet no matter which path you meander down, you’ll meet a series of unmemorable characters, played by unexceptional voice actors who deliver their poorly written lines without a trace of enthusiasm or urgency.