King Kong, good movie, nice game.
Now since this is Hollywood, popular franchises have to be cashed in on. Keeping that tradition alive, we now have Kong smashing his way into our PC s and consoles with his very own game. Even though the game s not as good as the movie, it holds its ground amongst other action games today and is one of the better movie-to-game adaptations out there.
I don t think I need to dwell into the story of the game since it is based on the movie but for those who haven t seen it, it goes something like this: Gigantic ape falls in love with woman, gigantic ape gets captured by greedy humans, ape escapes captivity, ape finds woman and shares a few romantic moments atop the Empire State Building, ape gets shot down, woman is very sad.
In the game, you ll play as Kong and Jack Driscoll, a screen writer who along with Ann Darrow (Kong s love interest) and an unsuspecting crew have been tricked by an ambitious film maker, Carl Denham to film a movie on Skull Island, an island forgotten by time whose basic population consists of psychotic locals, giant crabs, giant bugs and insects, a variety of dinosaurs and King Kong. This isn t a tourist destination you d want to visit anytime soon.
Playing as Jack will grant you a first person perspective of Skull Island with a descent arsenal at your disposal that ll consist of basic firearms like pistols, shotguns, Tommy guns etc. One crucial point to be noted here is that ammunition is extremely limited in this game; so try and make sure every bullet meets its mark. Since ammunition is scarce you could always ask one of your companions for their weapons, i.e. if they re carrying any. Developer Ubisoft has tried to make the game as immersive as possible by doing away with generic FPS elements like the crosshair and the health bar. If you re getting attacked, the screen will turn red, your vision will begin to blur, your heart beat will increase and your hearing will begin to fade. Since there isn t any HUD (heads up display) in the game at all you ll have to press a certain key to hear Jack inform you about the amount of magazines you re carrying.
Once you re completely out of ammo, you ll have to rely on more traditional weapons like sticks and bones of dead animals to fight the monstrosities lurking all over Skull Island and that is where the game gets intense. Since you re a puny human you obviously cannot go head to head with dinosaurs and giant millipedes, so you ll have to be cunning and think like a hunter. For example, if you come across a pack of dinosaurs and aren t in the mood to become their lunch, find a stick, skewer a bug or a small insect on it and throw it somewhere near them. The prospect of fresh meat will distract them momentarily creating a quick window of escape for you. While this tactic works for most of the animals, there are a few who may not fall for these tricks. To kill these Einsteins, you may have to set your stick on fire and try and burn them with it by throwing it at them or lure them to a patch of dried grass using bait, and then torch the grass. While this is refreshing from what most FPSs have to offer today, the overuse of this sort of primal gameplay gets extremely monotonous by the time you re done skewering centipede number 999.
Games Reviews
King Kong
Avinash Bali Email Print
Jan 14, 2006
Looks excellent, Sounds brilliant, Using sticks to kill dinosaurs is an interesting mechanic, The absence of a HUD is an immersing experience.
Short, You hardly play as Kong, Segments involving Jack tend to get monotonous, No replay value, Frame rates take a hit while playing as Kong.
Rating :
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Playing as Jack will grant you a first person perspective of Skull Island with a descent arsenal at your disposal that ll consist of basic firearms like pistols, shotguns, Tommy guns etc. One crucial point to be noted here is that ammunition is extremely limited in this game; so try and make sure every bullet meets its mark. Since ammunition is scarce you could always ask one of your companions for their weapons, i.e. if they re carrying any. Developer Ubisoft has tried to make the game as immersive as possible by doing away with generic FPS elements like the crosshair and the health bar. If you re getting attacked, the screen will turn red, your vision will begin to blur, your heart beat will increase and your hearing will begin to fade. Since there isn t any HUD (heads up display) in the game at all you ll have to press a certain key to hear Jack inform you about the amount of magazines you re carrying.
Once you re completely out of ammo, you ll have to rely on more traditional weapons like sticks and bones of dead animals to fight the monstrosities lurking all over Skull Island and that is where the game gets intense. Since you re a puny human you obviously cannot go head to head with dinosaurs and giant millipedes, so you ll have to be cunning and think like a hunter. For example, if you come across a pack of dinosaurs and aren t in the mood to become their lunch, find a stick, skewer a bug or a small insect on it and throw it somewhere near them. The prospect of fresh meat will distract them momentarily creating a quick window of escape for you. While this tactic works for most of the animals, there are a few who may not fall for these tricks. To kill these Einsteins, you may have to set your stick on fire and try and burn them with it by throwing it at them or lure them to a patch of dried grass using bait, and then torch the grass. While this is refreshing from what most FPSs have to offer today, the overuse of this sort of primal gameplay gets extremely monotonous by the time you re done skewering centipede number 999.
After completing a few missions as Jack, you ll be given control of Kong and that my compadres is when the party truly begins. All the creatures you were running from as Jack can now be **** and put into their place (six feet under the ground). Gigantic bats annoying you? Swat them like flies. Dinosaurs trying to bite you? Break their jaw. It s moments like these that make you truly feel the power of Kong as you unleash your authority on the denizens of Skull Island. Moving around as Kong is a bit Prince of Persia-ish as you get to wall run across mountains, climb mountains and swing from trees (who surprisingly can take his weight). Unfortunately you ll hardly play as Kong though the game which is ironical since the game is about him. Before you know it, you re back as Jack skewering millipedes and running for your life. Lame!
Visually, King Kong is extremely impressive. Skull Island has been recreated right to the very last tree branch extremely authentically. Sunlight filters through leaves, blades of grass sway gently in the wind, dense foliage covers the ground to such an extent it affects visibility and ruins of an ancient civilization in the form of broken structures are scattered all over the Island. Facial animation is top notch with most of the characters looking extremely realistic especially Jack, Ann and Denham. We tested this game on an AMD 3200+ with a Gainward 6600 card and a Gig of RAM and were comfortably getting 40-45 FPS constantly at 1024 x 768 resolution. However during parts when you play as Kong, and you re embroiled in a battle with a few dinosaurs the frame rate tends to dip substantially.
Not to be outdone by visuals, the audio department is stellar in its own way. All the snarls and the roars of the creatures sound extremely menacing and when any of the large creatures like Kong or dinosaurs roar near you, the entire screen starts blurring (very cool effect). The three pivotal characters Denham, Jack and Ann have been voiced by Jack Black, Adrien Brody and Naomi Watts (who must have had a real sore throat because the woman screams like a Banshee) respectively and they do a fine job of it. Ambient music is just fine and picks up as and when danger approaches.
In the end, King Kong is a short yet enjoyable game that does get a bit monotonous (as Jack) at times. Even though you hardly play as Kong in the game, it has still managed to successfully capture all the excitement and emotion of the movie. However with no multiplayer, monotonous gameplay and zero replayability value, King Kong is mainly for those who prefer style over substance or for those who really loved the movie.
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows 98/SE/2000/XP
CPU: 1.0GHz Pentium III class
RAM: 256MB
Video: 64MB DirectX 8.1
HDD Space: 1.5GB minimum