by: Dakota Grabowski

December 02, 2005

Note: This is for both Xbox and Xbox 360 versions respectively.

Video game adaptations of Hollywood blockbusters rarely ever guarantee success. With games like Sum of All Fears, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Judge Dredd, and Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, you begin to see why development teams avoid games on movie franchises. In the past two years or so, the adaptations have taken a turn for the better with games like Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, and Spider-Man 1 & 2. Is Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie on that same track of improving the movie version of video games?

The team behind the development for King Kong is none other than Michel Ancel and Ubi Soft France. Michel Ancel is noteworthy because he’s the creator of Rayman and the cult classic Beyond Good & Evil. Ubi Soft France recently worked on XIII which wasn’t superb but had some attracting features such as cel-shading. They also have worked on 187: Ride or Die that failed to deliver any entertaining moments. Maybe the biggest contribution to the team is Peter Jackson himself. Peter is of course the Academy Award winning directory for the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy that hit theatres the past four years.



Everyone should be familiar with King Kong and his long distinct history. Originating from 1933, the film is among the first monster flicks to be produced in Hollywood. King Kong is as widely known as Godzilla, Japan’s home grown monster. In fact, King Kong is the reason why Peter Jackson actually became a director and influenced him to take his shot in Hollywood with his knowledge behind film and production. The game pits you in both the role of human and gorilla. With the human role, you’ll be playing as Jack Driscoll, the screenwriter for a fictional film that is taking place on Skull Island. Of course I am sure you can guess that in the role of the gorilla, you play as the mammoth beast himself, King Kong.

I don’t want to spoil too much but the game picks right up after the ship reaches the island. In the approach of being more of a movie than a game, you’ll be sat in a rowboat heading towards the island. As your trip from the ship to the island continues, you’ll see the sea rage with waves and mist, an avalanche of rocks descend due to the violent wind and much more that occurs in the environment that you are able to observe. The first fifteen minutes or so of the game are all back-story and surrounding island’s cryptic appeal being revealed.