Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

[rusty_shackleford]

Seems like you might enjoy it if you liked Far Cry 3



Quick look shows journos seething at the minimal handholding/minimal UI

[Emphyrio]

this morrowind mod looks awesome

[Rand]

Avatar IP is utter trash and I refuse to acknowledge its existence.

The fact that the once great James Cameron made it is a shame and a tragedy.
But then he made that Titanic garbage and that was the end.

[SoLong]

I would be interested if it wasn't first person. The only first person games I've ever willingly played were the Metroid series.

I also rather liked the Avatar movies. Yes, the names are pretentious and impossible to remember but the story was competent. Not world shaking or innovative but I get the impression that Cameron never wanted that in any of his movies. He seems to be more about atmosphere and stunning visuals.

(I'm still miffed that the better plot for the first movie got scrapped though. I guess they didn't want to **** of any natives.)

[maidenhaver]

I like the part where the Navi get nuked from orbit by the White Man.

[Emphyrio]

(I'm still miffed that the better plot for the first movie got scrapped though. I guess they didn't want to **** of any natives.)

qrd?

[SoLong]

(I'm still miffed that the better plot for the first movie got scrapped though. I guess they didn't want to **** of any natives.)

qrd?

In the original plot the natives weren't perfect pacifist people and had plenty of assholes of their own.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I have mixed opinions.

One the one hand, I am a big fan of James Cameron's Avatar. It has the highest aesthetic value of any movie since the Prequel trilogy. They got some talented people working on the movie like Dylan Cole, Ryan Church, Wayne Barlowe, etc. I really liked the designs of the RDA mechs and gunships, and the strange six legged hairless creatures with nerve queues, as well as the environments with the bioluminescent forest and flora that looks it came from under the sea and the floating mountains. The soundtrack by James Horner (RIP) was good too. My only real complaint about the first movie was that most of the characters were unlikeable (also, due to the way the movie was setup, the ostensible antagonists, the humans, come off as more sympathetic than the Na'vi, and Jake feels a little detestable for not doing his job and telling the clan during the three month window of opportunity he had, let alone betraying his people for pussy), but Cameron addressed that with the second movie. Also a lot of cursing, which is unfortunately also in the sequel. Avatar 3 is the only movie I'm looking forward to, besides whatever Makoto Shinkai makes next (that space opera he keeps talking about?).










As for this game, while I am interested due to the setting and aesthetics, the gameplay scares me away. Instead of stopping to smell the roses, it seems to be an action game where you're going to be constantly shooting at stuff or keeping an eye out for glowing interactables. You can't play as the humans and pilot mechs or gunships, which you could do in the Xbox 360 Avatar game. The Ikran flying seems to be slow and boring when compared to GW2's Griffon flying or WoW's Dragonriding. It looks like the enemy AI is too easy and you're going to blast your way through a dozen copypasted RDA bases. Etc.

Another issue is the environments. It seems to just be first movie environments, stuff I've already seen before. The forest and the floating mountains. This was also one of my pet peeves with the second movie, that there weren't really new fantasy environments to explore. I guess there's the plains, which was only briefly seen in the first movie and wasn't really explored before. What not that huge underground cavern glimpsed in Flight of Passage? That would be a cool zone.






The new creature designs are a mixed bag for me. Some of them look good like the big red finned creature, while others look a little too "gamey" and don't seem to fit Avatar, as if they were drawn by an artstation artist rather than Cameron or Wayne Barlowe. I'm also worried about the music, since James Horner's music was such a key part of the first movie, but the second movie's score without him was far less memorable, and Western AAA game music tends to suck IMO. I also agree with @SoLong that it being first person with no 3rd person option is disappointing.

Overall keeping an eye on it but not in a hurry to get it.

In the original plot the natives weren't perfect pacifist people and had plenty of assholes of their own.

Cameron is going back to that in the third movie, which is going to feature an antagonistic Na'vi tribe.

[rusty_shackleford]

As for this game, while I am interested due to the setting and aesthetics, the gameplay scares me away. Instead of stopping to smell the roses, it seems to be an action game where you're going to be constantly shooting at stuff or keeping an eye out for glowing interactables.

Watch the video in the OP, didn't really get this feeling from it. Especially towards the end when he discusses collecting materials
also: re glowing, there just seems to be a little non-intrusive "dot"(sorta like a little light?) on things you can interact with when you get close

[Acrux]

It has the highest aesthetic value of any movie since the Prequel trilogy.

What a rascal.

[maidenhaver]

Cameron is going back to that in the third movie, which is going to feature an antagonistic Na'vi tribe.

Let me guess: nazi navi tribe who want to kill navis who have had contact with aliens.

[Breathe]

I wish I could get excited about new releases, but I'm finding the most joy in playing old games that I never touched. There are so many, it's wonderful, and all from a time when passion was all over the place in the industry.

[Oyster Sauce]

Watched some gameplay. You get to the first friendly base and it's full of Indian Chinese hybrids wearing turbans.