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Editorial: Don't Write Off Avatar: The Game
By Pete Haas: 2009-10-03 13:39:55
Though I'm no friend of most movie-to-game adaptations, - I can count the ones that don't suck on my thumbs - I don't share fellow Blend Games editor William Usher's hatred of James Cameron's Avatar: The Game. The practice of attacking or defending a game that's not even in our hands yet is a bit absurd but hey, I'm game.
Will's main point is that Avatar: The Game is overly similar to Lost Planet 2. I won't deny that the two have some surface similarities - in fact, I said that very thing in the article introducing the first gameplay footage. They're both third-person shooters that feature a squad of futuristic soldiers running around jungle environments and shooting giant beasts. Each game also has pilotable mechs. These superficial observations might be the only shared characteristics of the game for all we know, though. Even if Avatar turned out to be a mirror image of LP2, who cares? The first Lost Planet was decent and the second probably will be, too. I can think of worse games to take your cues from. The idea that a game is inherently bad because it's too similar to another one never made sense to me. A game's quality isn't measured solely by how many features can be traced back to other games in the genre and how many features are completely original. It's the execution of these features that makes a game what it is. X-Men Origins: Wolverine wasn't a disappointing game because its beat 'em up and platforming was too reminiscent of God of War. The problem was rooted in the fact that it was repetitive and the boss fights were really underwhelming - two characteristics that GoW didn't possess. Had the game been exactly like GoW, I probably would've liked it a lot more. I wouldn't agree with Will's assertion that the game is overhyped, either. The film might be, but the game? By now it's safe to say that the gaming community views any movie-to-game adaptation with complete skepticism. "Movie games" have long been a sort of deformed sibling to other games. Typically, they're terrible and feel more like cheap film memorabilia than an actual game. Studios frantically put them together so they'll be released at the same time as the film, dump them into stores, and endure the critics' abuse while collecting their money. The bar is low for movie games and based on Avatar: The Game's production values - decent graphics, good art direction, all-new story, Hollywood voice talent - it seems like it will surpass our low expectations for adaptations. It may not turn out to be a good game but there's at least the possibility it could be. Ubisoft is at least trying to make it good. Game companies' apathy toward their movie-to-game adaptations is what results in terrible products. The fact that we're even comparing Avatar the Game with a "real" game like Lost Planet 2 seems like a step in the right direction to me.
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