Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a first person shooter where you take on the role of one Jack Driscoll, a scriptwriter hired by Carl Denham to pen his next great film. You travel with Carl, the lovely actress Ann, Hayes, a boat hand with a mastery of weapons, Jimmy, a young deckhand, and others to mysterious Skull Island. Although this game is primarily a first person shooter, it feels more like an action/adventure. Jack struggles along, with the others offering help at times, and there are puzzles sprinkled throughout the game, in addition to bouts of frenzied fighting. These elements, combined with the rich storyline, make
Kong King more of a compelling adventure with a first person shooter veneer to it.
As you’ll soon learn from seeing the movie in theaters (and can tell from the movie trailers), the group travels to Skull Island to film an epic story that could save the careers of Carl Denham, a filmmaker who has lost the support of the studios and Ann Darrow, a vaudeville actress fallen on hard times. Things don’t go as planned and Jack, Carl, Hayes and Ann become separated from the rest of the ship’s crew. All is not as it appears on the lovely Skull Island, for it is filled with creatures that time seems to have forgotten. Dinosaurs of various sizes and types, giant crabs, scorpions, centipedes, villagers, and, of course, a certain enormous ape, all pepper the island and it’s up to you to protect yourself and your friends. Sometimes you will have to open gates that require you to actually push a wooden stake to open them, using the analog stick. Sometimes two people are needed to do this. You might be required to distract a predator while others work towards escape. You can grab a bone or spear from the ground and use this as your weapon, and sometimes you will come across ammo that has been left by the ship’s crew. Unfortunately, you can only carry one gun at a time, so picking up the new gun means losing the current gun. Pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles and machine guns are your gun choices. Also, if Hayes is around and you are running low, you can select him and ask for his weapon and he will toss it to you. A nice backup indeed.
At certain points in the game, you will take on the role of Kong himself, as he battles it out with the local wildlife. During these times, you’ll have to make sure Ann is kept safe, while also waging war on the enemies of the moment. In third person view, you’ll scale walls, swing through trees, beat your chest and bust into Fury Mode as you tear through your opponents. While in Fury mode, you become far more powerful. After pummeling a dino, you can perform a finishing move such as ripping it in two or throwing it to its death.
One clever mechanic in King Kong is the food chain system. Enemies are quickly attracted to a dead body, so when you kill one, you will inadvertently attract a multitude of them. However, you can use this to your advantage. If your path is blocked by a slew of scorpions, spear one of the harmless creatures like the giant dragonfly and throw it away from your desired path. The enemies will then swarm the dead creature and your path will magically be cleared. You will use this mechanic over and over. Also, you can use a spear or bone as a torch and light it when you come across a fire bowl. You can use the fire to kill enemies and quickly clear brambles. Small puzzles like this will appear fairly often, but they are never a chore. Instead, it just manages to keep things lively.
