James Cameron's Avatar: The Game [PSP] | a Review

originally published on 20/04/2021;

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Hello everyone, I am the tall blue SMURF, G.E.M.Simov, a Na’vi scrub that likes using a bow to kill anything that moves, as long as it is not alive. Today, I’ll tell you about James Cameron’s Avatar: THE GAME, for the PSP, because the PC version is different and a lot better.

Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.

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Gameplay

As a Ubisoft 3rd person 3D game, from 2009, the player must expect 3 things:

1. Collect the things
2. Stealth Kills
3. Press the button at the right time to do things

And, naturally, that fits the bill perfectly. I’ll go into more detail a bit later, but first, let me properly get into this.

The game is based on levels, with each level being a strongly linear path that the player follows and completes an objective at the end of. To accomplish these goals, the player has access to a staff, which is their primary means of fighting, their legs, which are their primary means of movement, and stealth, which is their primary means of avoiding fighting and dealing with issues.

Stealth works relatively well, with each enemy in a certain radius around the player having a small indicator above their head, with said indicator changing from white (undetected) to yellow (suspicious) and then red (they know where the player is). It’s quite neat, and there have not been many instances of enemies just suddenly going from white to red, and not without reason.

Stealth takedowns, which is, as expected, the player’s bread and butter, especially on higher difficulties. The way they work is that the player approaches an enemy, while undetected by said enemy, presses the Circle Button and then gets another button prompt. If they hit the right button, the enemy is dead in one hit, and it does feel very satisfying to dispatch threats in such a manner.

Why? Because, otherwise, enemies take anywhere between 6 and 14 hits to kill, based on the Difficulty the player has picked!

Yes, it’s true, there are 3 difficulties, readily available from the start, which the player can pick willy nilly. It’s quite great, though the difficulties only increase the amount of damage enemies do and the amount of health they have. Thus, playing on ‘Hard’ means that the player will be a sneaky sneakster killing people with stealth attacks, and, GOD Forbid they get detected, will die if the enemies they are fighting are more than 1 at a time, because, by the time the player reaches an enemy, who is shooting at the player, the player is either almost dead or already dead. AND then the player needs to spam the Square and Triangle buttons (preferably Triangle, because that’s the single target higher damage attack) for a period of time between 10 and 15 seconds, as it truly does take more than 12 hits per enemy.

It’s… Not really fun, but, then again, there is incentive to stay hidden and kill goons with stealth attacks. There is a function associated with the X button, no worries - it’s a roll, but not a dodge-roll, a roll. Demon’s Souls came out the same year, EVEN though there was a 10 month gap between their releases, but this game was, probably, in development before Demon’s Souls came out, and, also, Dark Souls was the popularizor of the Dodge Roll.

In any event, it’s just a means of moving a bit faster - it’s definitely better than what Killzone Liberation has, as the player does not stand still for half a second after finishing it, but can immediately continue moving, so the fluidity of the movement is far better. The issue is that the enemies are so precise, especially at closer range, that rolling, so that the player gets closer to them, so as to hit them, doesn’t save them from taking damage. It’s… Weirdly clunky.

The clunkiness, of course, does not end there. The player gets their hands on a bow at one point, and that’s actually not bad at, due to the fact that it stops the movement of the player, but allows them to aim with the analog stick - something that, for some reason, a lot of games that involve any kind of gaming, on the PSP, do not do. The bow seems to be well done, but isn’t. I mean, there’s a steep limit to how high the player can aim, and then there are situations in which enemies can never be killed because they are just too high up.

Though, I started the bow off with clunkiness, and I’ll finish off with it. The arrows literally go through solid matter, sometimes. Other times they hit the targets and do no damage. Collision boxes are weirdly absent from this game, or they’re very ephemeral. Swing the staff at an enemy whose back is against a wall, and you’ll walk right through. I’ve walked into solid terrain like that, and it’s beyond strange. There are also sections where the player is instructed to press X to jump, does so, and then the character jumps, lands on the edge, and falls THROUGH the edge.

The bow’s true clunkiness, however, comes about when the player goes into a flying scenario. Flying on the back of one of those pterodactyl-bird things, and shooting. It’s… It’s beyond wild. The analog stick moves the character, and then the aiming doesn’t actually happen. The player just shoots right ahead of themselves and hopefully hits the targets that are up ahead. It’s very underwhelming and even unpleasant to deal with, due to the fact that everything is so tiny (ala PSP screen), but then it is so much tinier, because the massive flying bird-dinosaur forces the POV to be massively pulled back.

Issues with Presentation that affect Gameplay - sometimes enemy projectiles, that NEED to be visible as they are of the variety that is meant to be avoided or dodged, are invisible. That’s absolutely ridiculous.

In addition to all of that, the Checkpoint system is also quite flawed. Sometimes long sections featuring different encounters are not cut apart and they don’t have many Checkpoints, other times they do. That’s just wack.

Now, enough about the bad. There are a FEW good things. The player collects things - such as Eywa spirit, Totems and Relics. Relics are rarest, and each increases the maximum health of the player character by a bit. Those are quite useful, and it feels good to find one. Eywa spirit is a currency obtained from beating enemies or collecting blue orbs of light. Those are used to upgrade the player character, making them stronger and giving them some extra utility. Lastly, Totems… Well, they’re pretty, I guess.

Lastly, I need to talk about the final ‘bossfight’. It’s… It’s horrible. Due to the limitations of the console, or, rather, the bow, the boss is invulnerable half the time when he’s supposed to be vulnerable, any time he takes damage a bunch of goons spawns out of literally nowhere and INSTANTLY, as soon as they’ve spawned, starts peppering the player with bullets - which ,if the player doesn’t react fast enough, is literally an instant hit K.O. at Hard, meaning that they need to start all over again.

The whole thing is really, really poorly thought out, and the battle, which should have taken no more than a minute, maybe two, takes more than 7 minutes, because the player needs to carefully position themselves in the bushes, just so they can avoid not getting instantly murdered by the adds that spawn, needs to wait out their detection to go into white, then pick them off one by one, otherwise they just turn them into some kind of pin cushion, and that needs to be repeated 3 times. Then, the boss becomes more manageable. But this is just… Not good.

In essence, this game has some very weird design choices that do not rub me the right way, and leave it feeling overburdened with jank. 1/3

Presentation

This game has a pretty decent Instruction Manual, which has some interesting information in it - said information expands on the Story, so that’s a double boost. It’s not too bad. Then…

It looks decent, for a game from 2009. Though there’s an unbelievably large amount of visual bugs, seeing through terrain or objects, some collectibles being invisible and other such things that mess with the player.

It has a very unpleasant look to it, though - it seems dark, yet it is very bright, and there’s a multitude of effects that color the screen, or literally everything on it, in a different shade of blue or green. In addition, while sneaking about, the edges of the screen - which isn’t JUST the edges, but rather 50% of all the screen - is blurred horribly. It hurts to look at, honestly.

Then there’s the audio, which is lackluster. Half the time, there’s no music, and, when there is music, it’s underwhelming or very lackluster. There’s nothing that’s just… Great. The voice acting, even though there’s little of it, is not bad, THOUGH there’s an issue - there’s one voice-clip that is used for a multitude of attacks that the player might perform, and it becomes a tad annoying. There’s also something silly - when performing stealth attacks, the player character sometimes shouts. Shouting while trying to be stealthy, right…

The SFX of the game are passable, but the Ambience is where it really slaps - the Ambience is pretty decent, to be quite honest. It’s gonna be what the player listens to most of the time, so, at the very least, it’s appropriately good.

Let’s not forget the most important thing - the credits are longer than any 1 level. They were around… 15 minutes long. Maybe even more.

However, with that many issues - not excluding the fact that it literally affects gameplay in a bad manner - I can’t give this game a high score here. 1/3

Story

Now, with the Gameplay being sub-par and the Presentation lacking… How is the story? Well, it’s… It’s interesting, mainly because it’s set in this massive world that James Cameron (I think) has created. There was a bit to expand upon that, but it wasn’t anything explicitly grand. The player character is the member of a wiped out clan of Na’vi, which means nothing to worry about, who does what The People (Na’vi) wouldn’t do, and goes on a massive revenge spree fueled by hatred.

It is prophesied that a warrior will save The People from the darkness after he, himself, is plunged within it. We can tell what’s what from the get-go. Now, the plot is weak-ish. That’s permissible, weak plots have been saved by great characters or good writing in other aspects, but… Well.

Let’s just say that the player character has some massive precognition abilities, with how many times he apparently sees into the future and just does things that would have killed him, and then surviving based on blind chance. Other characters also know things that they shouldn’t know, and then even some of the stuff they know is a stretch.

Overall, the story is also quite… Weak. It’s the same old tired revenge plot, where the protagonist sets off with a plan to murder everybody who has ever wronged him, and tenderize all the meat, but, as the story progresses, they recognize that ain’t the way to do it.

And nothing truly interesting happens. It’s underwhelming. 1/3

Legendary Point

Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Could this be the lowest rated PSP game so far? I don’t know, but it definitely does NOT get the legendary point. The only legendary thing about this game is that it cost like 30$ on release. 0/1

Conclusion

3/10. This is a bad game. Don’t play it. Don’t even watch a play-through of it on YouTube - it’s not worth it, the game’s quite lame, and the story - bad. If you REALLY want some of James Cameron’s Avatar in your life, play the PC version - it was a lot better than this. Surprisingly better. Or, wait for a review on it, from yours truly.

I flush this one down the toilet. Rancid, stinky poop. Even that obese orangutan would have been disgusted.