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				Graphics: 8.7 Gameplay: 6.5 Sound: 6.6 Control: 8.3 Replay Value: 5.0 Rating: 6.5 Publisher:  Ubisoft Developer:  Ubisoft Number Of Players:  1 Cheats Screenshots
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  Everybody's favorite over sized monkey hits shelves in Peter Jackson's King Kong; the game that boasts the title “Official game of the movie”. Does it do the movie justice? You'll find out soon enough.

  A story driven game (duh, there's a movie)

  The game opens with a cut scene from the movie, which is now hitting theaters. Here we learn that an aspiring director, played by none other than Jack Black, has set off to make the box office smash of the century, by filming where no man has gone before, the mysterious Skull Island. You play the part of the film's scriptwriter, and of course, you're headed along for the ride. Your ship sets sail, destination only known by the movie's director, who has somehow acquired a map of the island's location.

  Sure enough, you find the island, in the midst of a foggy evening. However, you also find a big ass rock that your ship collides with on the stormy seas. Driven by fame and fortune, Jack throws common sense out the window, and loads his crews into the life rafts to row their way ashore. Your boat consists of a deranged director, yourself, the movie's hit star Ann, and some random guy. Two other boats can be seen rowing along side you, but their fate remains a mystery, as your raft is the only to make it ashore.

  Once on the island, you find yourself coming across creatures thought to be long extinct, or not exist at all. You'll do battle with dinosaurs, over sized scorpions, and many other ugly bug like things. A series of events leads to your capture by Natives, and Ann is given as an offering to the great “Kong”, whom they seem to worship. Now you must track King Kong down, and rescue your movie's hit star.

  It's not all about Kong

  If for some reason you thought the game was solely played in the persona of King Kong, well you are wrong. The game mixes elements of a first person shooter, along with a third person action game. It has a little something for everyone, too bad most of it nobody wants.

  The game has one difficulty setting, so don't expect to slap this thing on “Easy” and cruise on through, and if you like a challenge, don't worry, you'll die plenty. The health system rivals that of Call of Duty 2, where if you are hit once, you enter a period where you screen tints red, and if struck again, you're dead. If you manage to get through the red period without getting hit again, back to “full health”. This becomes exceptionally annoying when fighting fast enemies like raptors, who can strike multiple times very quickly. I would have rather seen a health meter or X/100, or something along those lines. Finding a safe place to hide when the screen is tinted blood red is hard enough in itself, I'd much rather be able to see where I'm running before I kick the bucket.

  Pretty Dinosaur

  One of the few strong points of King Kong is its stunning visuals. The characters are built with incredible detail. They're so good that if I didn't know Jack Black was in the movie, I could look at his in-game character and say, “Hey, that's Jack Black” with absolute certainty. The fog around certain areas of the jungle looks amazing, and works well to set up a deep jungle theme. The dinosaurs, particularly the brontosauruses look phenomenal. I spent about 5 minutes straight staring at a heard of them migrating, some of the best in-game visuals I have seen to date. Props to whoever worked on the dinos.

  Stick em good

  The game focuses on firearms as a secondary option of violence. With tons of skeletal remains, and tribal camps in the area, there are plenty of spears and bone shards you can wield. Use them to jab at enemies, or hurl them through the air and watch them stick in to your prey. It's pretty cool watching a raptor run around with 3 spears stuck in its side. If you don't do the whole “native thing”, feel free to use pistols, shotguns, and sniper rifles...just be careful, you have a limited supply of ammo, and you won't kill much in one shot.

  Protect...everybody?

  Every game out there has a mission where you have to protect dude x; and if he dies, you fail your mission. King Kong has one of those missions, except it spans the whole damn game. 90% of your time in the persona of the scriptwriter, you are not traveling alone. It is nowhere stated, but assumed that if anybody you're traveling with dies, you fail the level. I personally HATE these missions and wish they were never created. Imagine traveling in a group of 4, through a jungle with over sized bugs and life sized dinosaurs. Now imagine protecting 4 different people at once. If any of them die, you lose. How is it my fault if I'm helping one guy kill some raptors and the director gets his head bitten off behind me? Too bad, learn to duck, why should I fail the mission? It really draws you away from the enjoyment of the game, which lies in the visuals and atmosphere, and forces you to baby-sit multiple people constantly.

  Go find a stick

  There always has to be a clever, unique way to open some door you need to pass though. Weather it's going somewhere to hit a button, or blowing it sky high, usually you'll have to do this once or twice in the game. Keeping in the whole jungle/tribal theme, you'll find large wooden doors in just about every level, doors which are all missing a key piece, a stick. That's right, you're going to have to search the jungle for a STICK. Not just any stick mind you, it has to be the specific piece to the door, no ordinary stick will do (bite me). Finding a specific stick in a JUNGLE is just about the most frustrating thing ever. I spent upwards of 15 minutes looking for those stupid things. It's all well and good if the developer has you do this once or twice, but every level is just plain annoying. Bad Developers.

  Everyone has Rocket Shoes

  Don't blink while you're playing, because if you do, poof, your party is gone. Apparently, everybody in the game is a track star and they never told you. The AI characters run so fast it's crazy. You character is not very twitch friendly, and won't make sudden moves, so be prepared to get left in the dust. More than once, I turned around to see if my buddies were behind me. Check, they're there. I turn back around too continue moving, and 30 yards down the path I catch up with the very people who were behind me 5 seconds ago. HUH? What the hell did I miss? I even checked every character's shirt for one of those star trek teleporter dealies...baffling.

  A one button game

  The controls in the game are VERY simple, as the right trigger does just about everything. It serves as the trigger for guns, the action button, spear usage... I think the game could be played on an Atari controller, if it were so modded to work on the 360. All you really need is to walk around with the joystick, and smash the action button repeatedly to make things happen. I'm still not sure why they didn't separate the action and firing buttons, come on people, there's plenty of buttons on that sexy controller to use.

  Speaking of button smashing

  Playing as Kong, while cool in theory, is just a button-smash fest. There's no real “aiming” to Kong's attacks, and you'll find yourself smashing the punch button wildly and watching your digital monkey murder everything on screen. Coupled in with some bad camera angles, you will even find yourself swinging right back at the TV, hoping you're hitting the enemy you can't see. Kong can also enter an enraged mode, which means he gets really angry and time slows down. Now you can watch yourself flail your arms around wildly in SLOW MOTION. Monkey + Bullet Time = Bad Idea.

  Sound glitches aren't your friend

  The in-game sounds are average. I found Kong's constant yelling to get pretty annoying at times; you're mad, we get it, shut your over-sized hole. Somewhere in the first third of the game, I found what appeared to be the worst sound glitch in the history of glitches (I hope this was a glitch, because if it's designed this way...wow). For 2-3 levels in a row, all I could hear was what sounded like a microphone in a tornado. I could BARELY hear my gun shoot, and frankly it gave me a headache. It was so bad I had to mute my surround sound. I examined my disk for scratches, and it's crystal clear...just hope it doesn't happen to you I suppose.

  I don't feel like I belong

  The way the in game characters react to things, and bark orders at you constantly, it really takes away from the experience. I want to feel immersed in the world, as if these experiences are happening to ME. It feels as if the other characters are working their way through the storyline, and I just happen to be along for the ride, always playing catch-up.

  There's always a silver lining

  Despite the games many flaws, at least you can rack up some serious gamer points from it. You don't have to do anything specifically, just work your way through the storyline and you'll snag all the achievements you can shake a hard-to-find stick at. This way people can take a look at your gamer profile and go, “He played all the way through King Kong? What the hell's wrong with him?” With no multi-player aspect built into the game, all achievements are based on the storyline, so try to stick with it, I know it's tough

  Did you just say no multi-player?

  Correct my good friend, there is no multi player, no co-op, no split screen, no Xbox Live. I'm not to sure how well a Live aspect of this game would do anyhow What would you actually do? It would probably just end up a first person shooter in the jungle, and maybe somebody could control Kong or something. I just can't think of a way to make Live work well with the game. Co-Op might have been nice; at least you could cut your stick-hunting time in half. Regardless, I understand why there's no multi player built in, it's a genre which really doesn't benefit enough from it.

  Rent or buy?

  Do you want to buy this game? No sir, you do not. The game just isn't enough fun to justify 50-60 bucks. However, if you have some kind of large gorilla fetish, then head out to your local game-store and pick this bad larry up. Is it worth a rent? Arguably, yes; you will never know if you truly like it or not until you try it. A lot of hype has been built up about this game just from players alone, they made it sound like it was the sleeper hit of the 360, LIARS!

12/21/2005   Brian 'Frosty688' Nadolny