James Cameron's Avatar Hands On

James Cameron's Avatar has been a long time coming. In fact he first wrote the concept behind the movie back in 1995 and intended to start filming it after the release of Titanic. But now it appears that Avatar will grace movie screens soon and meanwhile Ubisoft have been busy putting together a game to match it's impressive stature.

Over at GamesCom I got the low-down from Ubisoft's Brent George who worked closely on the game before getting a hands-on session. Firstly, Avatar is a science-fiction adventure set in 2035 that revolves around the idea of mankind pursuing a new planet to inhabit other than Earth. However when they do find a suitable planet and a band of explorers land they are confronted with a battle against the planet's indigenous population – the Na'vi.

This planet, known as Pandora is where the video-game takes place. Players will need to explore this strange alien world as well as attempt to survive against the hazards that inhabit it. George commented that the game isn't intended to simply follow the storyline of the movie and wanted to avoid trapping players in the same flow of events witnessed already. Instead Ubisoft wanted to supply a different window that was based around the lore, the environments and the overall theme of Avatar to give gamers a fresh new experience.

From there we were cruising above the lush jungles of Pandora in a hover-craft type vehicle known as a Scorpion. In order to find a decent place to land, we had to navigate or shoot our way through rocks and over-hanging ledges that were soon sent crumbling (satisfyingly) to the jungle floor when blasted. The destructible geometries and physics are quite stunning, but the true visual impact of the game isn't apparent until you set foot down in the jungles below.

Avatar is a third-person shooter at it's core, but does attempt to offer a lot more than a typical game in its genre. You are basically half-scientist / half-Rambo, running around an alien planet gathering information and taking out dozens of enemies at the same time. The maps are litterally teeming with strange, wonderful and sometime dangerous fauna. Moving around causes over-sized leaves and plants to move around you, often leaving you feeling like you never quite know what is around the corner. As you progress you can scan the wild-life around you to gather information about Pandora, collecting cell sample that contribute towards your list of side-missions or quests. Other types of missions might include setting up a base camp or eliminating an enemy from an area. Initially these enemies come in the form of prehistoric beasts who have evolved on the planet and are high-up on the food chain. You will be battling huge armoured “Tricerotops-like” creatures, vicious cat like animals and dozen more with each one more menacing than the next. Even coming too close to a towering plant with sharp leaves can be a hazardous experience on the dangerous planet.



Luckily you have a large array of technology at your disposal. Firstly there is a tasty selection of weapons, ranging from flamethrowers, grenade launchers, rifles and laser guns – each one suited to different enemies. For example the flamethrower makes quick work against native plant-life, whilst the explosives can be essential against some of the larger monsters lurking in the wilderness. You will also have gadgets such as a cloaking device to sneak around predators and a portable tool known as a repulsor station that emits a blast radius around it to keep enemies away. The last bit of tech we got to see was a mech-like walker known as the AMP Suit. It allowed you to tower over your fellow men and use gattling guns with devastating effect.

The graphics were holding up beautifully, with particle effects and foilage looking great at all times. But we were in for another treat. Avatar the game includes a complete day-night cycle meaning that you will be plunged into darkness as the sun sets. Resulting in the unknown plant-life around you to become even more alien-like at night. Apart from your flash-light, your surrounds will be lit by a mysterious but eerily beautiful glow as luminescent plants come to life.



As it stands, the game has a similar feel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition albeit in a jungle setting. But Avatar still had a surprise up it's sleeve. Just as you are getting used to everything and becoming dependant on your awesome technology, you are now playing as one of the Na'vi. The Na'vi are a bit more old fashioned and you will find that the gameplay has suddenly shifted from being a first-person shooter to more of a melee / stealth style of gameplay. Initially armed with a giant staff with some sort of bone on the end, your attacks are deadly but only short-range. You will need speed and strategy to over-come the humans and the Na'vi will be able to scale heights to use to their advantage as well. The Na'vi aren't useless from afar of course, they have bow and arrows and other primitive weapons – but compared to a rifle and armour, their ability to cause damage is at a significant disadvantage.

That was about all we got to see of Avatar at this early stage. And yes the rumours of the game being in 3d are true – we got to see it in all of it's glory. But don't get too excited as the game will require your console to have HDMI output and also a highly capable TV that few will have by the time of release in order to take advantage of the 3D effects on the 360 version. The Wii version definitely won't be however due to the limited graphics that the console can deliver. I didn't have time to try the Wii version either but it looked promising and we wil strive to bring you more information closer to its release!

NZGamer.com would like thank Activision, Capcom, Microsoft NZ, SCENZ, SEGA, THQ and Ubisoft for making this trip possible.

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