I’ll be honest: I am one of those fans of the first James Cameron’s Avatar movie (as of this writing, I still haven’t seen the sequel yet), although I will admit it’s not a perfect film and I do agree that the story itself wasn’t that memorable. However, that really didn’t bother me as the film was just downright gorgeous to look at and I think the tech behind the film is amazing. But, I haven’t seen or even thought about the series since I last watched the first movie, way back in 12th grade, so when I first heard that Ubisoft was making an Avatar video game, it was one that I just went “Cool” and really didn’t think much of it. Even when it was officially revealed as ‘Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora’, I still was just “Cool” and, again, didn’t think much of it, especially when it was released last year. But, after finally being able to play the game, I have to admit something. This game? Kinda flew under my radar as it’s not a bad game! It’s not perfect or anything and I do have some issues with it but, overall, it’s a surprisingly fun game!
Firstly, this game is beautiful. Being able to explore a fully realized world of Pandora after seeing it in both films is nothing short of amazing. However, the same can’t be said for the plant life and this is something I had an issue with in the movies as well. While some do actually look alien, the rest really just feel like normal stuff you’d find on Earth with nothing to really distinguish them from anything, except maybe a few alien thingies here and there. The fauna, thankfully, do look different enough that they look alien, though there is one creature I saw that, I’ll be honest, I felt was probably the laziest one. The creature in question is a Fan Lizard and, when you see this thing, you’ll see why I thought it was the laziest looking one. That aside, the world itself is still fun to explore and I even had a few times where I actually got a bit scared of how high I was in the game. This was most notable when you visit the floating mountains, which still puzzles me how exactly these things float in both the movies and game. This does lead to one slight issue I had early on and that is that the platforming was spotty at times. Sometimes it worked and I was able to scale many places while, other times, it felt like my character just didn’t want to grab the ledge I was trying to reach, though that was only in a few places, thankfully.
I feel the gameplay is where I’m the most mixed on with Avatar. To start out, there’s a leveling system with five skill trees you can master and I can see many being put off by this. Personally? I’m OK with it but I think it should’ve gone in a different direction. Maybe, instead of leveling up, earning a skill point, and placing said point in a tree, why level up said skill tree by just doing the action and gaining XP that way? Like, you can unlock more abilities the more you use a bow or be able to catch fish faster the more you fish. Again, I’m fine with the unlock system here, I just would’ve liked something to really change up the status quo, you know?
With that out of the way, I love how customizable the combat experience is, with the most notable being damage inflicted and received. I think this is the first time in any game of this caliber I’ve seen such options and I dig it! Speaking of damage, the weapon roster is very limited to only seven weapons, three of them being bows. Now, hear me out, I don’t mind when a game has a limited selection of weapons to use. There are many examples of games with a small but fun weapon sandbox that I enjoyed, Hard Reset being one that comes to mind. However, in this game, I would’ve personally liked just a few more weapons to use, outside of what’s on offer, like perhaps a crossbow, seeing as the previous Avatar game had one. There are also only two firearms you can acquire in the game, an assault rifle and a shotgun, though telling them apart was kinda hard as, on the surface, they really do look too similar to each other. Now I get why you’re limited to these two as, lore wise, they are the only guns the Na’Vi can hold with no problems. However, in the first movie, Jake, as a Na’vi, is seen carrying and firing the AVR-30 (or the M60). You can make the argument that the reason was because he had military training and five fingers, but when you can pick up a RPG to use in the game, I have to wonder why we couldn’t use a heavy machine gun. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like the available weapons on offer. On the contrary, I did enjoy using the bows and figuring out which one to use for which playstyle I was wanting to go with and which one would be best to use for hunting the various fauna for cooking. There is one weapon I didn’t use much and that was the Staff Sling. On paper, it’s designed to allow you to lay traps on unsuspecting RDA troops and raise havoc. Good idea, but I ended up not using it as it surprisingly didn’t really suit my playstyle, which was to snipe as many as I can with the bow and, if all hell breaks loose, go in guns and arrows blazing.
There’s also a crafting and cooking mechanic in the game and, thankfully, it’s very easy to learn and master, for the most part. I’d say the only troublesome part of the mechanic is the gathering of materials, specifically when you have to rotate the stick and gently pull on the trigger to harvest food and that can be a bit of a challenge. Similar to Breath Of The Wild, which actually bugged me as I didn’t really care for that game, food can offer you various buffs, from faster movement speed to being able to deal more damage to simply restoring health and energy. You can also craft and upgrade the various weapons you have using materials found in the wild. These can range from better damage to the RDA mech suits to better usefulness in stealth. I like how there is a visual change to the weapons when you upgrade them and I kinda wish more games did this, though, per usual, the Na’Vi weapons are the better looking ones and the RDA gets some generic looking designs. Personally, I think it’d be cool if we could put some Na’Vi aesthetics on the RDA weapons to really make them stand out.
Where Frontiers Of Pandora really shine is with the mounted combat, especially when you get your own Ikran to fly. Once you complete a main quest line, involving some minor platforming that, I will admit, is another weak aspect to the game, you can name and fly around the entirety of the map with your own Ikran, along with pulling off some fun flight combat that took me back to the days of Star Fox 64. I have to admit firing a bow from an Ikran was nothing short of cathartic fun, especially against the SA-2 Samsons (those helicopter looking ships). My only real complaint with that Ikran is that I didn’t really see a real difference in speed when I was boosting. Sometimes I was able to tell the difference but, other times, I really couldn’t see any real significant changes in the speed.
I say my only real complaints with Frontiers Of Pandora are the story and some of the minor tech issues I experienced. The story really isn’t anything to write home about and really comes off as just OK at best and generic at worst, as you play as a Na’vi who was, as a child, abducted by the RDA and now you must join the other clans to fight back against the RDA. It really just feels like a typical FarCry story which is not a bad thing but I did expect just a bit more, especially in this game. I will admit that the intro did last longer than it should and that did kinda bug me.
I had also hoped that the characters you interact with would improve the story or, at the very least, be memorable like in previous Ubisoft games but, surprisingly, that wasn’t the case here. Now, while some of the voice acting is good, some really are just sorta bland, with the Na’vi being surprisingly the worst. With the exception of the Na’vi Nefika who has this free-spirited hippie-like attitude to her and, I’ll be honest, I grew to like her. The human characters, on the other hand, do come off as the most forgettable of the lot, with a few coming off as slightly annoying. Tech-wise, while there really wasn’t anything major to break the game, I did notice some stuttering in some places and dips in the framerate in others, oddly when there wasn’t much action on scene. Now, while switching the graphics setting down from Quality to Performance did fix some of the issues I mentioned, I still noticed the odd stuttering here and there, though it wasn’t enough to really affect the gameplay on a whole.
To sum everything up, Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora won’t set the world on fire, but it’s still a game I’d say you should check out. Yes, the gameplay is a mixed bag and the story isn’t memorable at all, but there’s stuff in here that I enjoyed and I can see gamers liking, too. I’d say the game is like a popcorn flick: It may not be high quality but it’s still enjoyable and entertaining enough to keep your attention.
GF REVIEW FINAL SCORES
