Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie Xbox 360

9.5

By Mr.Anji V.I.P  Oct 25, 2006

Pros: Playing as Kong flat-out rules; first-person action is a satisfying mix of great combat and simple puzzle solving; highly atmospheric art design; fantastic voice acting, sound effects, and music; some truly horrific monsters to fight.

Cons: Playing as Kong flat-out rules; first-person action is a satisfying mix of great combat and simple puzzle solving; highly atmospheric art design; fantastic voice acting, sound effects, and music; some truly horrific monsters to fight.

The first-person action adventure/third-person gorilla beat-'em-up combo genre has been born in Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie. As the long-winded title suggests, this is the game based on the upcoming retelling of ...the 1933 film by the Academy Award-winning director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. King Kong feels more like a stand-alone product than a handy cash-in for the license, however. This game blends the aforementioned first-person action sequences with its third-person (or should it be third-gorilla?) components remarkably well, as you traverse the perils of Skull Island as both screenwriter Jack Driscoll and the 800-pound gorilla himself, King Kong. It also helps that both components, on their own standing, can be a great deal of fun when the game is at its best--which, fortunately, is the majority of the time. Unfortunately, even the majority of the time isn't very long in the case of King Kong, a game that won't take you more than a single afternoon to beat. But that afternoon will be well spent. The story of King Kong opens with filmmaker Carl Denham (voiced by the always-entertaining Jack Black) in a fit of desperation. A film studio is about to can his next project, so it's going to take something drastic to get things back on track. Along with his screenwriter, Jack (played by the soft-spoken Adrien Brody), and struggling actress Ann Darrow (played wonderfully by Naomi Watts), Carl procures a ship to take him and his misfit film crew to the mysterious Skull Island, a supposedly abandoned home of a lost civilization. Why exactly he goes to all this trouble just to film a movie isn't really explained in the game. In fact, most of the early story exposition is told briefly via the first half of the movie trailer you've likely seen in theaters already. Obviously it would seem that there is more to all this, but you won't get to find out about it until you go see the movie in a few weeks. By the same token, because the movie isn't out yet, we can't tell you how much of the story King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie might spoil for you. If you're the type that absolutely wants to be surprised, you might want to wait a few weeks before grabbing this game. The game itself picks up right as the ship reaches the gloomy island. You open your eyes to see the world through the perspective of Jack, just as he's being lowered in a rowboat, along with Denham, Ann, and a pair of sailors, to set forth for the shore. It's stormy waters, and sure enough, things go awry when large chunks of rock begin plummeting into the sea, right near your boat. You wake up on the beach, with the almost angelic Ann standing over you. You're marooned, confused, and wondering what those horrible, beastly shrieks are that are coming from further within the island. All this happens before you even pick up a weapon, and you'll honestly spend the first 10 minutes or so of the game just looking around, taking in the scenery and gaining your bearings. Read more Less