After a long wait, we at Save State have finally got our hands on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the new title in the billion-dollar Fox/Disney franchise. The game was developed by Ubisoft, more specifically Massive Entertainment, which brought us games like The Division.
I want to make it clear right away in this review that I didn't finish the game, and the reason for that is simply because the game is very weak. Very weak. I thought it might be a matter of taste, but I and another colleague on the site made an effort to progress through the game, and even though we have different tastes, the result was the same.
But that's not to say that we don't have something to say about the game, after all, we've played it and played it a lot, so it's possible to consider this review as a joint review. That said, let's get down to business, which is
How the game works
Well, if you have the slightest interest in the game, you'll know that it's a first-person shooter, with some third-person moments. Have you ever played a game from the Far Cry franchise? If so, Avatar's experience is very similar, but far inferior in many ways.
The first thing I found really bad was the game's interface, which tried to emulate the feel of the franchise, a more organic affair, with a soft glow that reminds us of the nature of Pandora. However, although it was a good idea, the execution wasn't the best. The desire to make it look pretty ended up making it lose its practicality. And in terms of resolution, it also falls short, especially if you have a good display with a high peak brightness.
But despite this, I found the start of the game very promising, with a story that could be very interesting. As far as the story is concerned, we follow a family of Na'Vi from the Sarentu clan who have been deprived of the nature of Pandora and forced to live and learn the customs of humans.
We get to know a little about each member of the family, each of the brothers, very quickly until a major event changes the course of the story. The brothers stay in a hibernation chamber and wake up 13 years later, and a lot has changed in that time. As in Far Cry, this first scene also served to introduce us to the villain of the story, but not in such an impactful way because the violence here is not even comparable.
After that, the story really begins, which is basically about learning the culture of the Na'Vi and dealing with the danger that humans bring. And well, that's basically the story of the two films in the franchise and now the game as well. So the franchise's story has never been a strong point, and the same continues to be true, but what's strong in the franchise is strong here too. We're talking about its
Visual
In this respect, the game is incredible, not perfect, but incredible. At the beginning, as I mentioned, we started indoors, everything very gray and metallic, lifeless, but this was so that the impact when we went outdoors would be greater. And this objective was achieved with great success.
The first moment we encounter the forests is incredible, because everything looks so beautiful, the amount of colors and shapes we see in the environments is impressive. Many of the plants available in the settings react in a very cool way to the character, but nothing new in this sense since we've already seen a lot of this in the franchise's films.
After a while, things no longer make that impression, after all, we've gotten used to the look, but the beauty of the game remains. And this happens in all kinds of environments, whether on land, water or in the air.
But if there's one thing I'd improve in this regard, it's the scenery's reactions to the weather. Whether it's a sunny day or a heavy storm, most of the leaves in the scenery remain intact, taking some of the life out of the environment, and this is something that can be improved, an example of which is Horizon Forbidden West, which does this very well.
Very Far Cry
But there are other ways of giving life to environments, and one of them is the presence of animals, and in Avatar we have many of them, of the most diverse sizes, colors and shapes. Many of them are aggressive, attacking alone or in packs, so it's always a good idea to keep an eye out.
Another very Far Cry thing is that you can hunt animals and get items from them that help you evolve in different ways, and the same goes for plants that can be used for various things, such as creating healing items, arrows and so on. But the game has a special feature: the weather influences the quality of the item. For example, item x will have more "quality" if it's picked up on a rainy day, or on a sunny day, and so on.
It's a nice feature, but it gets in the way a bit later on, which I'll come back to in a moment. Returning to the Far Cry inspirations, here in Avatar we also have the presence of the famous control points distributed around the map. These points pollute nature, so it's our job to destroy them. To do this, you'll obviously have to kill lots of enemies (or not), hack things and then blow everything up. When you're done, nature takes back control.
Well, as I've just mentioned, you kill various enemies who are basically humans with or without armor (basically a mecha). To do this, you have various firearms, as well as a bow and arrow. But unbridled shooting isn't the only way to deal with things, you can also act stealthily.
Precarious progression
But one of the game's biggest problems is progression. Ubi keeps inserting various RPG elements into its games, and Avatar is no different. As a result, our progress is often hindered by our level, which ends up being a bit of a pain, because in order to complete this particular game, we practically have to do all the side quests.
Hunting for items is also a very important factor that makes a big difference to progression, but remember how I mentioned that some items need specific weather conditions in order to be collected properly? Well, this becomes a very big problem in the progression. And that's basically what makes all the hype for the game drop exponentially. It takes away all the desire to complete the game, especially when the story doesn't hook you.
And well, I think it's worth mentioning that traversing the scenery is also one of the few cool things about the game. This is because you can either cross the scenery on foot, with the possibility of making higher jumps, double jumps, among other things, or you can cross by means of terrestrial and flying animals, and you can even engage in combat in the skies.
Was it worth it?
However, I think it's quite clear that the game isn't the best, which is a disappointment for me because it was one of the games I was most interested in. And it wasn't even because it was Avatar, but because it was an Ubisoft game, as I really enjoy the company's games (although I know I'm in the minority in this respect).
It's a game that will take you at least 15 hours to finish, which, let's face it, isn't very long. And that wouldn't be a problem, as many short games are good, but this game seems to go round in circles from start to finish. The story even improves over time, but the gameplay cycle is simply too boring. But that's my opinion and not necessarily yours, so if you're interested, just pay and see.
See also:
The Last of Us Online is canceled by Naughty Dog
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