By Elias Dounis on December 19th, 2005

The creatures of the game, the various dinosaurs and King Kong himself, are a sight to behold as well. At times Kong truly seems like a living, breathing forty foot tall ape and not some lifeless bundle of polygons. This "suspension of disbelief" is the result of miraculous texture work and impressive fur shading. However, Kong himself isn’t the most stunning graphical showcase in the game, not by a long shot. Anyone who remembers the original Jurassic Park film will tell you that seeing a towering CGI rendered Brontosaurus for the first time was an extremely powerful image... so, when I found myself seeing a horde of them walking through a canyon, my jaw almost dropped to the floor. I was in even greater awe when I had to run across this canyon, dodging the tree trunk-like legs of these prehistoric giants. These creatures look real and they’re are just enormous in size. You feel like an ant compared to them and the only other game that has accomplished such a sense of size is the PS2’s Shadow of the Colossus.

The PS2, Xbox and GameCube versions of the game are a sight to behold , easily one of the best looking multiplatform games ever made, but King Kong is even more impressive on the Xbox 360. The character models may not be what we’d expect from next-generation title, but the game’s scenery gets a significant upgrade on Microsoft’s newest game console. If you’re looking to impress your friends with your newest piece of video game hardware, Peter Jackson’s King Kong wouldn’t be a terrible choice at all.

After seeing Jackson’s remake of King Kong on the big screen, it has become clear to me that the game takes the liberty of changing the movie’s events a great deal. This shouldn’t be unexpected and thankfully the story has been tailored to fit the pacing of the game very well. There are less characters in the game and certain events happen much differently than they do in the actual film itself. The game mainly focuses on four characters, excluding the ape himself, with those characters being Jack, Ann, Carl, Hayes, and Jimmy. The story of Peter Jackson’s King Kong isn’t entirely original, but to many readers King Kong’s plot is just as unique today as it once was in 1933.

Movie producer/director Carl Denham is looking to make it big in the industry by showing audiences something they haven’t seen before. This something is a mysterious land that had practically been frozen in time, featuring pre-historic dinosaurs, savage men, the most hideous insects you’ve ever laid your eyes upon and, of course, the giant ape known as King Kong. Initially, Carl doesn’t really know that these dangers await for him, his film crew and cast, and the sailors of the Venture on the island, and its never really made clear as to why he believes anything truly worthwhile exists there, but that’s besides the point. Denham comes across a map that leads to Skull Island and its not really meant for us to question how he had gotten this map. Just know that he has it and he wants to film a movie there. As you can imagine the filming of the movie doesn’t go as planned as the female lead, Ann Darrow, is kidnaped by the island’s savage natives and put up as a sacrifice to King Kong. It’s up to you to step into the shoes of screenwriter Jack Driscoll and save Ann from the dangers of Skull Island.

In King Kong you play as both screenwriter Jack Driscoll and King Kong himself. The majority of the game is played as Jack in the first-person perspective while a small portion of the game is played as the big ape. Playing as Jack is where most of the fun will come from. You’ll shoot down hordes of dinosaurs, flying creatures and freaky insects, while running from one point to the island to the other. Along the way you’ll come across a handful of mild puzzle elements, most of which involve lighting spears with fire and tossing them into bushes to open a path. At first, things are fairly simple... you’ll have to light the spear and just throw it to the nearest brush, while later on in the game you’ll have to go through a series of torch lighting which has players working with their surroundings more intuitively.

Other prominent gameplay elements featured in the game is the collection of wooden spikes to open gates, and toying around with the AI of the game’s creatures. As mentioned by one of the NPCs earlier in the game (I can’t remember who), every creature on Skull Island lives by eating one another. While this is apparently the way of all life on the planet, it’s emphasized upon in the game because players can distract creatures by feeding them small flies or slug-like bugs to distract them from you and your posse. I personally only used this feature a handful of times, many times in which it was necessary, but it’s still a cool feature that had been put to use very well.

Adding to the immersive atmosphere and realism to the game is the lack of a typical on-screen display. Jack or Kong’s health is not displayed, nor is the amount of ammo you’re packing during the game’s FPS segments or even a crosshair for aiming a weapon. Not by any means does it feel as if the gameplay experience is hindered by this stylistic gameplay choice. If anything it makes the game’s experience even more memorable than it already is. Accuracy is never an issue when firing a weapon or throwing a spear due to a "hidden" aiming assist and you’re always given tabs of how much ammunition you’re carrying for a particular weapon.

Ammo conservation is actually something that players will have to take into consideration at all times. It’s a light survival gameplay element that ads to the overall experience of King Kong, separating it from the hundreds of "run ’n gun" shooters we see flooding retail shelves. Luckily, ammo conservation doesn’t ever become tedious like in older Resident Evil games and instead teaches players to become dependent on spears for the game’s weaker enemies, only using firearms when needed against packs of enemies and stronger foes.

Linear gameplay can be considered one of the game’s biggest faults but Peter Jackson’s King Kong is designed in a way that you will not think of the game as the type of game which has you going from point A to point B to finish the level and move onto the next. You are given the illusion that you are actually exploring Skull Island, venturing from its jungle outskirts to an interior which seemed to be the home of a lost civilization. I would be lying however if I were to say the game doesn’t hold your hand the way through. From start to finish you will be set in the right direction by either following NPCs who magically know exactly where to go on the island or by coming across one of the many scripted events which have you being chased by the indestructible V-Rex, which seems to be Jackson’s version of what we know as a T-Rex.

The V-Rex is the one threatening dinosaur in the game that player’s cannot kill as Jack. Whenever you come across one of them you’re only strategy is too run as it chases you. You will often have to distract it while your NPC buddies try to get a big wooden gate open or wait until Kong comes to rescue. Distracting it usually just involves running around in circles, behind stone structures, shooting it or airborne creatures for it too feed on, instead of having it feast on you or one of the game’s other characters. If you hide behind some sort of stone wall, expect it to come crashing down as the Rex plows through it.

The V-Rex is one awesome creature and my fondness of reptiles, dinosaurs, and Godzilla have me liking the V-Rex much more than Kong himself. The Rex’s roars is thunderously loud and a neat tunnel-like blur effect is used to show its force as the screen shakes and the controller rumbles. While Jack cannot kill these creatures, Kong can, but I personally had gotten more enjoyment watching a V-Rex kill the big ape by using its jaws to crush Kong’s neck. Sure, this brings us to the "game over" screen but at least it’s a cool death.

I’ve heard many complain about the actual segments in the game in which you play as King Kong himself saying that they’re too linear and fairly simple... Well, in truth the Kong segments are very linear and simple in approach, however this does not mean that they aren’t fun -- not by a long shot. I loved playing as the big ape. He has an on-screen presence to him that is very intimidating. Kong is monstrous, powerful and incredibly loud. Whenever he jumps off a platform and onto a large branch and swings from branch to branch, there’s heavy force to his movement. Michael Ancel and his team have created a in-game character that is truly larger than life.

Out of all the things to be disappointed with in the game, its ending is surely the biggest of all disappointments. For a good ten minutes of gameplay, you find yourself roaming the streets of New York City as Kong and its anything but entertaining. For some awkward reason the game attempts to mimic a free-roaming gameplay environment and doesn’t really steer players in the most obvious direction, which is towards the top of the Empire State Building. Eliminating the game’s fixed camera could’ve easily made things a bit more tolerable. While this fixed camera may have added a cinematic element to the Kong portions of Skull Island, it just makes controlling Kong in the streets of Manhattan a pain in the ass. Not only this, but there isn’t really much to do in these ending moments. Sure there are a few guns for you to take down but that’s nowhere near challenging, and climbing to the top of the Empire State Building isn’t too exciting either, nor is attempting to swat down some airplanes while hanging atop the tower. Oh well, most of us know how the story ends so this ending can’t be too disappointing. We can’t always have

Unfortunately this video game incarnation of Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a game that doesn’t offer much in terms of lasting appeal and replay value. The adventure itself is rather short, just shy of eight hours from start to finish, and the gameplay is far too repetitive and tedious to actually be compelled to play it any time soon after completion. The game is an ideal rental and a beneficial game to play for Xbox 360 owners looking to boost their GamerCard score... Peter Jackson’s King Kong is an easy one-thousand points.

One thing that can completely ruin a gaming experience is the existence of bugs and glitches that affect gameplay. These bugs are often the result of a game being rushed out the gate to retail, and while it doesn’t necessarily seem as if Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a rushed project, there do exist a handful of bugs that can cause some unneeded problems. The game is full of scripted events and for some odd reason some of these scripted events won’t be triggered, thus keeping you from progressing any further. Simply restarting the console should solve any dilemma of this sort. Unfortunately these bugs are not an isolated event and have been heard to happen across all versions of the game. Thankfully, I only ran into such errors twice throughout my entire playtime with the game and neither were gameplay ruining experiences.

Even with all of its gameplay flaws, Michael Ancel’s latest video game is an interactive experience that I truly enjoyed. King Kong is easily one of the most cinematically stunning video games that have ever been created. There aren’t many games that rival King Kong in terms of presentational value and its a good sign of the industry moving towards a greater cinematic style of game development for a select few genres. Unfortunately, I tend to believe that these presentational aspects are a novelty that eventually wear off and when it does the only thing left is gameplay. With this said, Kong’s gameplay aspects are rather repetitive and tedious and it can become quite of a nuisance to continously light spears and burn bushes down over and over again. It’s a neat puzzle element, but when it’s the only puzzle element in the game, it’s more annoying than it is challenging, if even that.