Peter Jackson's King Kong
December 6,2005 - Peter Jackson is known for making good movies.  He made the stunningly epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, and King Kong will hit theatres in just a few days.  Now naturally, with every big movie release, there’s a weak attempt at a game adaption.  Look at Fantastic Four, Chicken Little, and Finding Nemo: all of these games are atrocious.  However true this stereotype may be for the most part, it’s a rare, but highly appreciated occasion when a game-to-movie tie-in is refreshingly good.  In the case of King Kong, or Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie–the longest, and possibly worst title of a game in a long time–is just that.  King Kong is not just one of the most thrilling, riveting, and exciting action games on the Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC, or GameCube this year, but it’s also one of the best licensed games this side of Riddick.  If it weren’t for some serious short comings in the length department and a several other minor flaws, this would be a must-have on all accounts.

Initially, the game starts off with one of the weirdest, most disjointed beginnings of a game.  Rather than explaining the backstory in some sort of scripted sequence, they just flat-out use the beginning part of the trailer you see in the movie theaters.  At first glance, this game seemed like a dud right off the bat.  Once that was over, however, it set right out to sea where you were just discovering Skull Island, the land of King Kong and many eerie bug-like creatures, dinosaurs, and of course, angry villagers.

You play the game from two different vantage points; through King Kong and through Jack.  If you’ve seen the old Kong movies, forget what you remember.  This time, Peter Jackson, teamed up with the makers of Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil, has created a pseudo-Jurassic Park style universe that makes for one of the most interesting and memorable game environments in ages.  The beginning of the game–or trailer at this point–has the director of a soon-to-be film looking for the perfect part for his movie.  They end up procuring a young woman named Ann and take her on a trip to shoot the film.  Unexpectedly they wind up on Skull Island, the mystical ruined island that has been rumored by many to exist.  You head out on a small life boat to the shore where you’re met by many crabs to fight off.  The minute the game throws you into the actual first-person view of Jack is when you’re hurled on this non-stop unforgettable thrill ride.  As the game progresses, so does the story, and eventually you wind up being captured by the natives and Ann is sacrificed to Kong–that’s where your journey really begins.

Most of King Kong is played through the eyes of Jack, but the best parts of King Kong are played as Kong himself.  Throughout your journey in first-person view, you’ll be shooting off guns with scarce ammunition, throwing spears, heaving bones, burning brush, killing monsters, grabbing stakes to open big doors, and really, that’s about it.  As unvaried as the gameplay really is in concept, they’ve managed to keep it entirely interesting and it always seems to break up the action perfectly.  The scripted events in King Kong are flat-out fantastic.  Everything that happens on Skull Island seems to happen for a reason, and every time it does happen, it’s some crazy, extremely tense and thrilling event that you hope doesn’t happen again but are glad it did.  Kong isn’t the kind of game that ever gets frustrating, mostly due to its extremely forgivable auto-aim on the consoles, so even when you’re down for the count with your bullets you can just search nearby to find some sort of weapon from the environment.  Heck, when you’re out of bullets it makes the game almost more fun in some cases; you’re no longer the hunter–not that you ever really were–but you’re the hunted.

As Kong himself it plays as a third-person beat-em-up rumble type game.  Despite having shallow mechanics technically, it plays very well and offers some fluid pulverizing maneuvers.  Basically as you’re playing in Kong’s beastly body, all you’re going to have to do is somehow manage to keep Ann safe, stay alive, and crash your opponents to the ground with a furious smash.  There are a few tricks to your fighting that can make it a little more interesting, though.  If you really want to you can build up your fury so everything turns a tan color and you start laying your might down on enemies a little harder than you did before–which is saying a lot, because you really do lay it down.  And also, use your environment to your disposal.  If you see a pillar, knock it over, pick it up and hurl it at your enemy.  Also, don’t be afraid to pick up the enemies themselves and use them as whips of sorts to knock out the rest of the guys, it shows your dominance as king of the jungle.  The rest of your play time as Kong generally relies on these fast paced chase scenes in which Kong is flying through the jungle, swinging on ledges, running on walls, and knocking through doors–needless to say, these are some of the best moments in the game.

This game really focuses on what Kong is.  It never quite tells you his backstory, or if he has any family, or how he got so big, but it really shows the relationship he has with Ann very well.  All the way from the first time Kong grabs Ann to the time he plummets from the top of the Empire State Building in New York, you can tell he’s just trying to protect her.  In the strangest way, as weird as it sounds, you can really tell that he loves her and you can genuinely feel that connection in this game.  It will certainly be interesting to see if the movie conveys this bond even better than the game does. 

As said before, this game has some major length issues.  It’s roughly 5-8 hours long and it doesn’t really offer anything else beyond that.  If you own the Xbox 360 and you try to rack up those gamer points for whatever reason, this one offers you a clear cut 1000 points throughout your journey.  That’s really all the value there is to this game.  There’s no multiplayer, there’s really not much to unlock, and there’s not a whole lot pulling you to come back after you finish it.  The single player alone warrants a purchase if you like the subject matter, but otherwise, it’s worth a rental only.

Graphically, King Kong is really quite impressive.  On the current generation consoles this game really shows off some of their maximum potential.  Incredibly lush environments, great character and enemy models, fantastic lighting effects, and wonderful water effects really do the trick.  But on the Xbox 360, which is understandable, the game doesn’t quite stack up to the likes of some of the others in the launch batch.  While the lighting effects in the 360 version are some of the best that have been seen in any game on the market, it doesn’t feel next-gen enough to really rave about its visuals. 

Thankfully for all versions, however, its audio is nearly flawless.  The soundtrack in and of itself isn’t memorable or interesting whatsoever, but the way they incorporate it in the actual gameplay makes it positively stunning.  It makes those brilliant chase scenes completely tense and memorable and it also makes the fights you have a bigger impact on the real quest at hand.  The voice acting is done really well too, considering it’s the actors from the movie.  Audibly speaking, this is one of Kong’s high points.

To put it simply, King Kong is a wondrous game.  There is little to be upset about except its short length and no extra content, but the rest of the game is fantastic.  If King Kong has ever been of interest to you, this should undoubtedly be in your collection.  Despite the short campaign, you’ll come out of the experience with dozens upon dozens of great memories.  Traversing Skull Island is an absolute treat, and it’s too bad that King Kong dies at the end–and no, that’s not a spoiler, everyone should know that already–so we can’t really get a sequel out of it.  If the short length doesn’t turn you off, King Kong is completely recommendable on all accounts.  If you own an Xbox 360 and are a little put off by the the launch lineup, definitely give King Kong a try. It may not be exclusive, but it’s one of the best 360 games on the shelves. King Kong really does a service to the movie rather than a detriment, unlike so many games before it, this game is an absolute treat.

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