Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The footage from the game of James Cameron’s Avatar shown at the Tokyo Game Show is shooty indeed. (And reminiscent of the early footage of Lost Planet 2.) I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for all that blasted and mutilated alien wildlife – I’m assuming that’s going to be the point of the film, and therefore the game, since the plot centres around consumerist humans hoovering up resources from the lovely alien world of Pandora. I can already sense that it’s going to be considerably more satisfying to shoot up the humans and mechs than it will be to fire your guns at a trumpeting bird-o-saur, righteous or otherwise.

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Whenever a trailer begins with the phrase, “The following is all in-game footage,” there always seems to be a horrible chance that what follows will elicit the response, “I should bloody well hope so, because if that’s a render…” I’m not sure how I feel in response to the reveal, at last, of Ubisoft’s Avatar – a game that boasts the involvement of James Cameron, to coincide with his first movie in twelve years. Set on Pandora, an alien moon populated by the Na’vi, visited by humans, it features actors from the film reprising roles. However, rather than attempting to botch together the film’s plot in a game format, instead the game is set before the events of the movie.

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