hat's curious about Peter Jackson's King Kong isn't its story, as familiar as a Disney fable, or its first-person gameplay, but the fact that director Jackson of The Lord of the Rings fame had a direct hand in the game's development. After Rings games publisher Electronic Arts balked at Jackson's desire for better than in-name-only involvement, Jackson—an avid gamer—decamped for EA's arch-rival, French publisher Ubisoft, providing more than just a marketing marquee for the video-game tie-in to his holiday mega-flick.
Subtitled "The Official Game of the Movie," Peter Jackson's King Kong is an action-adventure that acts as a tribute to and notably expands the remake's classic 1930s-era Hollywood tale about a gigantic gorilla inhabiting a mythic island of Jurassic creatures. In both the original and Jackson's version, hard-luck filmmaker Carl Denham whisks a film crew to tropical fog-shrouded Skull Island, hoping to grab breakthrough footage using struggling actress Ann Darrow. When Ann is seized by the island's natives and offered as sacrifice to Kong, Kong instead "falls in love" with her, is pursued by Ann's friends, and eventually is captured by Denham and crew to be shipped back to New York for the infamous skyscraper-climbing, plane-swatting climax.
Kong's story unfolds in episodes, 42 total, which parallel and extend the film's events. In roughly two-thirds of these, players wear scriptwriter Jack Driscoll's shoes using a HUD-free first-person interface. Instead of a health bar tabulating damage, for instance, the screen flashes red and blurs when Jack is attacked. More than two or three flashes (hits) typically result in death, while moving to safety allows Jack to recover fully. Jack's companions will also comment intelligently on his physical condition or ammunition levels (Hayes—the Venture's first mate—will even offer his weapon when Jack's runs dry), and tapping the B-button will prompt Jack to whisper things like "Plenty of ammunition" or "X rounds on backup." Jack moves with the left thumbstick, aims with the left trigger and fires pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles and machine guns using the right trigger. He can also pluck bones or spears from the ground to light fires or skewer monsters.
The remaining third of the game is played as Kong, using a third-person (third-monkey?) perspective. Kong can climb and swing, bite and dodge, hit and jump, and perform several finishing moves, such as snapping dinosaur jaws or lifting and slamming enemies to the ground. Kong can also be driven into a rage by repeatedly tapping the Y-button, which increases his strength temporarily. Kong supports single-player play only, and completing tasks in the game unlocks extras such as trailers, special display modes and conceptual art.
Short thrills from a tall ape
The worst thing you can say about Peter Jackson's King Kong is that it's too short. It's conceived by Jackson as a 10-hour adventure, but gamers of average skill will cruise its brusque levels in seven ... perhaps eight. That's too bad, because the best you can say about Kong is that it's one of the more inventive takes on the genre in recent years.
Jackson wanted to avoid churning out another shooter, focusing instead on establishing an environment where players would use intuitive logic to solve puzzles and advance the story. The result, in part, was a dynamic island in which predators follow the basic rules of an organic ecosystem that includes a hierarchical food chain. As Jack, it's thus just as possible to slip by a snarling dinosaur by spiking a megapede and tossing it over as fodder as it is to charge the toothy reptile with a shotgun. It's a fantastic idea, and there's just enough variety in the chain to keep the system experimentally interesting for several hours. By six or seven, however, it starts to feel repetitive, as the island is limited to maybe a dozen enemies total.
Jack's other priority is finding wooden levers to open doors, as well as ways to burn down thorny patches blocking his and others' progress. This is also fun for the first few levels, but turns quickly dull when you realize it's the only other puzzle mechanic next to the food chain, and by the 20th thorn field and leverless wooden door, the game's hard-won sense of immersion shrivels beneath the creaky weight of contrivance.
The island itself functions as a surrogate character, a living, breathing universe of sun-blotting jungle canopies, turbulent rivers, screeching winged bat-monsters, cave-riddled cliffs and swarming insect hordes. (I need to point out that players lacking high-definition televisions for the Xbox 360 version, which runs up to 1080i, will miss much of the island's stunning beauty.) What you get to explore, on the other hand, is sadly more look than touch, as Jack and company remain pinned to linear trails. To its credit, the story counters by keeping the action breakneck and the sights stunning enough that you often forget that you're running a glorified decathlon.
Playing as Kong is especially satisfying, though the sense of being "on rails" is even more pronounced. Kong lumbers gigantically forward or backward, pounding along cliff walls or slamming his considerable bulk into the ground while slapping enemies senseless. There's too little of the nearly three-story gorilla in the game, however, and when the final skyscraping sequence arrives, it takes only a few minutes to complete, and seems like more of an obligatory epilogue than the battle royale it should have been. Still, Kong should satisfy movie-monster and action-adventure fans nicely, though at a pricey $60, its brevity is practically howling "rent me."
Kong reminds me of Dreamworks Interactive's imaginative 1998 mess, Trespasser, another case of "let's dump the interface and drop players in a dino-infested jungle." Where Trespasser failed, Kong succeeds, though it's success in short supply.
—Matt
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