E3 Impressions – Avatar
By Jamie Love - June 11th, 2009
One of my many treats last week was that the Ubisoft Press Conference took place at the absolutely magnificent Los Angeles Theater – on occasion architecture is my bag. The fact that I had to squeeze past crowds only to receive my press badge and then have to squeeze back outside to wait seemed a fair trade if it meant spending time within those walls. As I said before, it was a true Blade Runner moment.
At first it seemed terribly exciting that James Cameron walked onto the stage to discuss his joint venture with Ubisoft, the film and game combination that is Avatar. The consensus since has been that it was rather boring. It isn’t that the project didn’t sound interesting enough, but that the audience was listening to what was essentially a pitch from Cameron. During his lengthy explanation, we were left staring at a screen that only ever showed a still shot of the project title, while he was left trying to visualize the narrative and environments for us. I left the theater assuming that there was nothing more to learn about the game for now, only to find that I’d be given the opportunity to sit in on a showing for the work in progress later in the week.
Secrecy is often understandable, but also breeds conjecture and speculation. It’s possible that the entire project has cost so much money that people are nervous about protecting their investment awhile longer. I’ll have to lean toward suggesting that the ambition for the game might not translate well to those passing by the screens – who could be forgiven for assuming the game represented another third person shooter. Yet at the core, that is how I’d have to describe the gameplay so far. The protagonist begins as a member of a military force fighting to take control of the resource rich planet Pandora. Rather than appreciating the flora and fauna, those elements represent the primary opposition. In addition to this deadly rain forest environment, the native inhabitants, called Avatars, are waging a war against the player to save their world.
The military uses flying attack vessels, mechanized suits, and an array of combat weapons during the fighting. While that is one part of what I was shown, it isn’t quite that simple. Ubisoft’s intentions show through the familiar, with the fight against these creatures and people working to earn sympathy with the player. It reminded my quite a bit of the Studio Ghibli film Nausicaä, bringing up issues of ecological balance and morality – the player is destroying a very lush world. I found myself willing to take a leap of faith for now that Ubisoft might be working to bring the type of character relationship they sought between the Prince and Elika last year to a greater scale here, creating a similar relationship between the player and an entire eco-system. This is as ambitious as it is lofty, and yet I’ll be legitimately shocked if there isn’t a great deal more to the title in the end.
The game is trying to earn the player’s empathy because eventually there will be a decision between joining the Avatars and becoming one of them, or remaining with the military. As an Avatar, the player was able to use the creatures against the military, the example I saw involving riding a giant bird to destroy hostile air vehicles.
What really caught my eye in the short term was a brief glimpse of the planet map, which showed the percentage of controlled territories by either faction. The fact that it showed multiple continents leaves me optimistic that the game might actually take place across the entire planet. Unfortunately cautious optimism is all I have to share for now.
