Matt Foster
Published: December 7, 2005
I’m in love with an immensely powerful, rage-filled, dinosaur-stomping gorilla named King Kong.
Maybe it’s the hype stemming from Peter, “Lord of the Rings” Jackson’s latest movie phenomena, the remake of the 1933 classic King Kong. Maybe it’s the longing for a game that is emotionally driven and filled with a unique adventure that promises nonstop action and heart pounding terror at every turn.
Or maybe it’s just because using a giant gorilla to crack a V-Rex’s jaw in two is the single coolest move to be put into a video game in a really long time.
In the game, players take control of screenwriter Jack Driscoll, following rouge filmmaker Carl Denham and starlet Ann Darrow into the unknown wilds of Skull Island. Along the way players encounter hostile natives, ravenous dinosaurs, and the mighty Kong himself.
I honestly haven’t played a game that made me care this much about my character in a long time.
Literally, from the moment that you hit, “start,” you ARE Jack Driscoll. You are no longer in your living room playing a game, you are IN the game. I don’t want to spoil the very effective intro for anyone wishing to play the game, but I can’t stress enough how it immerses you in the world of Skull Island and King Kong.
This same, “in-character,” feeling permeates the entirety of the game and never once drops the ball. You are a member of a film expedition, not a soldier. Sure, you got a couple of guns but this is an uncharted island inhabited by dinosaurs. You have to make do with spears and bone shards when your guns are gone. Guns aren’t always going to save your skin in this game, so imagine wading through a prehistoric jungle with just a wooden spear and being hunted by a pack of raptors.
When fighting isn’t going to get you through, you can resort to nature itself for bailing you out of a tight spot. When you’re surrounded by a pack of angry critters and all you have is a spear, throw it at one of them and if it dies maybe the other ones will turn on it and forget about you.
Through the eyes of Jack Driscoll, you come face to furry face with the king of Skull Island: Kong.
While roughly 70 percent of the game is played through as Driscoll, the other 30 percent is dominated by Kong. When playing as the King himself, players no longer flee from hunting dinosaurs, they dominate them. Raptors flee in droves before your animal onslaught and V-Rex’s clash with you in epic, primal fashion (usually resulting in the aforementioned Jaw cracking). It could be said that playing as Kong is too easy.but it’s how Kong would really be. A dinosaur can’t tackle the eighth wonder of the world! For those precious few instances of game time where you play as the massive ape, you rule your island home.
Some people will find the King Kong game to have a few flaws (repetitive enemies and a linear world to be specific), but the end result is that King Kong delivers on an immersive and action-packed experience.
King Kong takes the clich‚ “movie-based games suck,” rule and breaks it easier than a dinosaur’s jaw.