As we all know by now, James Cameron’s Avatar is the Blockbuster movie telling the tale of the human race’s expansion into the universe and settling on a mineral-rich world called Pandora. Pandora is, however, far from uninhabited and the locals are not at all friendly. To be able to exploit the planet without fear of death or dismemberment by the native populace, humans develop the Avatar program. This involves pairing DNA from the Navi, (the dominant indignenous species) with that of the human who will ‘drive’ the Avatar.

The game begins with the player piloting what can only be described as a futuristic helicopter dropship to a landing pad a short distance in from the starting position. First impressions suggest that whilst the models are detailed enough to identify what they are, it’s clear Ubisoft may well have been rather rushed to complete the game in line with the movies Christmas 2009 release date. As a result, the environments, flora and fauna are not as detailed as I would have liked, with pretty basic textures used even on human character models.

The first enemies I wandered across took me by complete surprise save a small cat like growl. Environments in Avatar are, as you would imagine (if you’ve seen the film – Ed) often based in dense, claustraphobic jungle areas and due to the heavy foliage and thick vegetation enemies can be quite hard to spot. The Marine character I was playing as was also about as dexstrous as Geoff Capes, making evasion of this fast breed of enemy quite a challenge.

Despite the Marine taking quite a pounding, eventually a grainy, film-like overlay falls over the screen in time with a steady heartbeat, indicating that death is around the corner. So far … not good, for the marine at least. Handy then, that I can promptly healing myself using a convenient skill. Four such abilities are available at any time and can be used to heal, call strikes, repel enemies or even turn into The Predator (no, really) which is essentially a skill allowing the Marine to blend into the environment.

Dispatching enemies with the kind of spray and pray skills of a WWII machine gunner rewards players with experience which fills a nicely placed bar on the top right of the screen. Gaining experience allows an upgrade to Weapons and Armour via a ‘Veteran Pack’ initially with further packs costing more xp to unlock as progress is made, presumeably. Weapons feel meaty and solid as they should and at any given time the Marine can carry both a standard Pistol/Rifle combo as well as two heavier weapons which means there is certainly no lack of variety.

Side missions include collecting samples (as one does on an alien world) as well as what could be construed as systematic genocide of the indiginous species.

Although Avatar is not tearing up the rule book in any way in terms of its approach to gameplay, I am quite aware of a fairly bold and significant move which invovles a choice later in the game – essentially opening up very different paths depending on the outcome.

Avatar is out now and would do well as something to tide you over till the next blockbuster but its not offering anything new.

Alex