Peter Jackson's King Kong

  • Posted on
  • in

Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie. Were they worried that there would be an unofficial game of the movie?

As I had heard, King Kong is a pretty short game. Most of the game is a first person shooter from the perspective of Adrian Brody's character*, which felt a little odd - why do I care so much about a human when there's a giant ape around. You do get to play as Kong occasionally, but those levels are short and very linear -- a bit of button mashing gets you through easily. And when the game shifts to New York at the end of the game, the production values go in the dumpster. Kong looks much like a man in a rubber suit wandering around a cardboard set, tossing toy cars around. Not very impressive.

And I'm not sure what they could have done, given the nature of the King Kong story, but it's very disconcerting in the final level that the only way to finish the game is to stay alive long enough... to be killed. Weird and very unsatisfying. (I guess there's a way to unlock an alternate ending where Kong lives. Also weird.)

FuzzyCo grade: C

P.S. If you're keeping track, I'm down to 4 non-360 compatible Xbox games.

* Who is that most traditional of video game characters, a screenwriter.