Avatar - The Game
I'm not a fan of console games, and this one reminds me why.
The combat system is extremely limited and relies more on remembering each scene by rote than any amount of skill in getting through each fight. The world is extremely linear - though unlike Wolverine, there are often two paths to follow (either the road or one strategically placed branch/root which you can climb over it).
The environment is not explorable - one could almost get the same world feel by sitting on a camera dolly and rolling back and forth (except that the game has one-way doors where you can't roll back).
As an example of the level of frustration I experienced when playing this game, there are flight scenes which use the Wii Balance Board. You are supposed to fly left/right/up/down from the predetermined flight path to collect shiny things. The catch is that the path winds back on itself at some points, so while you're busily pushing the banshee to the left to pick up the next shiny thing, the path suddenly wraps around to the left, and you miss the shiny thing which is now off to the right. Eventually you'll get to repeat the fight enough times that you'll remember which way to fly, and ignore the visual cues.
Shooting things with a bow is about the only part of the game that is actually fun. Press B (the trigger finger), use the control stick on the nunchuck to aim, press A to fire. No guessing about whether the controller will believe that you're swinging the remote up or sideways.
Stealth attacks are entertaining too: sneak up on an enemy, press B to start the attack, and then shake the Wii Remote in the way described briefly by an icon. I haven't yet figured out how to tell which way I have to shake it before the stealth attack starts - it doesn't seem deterministic.
Then there are the boss fight scenes where you have to attack the boss, then press the designated button on the Wii Remote at the appropriate time. Again, you have to learn the fights by rote rather than by skill. The fight with one particular boss only finishes when you get a specific sequences of button presses and Wii remote moves completed.
Switching into two-player mode brings both players onto the same screen - there's no split-screen here. If you're in the middle of a fight, you either both select enemies to smack that are close together, or end up leashing each other out of smacking range while the enemies are shooting you from off-screen. If you try picking on the same target, you end up smacking each other.
This game is frustration incarnate, and I expect it's due to the nature of this genre of console games.
The only saving grace of the game is that when I play with a friend, I get to play a twelve foot tall blue chick with a tail who shoots people with a bow and arrow. And I am still left wondering whether the MMO will be a WoW style pillow fight party, an EVE style ruthless PvP universe, or a Star Wars Galaxies style deep player-driven story.
The combat system is extremely limited and relies more on remembering each scene by rote than any amount of skill in getting through each fight. The world is extremely linear - though unlike Wolverine, there are often two paths to follow (either the road or one strategically placed branch/root which you can climb over it).
The environment is not explorable - one could almost get the same world feel by sitting on a camera dolly and rolling back and forth (except that the game has one-way doors where you can't roll back).
As an example of the level of frustration I experienced when playing this game, there are flight scenes which use the Wii Balance Board. You are supposed to fly left/right/up/down from the predetermined flight path to collect shiny things. The catch is that the path winds back on itself at some points, so while you're busily pushing the banshee to the left to pick up the next shiny thing, the path suddenly wraps around to the left, and you miss the shiny thing which is now off to the right. Eventually you'll get to repeat the fight enough times that you'll remember which way to fly, and ignore the visual cues.
Shooting things with a bow is about the only part of the game that is actually fun. Press B (the trigger finger), use the control stick on the nunchuck to aim, press A to fire. No guessing about whether the controller will believe that you're swinging the remote up or sideways.
Stealth attacks are entertaining too: sneak up on an enemy, press B to start the attack, and then shake the Wii Remote in the way described briefly by an icon. I haven't yet figured out how to tell which way I have to shake it before the stealth attack starts - it doesn't seem deterministic.
Then there are the boss fight scenes where you have to attack the boss, then press the designated button on the Wii Remote at the appropriate time. Again, you have to learn the fights by rote rather than by skill. The fight with one particular boss only finishes when you get a specific sequences of button presses and Wii remote moves completed.
Switching into two-player mode brings both players onto the same screen - there's no split-screen here. If you're in the middle of a fight, you either both select enemies to smack that are close together, or end up leashing each other out of smacking range while the enemies are shooting you from off-screen. If you try picking on the same target, you end up smacking each other.
This game is frustration incarnate, and I expect it's due to the nature of this genre of console games.
The only saving grace of the game is that when I play with a friend, I get to play a twelve foot tall blue chick with a tail who shoots people with a bow and arrow. And I am still left wondering whether the MMO will be a WoW style pillow fight party, an EVE style ruthless PvP universe, or a Star Wars Galaxies style deep player-driven story.