Let me start this off by saying I have not seen the movie this game is based upon, I read the reviews and don’t feel like paying good money to see it. I will most likely get it when it comes on DVD though for my kids as it seems like something they would like. Let me also say that I really have no clue to the characters etc or the idea behind it all, I understand it yes, the power to control the elements etc, but I never watched the TV shows myself. That being said I’m not comparing this game to the movie at all, or the TV series, we’ll just pretend the movie doesn’t exist…
Today for review THQ has sent me over The Last Airbender for the Wii. The game is based upon the movie of the same name. The game follows through the view of Prince Zuko whereas the movie followed Aaang, so in the game you get a different perspective on things than the movie offers. It’s something new really and not exactly a game based on a movie as one might think of when you think of movie based games. That’s a good thing as most movie based games don’t work well usually. So I’ve got a ton of screen shots and a rather long game play movie for you, along with my thoughts and impressions of the game…
Specifications / Info:
“The Last Airbender” is the official video game of the highly anticipated summer live action adventure film by M. Night Shyamalan. The game follows the climax of the movie from the perspective of the antagonist Prince Zuko, exiled prince of the Fire Nation, who embarks on an epic journey to capture the Avatar, a young boy named Aang, in order to regain his father’s honor. Players immerse themselves in an incredible interactive world as Aang, Zuko and the Blue Spirit – participating in epic battles, hand-to-hand combat and various challenges throughout the game discovering and mastering amazing Firebending and Airbending abilities.
Become Aang, Zuko & The Blue Spirit – As Zuko, use destructive Firebending bombs, blasts and more to battle for power. As Aang, use amazing Airbending powers such as Air Vortexes and Tornados to manipulate the environment and control the elements. As the Blue Spirit, Zuko’s Ninja alter ego, defeat your foes using stealth maneuvers, smoke bombs and unique weapons.
Discover Your Bending Powers – Players utilize the Nintendo Wii Remote & Nunchuck to bend fire and air as they combat, destroy, battle and maneuver through the mystical world in single or 2 Player Coop mode.
The Movie Experience Plus More – brand-new, ground-breaking Wii physics and particle systems bring the movie experience to life like never before. A telekinesis system allows players to manipulate the environment as well as combat enemies to a new level of depth and control that has not been experienced before. To add further depth and uniqueness, the player experiences environments such as underground caves and cities that are exclusive to the game.
Premier Voice Talent – Experience the character likeness and voices of the original film cast Dev Patel (Zuko), Noah Ringer (Aang) and Aasif Mandvi (Zhao).
Unique Wii Features
* Action-Packed Levels – journey through 10 Levels of dynamic game play building to an intense climatic battle at the end
* Amplified Powers – Aang, Zuko & the Blue Spirit all have amplified powers in combo mode where chaining together various attacks inflicts more damage on enemies. From there, players trigger heavy attacks by performing gestures with their remote in a specific direction prompted by the game.
* Exclusive Character Powers – Playing as Aang, players charge up Aang’s Avatar state which can rapidly dispatch multiple enemies. Playing as Zuko, the game play shifts to first person view where players unleash massive fireballs in battle.
* Arena Mode Battles – Compete in multiplayer mode where 2 players can select an arena and choose between Aang, Zuko or the Blue Spirit to combat waves of enemies.
Price: $29.99 (from Amazon at time of review)
Box Shots:
A lot of reviews of games don’t include box shots, but I like to include as sometimes the box art is very nice and the discs can look very good. The Last Airbender box is ok, not great, but decent looking.
The Review:
The Last Airbender is a kids games, and as such I can’t exactly rip it apart things have to be taken into account. It’s hard reviewing a kids game when you’re an adult, you’re expectations are much higher than a child’s might be. Lucky for me I have a great resource at my disposal, my children ages 4, 8 and 9 who watch me play games and I let them play at times as well so I can get a idea of how it works for them and what they think of it. It’s my opinion that you can’t review of children’s game without the input of actual children.
The Last Airbender is rated T for teen, but that’s only because of the ‘Fantasy Violence’ which really isn’t that bad at all, there’s no blood or anything in it at all, so if you have kids I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The violence in the game is rather tame, sure you’re hitting people but it’s no worse than cartoon violence honestly.
I like to finish a game before I review it, so I did finish The last Airbender of course. It only took about 4 hours maybe, but I’m what you might call a seasoned gamer, I’m 38 years old and I’ve been gaming for as long as I can remember. It will take longer for kids, and it will take a lot longer if you want to find everything and accomplish all of the challenges as well. I went though it just to complete it so I could review it and I think I got like 73% complete.
As far as replay ability, there is some I guess if you want to go back and get 100% completion you can do that, or you can switch to a harder mode with different challenges. The real replay value is in the two player cooperative mode, kids will like this a lot as they can play together, but it’s not the actual game it’s called Arena mode where you and a friend can pick characters and costumes and then pick a are where you will fight off waves of enemies. it’s fun a few minutes, but my kids seemed to enjoy it a lot.
Zuko’s desk is the interface for the game, here you can access the cheat menu, options, chapter selections, the gallery of unlocked art and the challenges.
Under options there isn’t much there really, just some simple settings for audio and video and gameplay.
Under the Challenges you’ll find them listed and then you can click on them to expand them to see what you’ve done and what you need to do.
The Cheat menu looks like an abacus, you slide them over to enter your cheats.
The gallery, once you find things, will unlock concept movie art and other images.
You can also go to the Chapter Select option to select chapters obviously.
Most of The Last Airbender is played via third person or sort of over th4e shoulder view.
In the top left corner is your status bars, the top is your health and the bottom is your Chi or bending powers. In the middle you also have an experience bar. Sometimes when you’re playing you might run across a boss or several enemies you must defeat before you can continue, when that happens the enemy power bar appears at the bottom of the screen as well.
The graphics I feel are rather sub-par for the Wii, I’ve seen much better graphics for Wii games but my kids didn’t complain at all about, not that they would really. The effects are done nice though, as a bender you have special powers and one of them is holding in the Z button which charges up a main power to attack all the enemies in range. This looks decent, and my kids think it’s just ‘hard’ as they say…
The Last Airbender doesn’t really take much advantage of the Wii motion controls. There are times you’ll have to move the controller a certain way when fighting though. There are other times when you’ll actually have to move both the controller and nunchuk at the same time as well.
Here’s where one of my complains about this game comes in, the movements don’t register all of the time as they should. yes I had full battery and I know I did what I was supposed to do, but it still didn’t register, it can be very frustrating doing the same moves four or five times to get it to work correctly.
Combat is very simple, push A to attack, or A,B and Z to perform a special move or hold Z to charge or use your power. The abilities of course are different for each character but there are tutorials built-into the game as well.
Movements are also used as a Heavy Attack, after you land several blows you’ll be prompted with one or two movements to start the heavy attack.
Not all of the game is third person, some of it is first person where you’re Zuko and you’re shooting fireballs at the enemies. You use the controller to aim and the nunchuk to fire. It’s a nice break in all the running around…
There are puzzles in the game, but they are very simplistic ones like moving a block with wind, breaking something, turning a lever or running before a door closes. When you’re Avatar you can slow time down, this helps get through doors that are closing and helps with other things as well. Some of the other puzzles aren’t exactly puzzles, just more times jumps on moving platforms.
As the Avatar though you control wind and as such you can ride wind currents which is fun..
While you’re playing you’ll also collect red and blue orbs from fallen enemies or from things you break like boxes and vases, these help fill your health and chi bars.
I like the cut scenes a lot, between levels you’ll get to see the story progress in still pictures basically, but they look very nice and there’s a voice over telling you the story.
At the end of each level you’ll also get a status of how you did with a completion percentage.
My other main complaint about this game is the camera, you can control it with the pad on the remote and you’ll find you have to do it a lot as it doesn’t follow you as it should. You’ll find many times where things are not in view like enemies especially. You’ll find times also you need to adjust the camera to make correct jump etc. So the camera could be a lot better really.
The game is actually decent, at least from a child’s point of view, my kids love it really. It’s not that hard on easy mode, and most kids should be fine with it though there are times that it can be frustrating when jumping or trying to move the controller the way it wants you to and it not registering.
We’ll finish this off with a rather long game play video for you using the Avatar:
Assorted Screen Shots:
Conclusion:
Overall The Last Airbender is decent game, it’s fun and offers unique game play following the bending techniques of the series and lore. The use of the bending abilities works well, but they are very limited to basic attacks and movements.
For kids this is decent game really, it’s fairly easy to play, and they seem to enjoy it very much.
The controls could be better for some parts of the game and the camera is pretty bad, you’ll do a lot of camera controlling yourself to get the right views.
The graphics aren’t the best, I’ve seen much better on the Wii, but for kids it’s fine …
Pros:
+Actually it’s fun to play
+Somewhat makes use of Wii motion controls
+Fairly easy
Cons:
-Sub-par graphics
-Horrible camera
-Motions don’t register all of the time
Ratings
Overall: 4 out of 5
Gameplay: 4 out of 5
Graphics: 3 out of 5
Value: 4 out of 5
Disclosure: http://www.bonafidereviews.com/disclosure-policy/
{ 1 comment }
very fair and reasonable review – :-D
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