Back in the 00's there was this weird, short-lived King Kong animated series that I can'r remember for the life of me if I actually liked. I think I did, because I could definitely remember it and remember its characters. After the series ended, they tried to cash-in on Jackson's King Kong movie with a direct-to-video movie of their own, which also spawned this bland Gameboy Advance game, Kong - King of Atlantis.
I think the game is supposed to retell the events of the movie, but it's hard to tell since there's next to no cutscenes or even text. I think Kong is supposed to get brainwashed at some point, but then you rescue him? I don't know, it's hard to tell what's going on. You'll get to play as Kong, Jason and Lua, but all three characters play exactly the same, except that Lua and Jason can kick while Kong can only punch. The game is 4 stages short, thankfully, but stages are divided into substages, so it's more like 8-10 very short stages. It's a go left-to-right platform game, but stages are fairly boring, the graphics are bland, and the environments look completely devoid of life, the static background like any sort of spark and the character animations should've used more frames or at least more detail, Lua's in-game sprite doesn't even look like her. Heck, the first couple of stages you play as Kong you'll have to smash a few trees, these trees look as if they were ripped from an entirely different game, since their vivid colors clash against everything else in the game, be it backgrounds or character sprites.
The game seems stuck in the uncertain 80's, because B is jump and A is attack. Not that it matters, because B is the 'Confirm' button in game, used only on the very first stage and during stage 3 whenever Lua or Jason exclaim "I'm trapped'. It feels so incredibly weird. Pressing B while standing will make Jason and Lua kick, while Kong jumps, crouching and pressing B makes the humans perform a crouching punch, while Kong performs a useless ground smash, but your main means of attack will be the flying kick. Kong gets a jumping punch, but it's pretty much useless outside of the second stage's escort mission. Combat is easily the game's worst aspect, even taking into account how floaty and imprecise jumping feels, but nobody told the game devs this, so stage 1 will force you to fight weird tentacle things in order to progress. And these fights are dumb, because you have to hit the tentacle and run back about 6-8 times before it dies. It's not hard, it's just boring and time consuming. And there are about 6-7 of these tentacles in Jason's first stage. They can also turn electric which will hurt you if you try to attack them. Not gonna lie, the game's hardest part is the first level. It took me 4 lives to understand how best to tackle these tentacles, particularly the one near the edge of a platform. But once you get through the first stage, the game is easy potatoes. It's still boring though, the 3rd stage, which is played with both Lua and Jason, has plenty of 'ambushes' in which you have to kill an annoying amount of enemies in order to proceed, once again, it's not hard, just boring. Stage 4 has a TON of enemies that must be defeated with Kong, and you can't proceed until all of them are gone. BORING.
You must beat the entire game with the five lives you are given at the start. Thankfully, if anything, you'll need them to get used to the game's first level, because the rest of the game is easy as pie. There are no continues, no checkpoints and no way to get extra lives(Or maybe there is, but since I never lost a life after I restarted the game I never lost a life, so maybe its capped at five so I never noticed I got a new one), with the added nicety of having to rely on passwords. At least they are short!
Even for fans of the show Kong - King of Atlantis is a bad purchase. When I purchased the game, I thought I was getting the other game based on the series, and if my memory serves me right, that one is the one you want to buy, but maybe I'm wrong, not to fret as we will find out next month if it arrives on time. But I digress, King of Atlantis is bad and boring, but at least it's not broken. I think.
3.0 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment