Impressions: Peter Jackson's Official King Kong Official Game Of The Movie. Officially.

Beyond Good and Evil was a really good game. I can see why PJ would want Michael Ancel to direct the game for King Kong. As a major movie license its going to give Ancel a boost too. Maybe he'll be able to do that BG&E sequel! I heard it described as a 'thinking man's first person shooter' and thats about right. blowing away the monsters won't clear the game. You've got to set traps, distractions, hide, solve puzzles, and blow away monsters. And it does this to pretty good effect. All the levels playing as Jack Driscoll will impress and delight even a novice shooter fan. What this game DOESN'T do right is the much advertised Kong levels. They're on rails, they're a mess, and sloppy controls. Mash the hell out of the punch button and do a couple grabs and you'll kill anything pretty quickly. Some stuff like chasing down a target is really bad because its just pressing forward and tapping jump or climb as you get to those obstacles. I also notice significant frame rate drop. Much of the Jack levels run at 30 FPS, and even hit 60 when you're in a smaller room. I had Kong drop my frame rate to like 15 FPS at some points. Maybe the 360 version doesn't do this, but my regular xbox doesn't seem to be able to handle the big ape swinging all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree. But I digress. Its a movie game! And its mostly fun. Its worth a rent, and maybe even a purchase when it inevitably hits the greatest hits list. To anyone who hasn't seen the movies and only played the game or vice versa, theres good news. The game has an original story. Yes, the characters from Peter Jackson's movie do make up the cast, but there are virtually no common events between the movie and game. Everything is similar and basics like Anne being taken away and Jack goes to save her are all there, but you arrive on the island at night in the rain instead of in the morning, theres a sea plane that drops supplies and rescues some of the crew, several deaths are under much different circumstances, and theres way more of those goddamned centipedes. It had to be reworked to make it a playable game, but they went out of their way to make the game as much a reworking of the Kong remake as the Kong remake does with the original!