BY DOUGLASS C. PERRY With New Zealand Director Peter Jackson having achieved both technical and artistic merits with his triple-crown adaptation of J. R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, the man Elijah Woods once called a “hobbit” has reached the state of the Midas touch. From now on nearly everything he’s involved with glows with promise. That he would be so open to work with a game company such as Ubisoft shouldn’t come as such a surprise… but it is. What directors other than the Wachowski brothers have worked so closely with a videogame company and given such access to their development team, processes, and assets?
Working with Jackson’s brilliant Weta team, Beyond Good and Evil and Rayman creator Michel Ancel and his Montpelier staff have fashioned an organic and beautifully crafted re-creation of the movie in game form, adding and changing the landscape of Skull Island and tweaking the storyline a touch here and there to achieve success in the videogame medium. The linear story and simple gameplay belie the game’s subtle but meaningful achievements in level design, presentation, and use of sound — all of which are outstanding. While it has its share of problems, the simple fact remains: Ancel and crew have created a viscerally striking game that distracts you and surprises your senses with audio intensive events unlike any game before it.
Old Story, New Story
King Kong is an old story first told in movie form in 1933, so if I spoil any plot points you’ll have to forgive the fact that the script is 72 years old. Risk-taking director Carl Denham takes an American crew from the relatively safe streets of the US to the uncharted Skull Island, a land that time and evolution have forgotten. Inhabited by giant dinosaur-like creatures — Jackson calls the T-Rex a “V-Rex” — and ruled by a giant and wildly powerful gorilla, Skull Island is where the crew crash lands and must explore to escape. Denham (played by the spirited Jack Black), Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), Hayes (Evan Parke), and Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) all play a large part in the movie and game. Primarily a first-person shooter played as Jack (approximately 75% of the game) with the third-person perspective as Kong (the other 25%), you’ll hunt dinosaurs, solve physical puzzles based on fire and teamwork, and wrestle with dinosaurs (as Kong) in this surprisingly short six- to seven-hour romp.
Kong follows the movie as you progress through the game through very narrow paths in a very linear fashion. Ancel’s narrative generally hits major plot points from the film, but skips a lot while expanding in other areas. The result is a game that’s loosely tied together with Indiana Jones-style animated maps, and it works only partially well. It doesn’t capture the story with much verve, but Ancel makes up for that by delivering an unbelievably emotionally-packed videogame.
When I first saw King Kong the game before E3, I was excited because it looked to take movie-based games to the next level of production and presentation. But I was worried about its first-person perspective. Ancel isn’t known for his first-person shooters, and this particular field is crammed with experienced contenders. Much to my surprise, the first-person component is easily the best part of the game. This is partially due to the level design, control, and AI, but it’s equally the result of an outstanding use of sound. The controls are simple yet intelligent, and the sense of vulnerability you feel in the shadow of such giant creatures is successfully executed.
New Emotion
After confronting a handful of mid-level enemies, when you finally confront the “V-Rex,” the game’s first real knockout moment kicks in. The scenario revolves around you Denham and Hayes getting chased into a grotto blocked by a locked door. You must distract the monster by either spearing a nearby bat or spearing the V-Rex itself. This monster is huge, swift, and can kill you with one bite. The audio kicks up a notch as your breath delivers an undeniable feeling of fear. I seriously have never felt so damn anxious by a videogame in all my life.
Each step it takes causes the ground to shake, and it’s so fast that you must round the nearby stone structures with tight efficient turns or you’ll be torn to shreds in a second. When it roars, it’s like hearing that T-Rex in Jurassic Park for the first time again — the sound is piercingly loud, primal, and scary. The screen shakes, the controller rumbles, and a blur effect kicks in to portray your state of deep-level fright. But it’s the breathing that really does it. Jack’s breath races from the state of a slightly fatigued hiker to that of a man about to be skewered by Satan himself.
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