King Kong Review

I was a little apprehensive the first time I sat down to play King Kong. Not so much from a leftover childhood fear of giant apes (giant clowns are another matter, though) as from having to endure a long line of mediocre to awful movie-licensed games. Much to my surprise the game hooked me in pretty early on and quickly quelled my license-phobia. It may not be the best game out there, or not even the best movie licensed game ever for that matter, but it does do a better job of making you feel like you’re actually taking part in a movie’s storyline than any other game I’ve ever played before.

Let me start with what King Kong does right as it does it well enough that the game is certainly recommendable to most gamers. You take on the role of Jack Driscoll, the screenwriter who takes part in the misguided attempt to do a location shoot on the mysterious Skull Island. Come on, did they really expect things to go well in a place with “Skull” in its name? Accompanying you on the island are filmmaker Carl Denham and starlet Ann Darrow, which caused constant confusion for me. You see, Carl Denham is played by Jack Black in the film, and he’s lent his voice and likeness to the role in the video game. So every time a character shouted out “Jack”, I would turn to Jack, I mean Carl, and just stare at him in anticipation of him responding or doing something interesting. Sheesh. Anyway this is no fault of the game’s and in fact the blame rests firmly on the shoulders of some overpaid certified casting director somewhere, but I digress. Anyway, what’s really cool about all this is that you’re really in the role of Jack Driscoll. There are no health meters, ammo counters, or anything else on the screen; all that you see is what Jack can see. When loading a gun, your character will tell you exactly how many bullets remain. There are no aiming reticules for the guns cluttering up the screen either (the game compensates for this by taking a “close enough” approach to your shooting). If you run uphill too fast you’ll even hear yourself breathing heavily (time to cut back on the smokes, Jack). You never see yourself in third person during cutscenes or story elements either; everything is played out in front of your eyes as you stand there and witness it.

Another thing I really liked about the game is that it kept the action moving at a brisk pace. King Kong is a surprisingly short game, but it doesn’t try to hide this fact by artificially padding out the gameplay – for the most part at least. You’ll face some sort of fight or crisis, work your way past it, run to the next area, and you’ll be back into the middle of action in no time. Sure it’s all very linear, but things move along quickly enough that you don’t have to take the time to notice this. When you’re under attack the attacks can be fast and ferocious, leaving you little time to catch your breath from the last battle you fought.

I have to admit that I didn’t tell the whole truth a couple of paragraphs back. You don’t play as Jack the whole game. At certain points in the story you’ll take control of … Kong! While it would have been beyond cool to put you inside Kong’s head like the game does with Jack, it’s still fun to control Kong from a third-person view. Kong basically swings around the jungle and beats up dinosaurs, hmm, sounds like he has Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes’ dream job. You have a few basic attacks and combos at your disposal, as well as special finishing moves for each of the nasty creatures you’ll go up against. For some reason, though, the game doesn’t really give you much of an opportunity to run amok in the streets of New York. This is a King Kong game so why can’t I have more fun in the Big Apple? I’m not asking for a tandem bike ride with Ann through Central Park here, but I would have liked to have the opportunity to do a little more rampaging.

Aside from the fact that it’s a very short game, King Kong has a few other issues. One is that it overuses and abuses a couple of puzzle elements that you’ll have to repeat over and over again. Your path is often constrained by thorny bushes that must be cleared by setting them on fire. And by “often” I mean “OFTEN”. Sometimes a convenient torch will provide the fire for you – you simply need to grab a convenient spear, poke it in the fire to set it alight, and then toss it in the bushes. At other times you’ll need to look for skull lamps stuck high up rock walls near the bushes. Shooting these or tossing a spear at them will cause the fire to drop and burn the bushes blocking your way. Yeah, this gets old pretty quickly. The other “puzzle” element you’ll encounter a lot is of the crank with a missing handle variety. Sometimes instead of thorny bushes blocking your way you’ll run into locked gates. Look for the handle which is always very close at hand, insert it into the crank, and then turn to open the gate. This is not exactly a Myst game here.

While you can play King Kong on every system still in production, it’s good to see that the Xbox 360 version is truly an HD game and not a straight Xbox conversion. The environments look lifelike and it’s captivating to just watch the rolling ocean in the game’s opening sequences. The lighting is amazing and the textures bring Skull Island and its inhabitants to life. I really liked the weather effects with the off again/on again rainstorms adding to the island’s foreboding atmosphere.

I usually don’t mention a game’s sound that often in my reviews, but in this case I just have to. The dinosaur and King Kong roars will blow your socks off, so it’s suggested that you play the game in bare feet. When Kong makes his first appearance to snatch Ann, my walls were literally shaking from his roars. My subwoofer was roaring so loudly, I thought I could feel Kong’s breath blowing past my legs. Wow. Oh, yeah, the voice work is excellent and features the original cast members. Did I mention Kong’s roars?

The thing that is really disappointing here is that this game fell short of its true potential. If the environments were more open, if there was more variety to the puzzles, if the game lasted longer, if …, then you could have had the best game of the year here. It’s still cool in its own right, though, so I recommend you give it a try and experience what is hopefully a sign of things to come in movie-licensed games.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 82%.  King Kong is worth checking out just to experience Kong’s first appearance in the game. It will almost certainly make your list of memorable gaming moments.