DaRmaZat 
A forgivably cliché tale about ultimate freedom
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora kicks off in the year 2146, following the events of James Cameron’s Avatar from 2009. During its introductory scene, we get a glimpse of the final battle of the movie between the Na’vi, native inhabitants of the planet Pandora, and the RDA, the human military forces who try to colonize the planet. In the game, things couldn’t get any worse for you, a Na’vi orphan originating from the Sarentu clan who was initially kidnapped and trained as a soldier by the RDA. The RDA managed to conquer vast sections of Pandora under the leadership of John Mercer, who operates from their main station, the so-called TAP base, and is also the game’s main villain. The tension builds between Mercer’s troops and the other imprisoned Na’vi, who have started to question whether the troops really are their saviors.
After John Mercer discovers your attempt to escape the increasingly hostile TAP base, he murders one of your siblings, to make a statement. A ferocious act which apparently works, as all Navi’ immediately decide to stay. Right after that cutscene, the story takes a leap on the timeline. Eight years later, the same base is under heavy attack when Jake Sully (protagonist of both movies) leads a group of Na’vi from outside in their battle against Mercer and his forces. Finally, the time seems right for you and your family to join them in this war and therefore, Mercer orders his troops to kill all Na’vi in the base, including you. Luckily, this cruel fate is avoided when your teacher, Alma Cortez, puts you and your siblings in cryo-sleep in a secret location.
Fifteen years later, you wake up as a grown-up Na’vi. Ready to explore your own heritage, embrace the culture of the different Na’vi clans, discover the mesmerizing flora and fauna on the planet, while at the same time waging a hard-fought war against the drones, robots and human forces of the colonizing RDA. Certainly not for the last time, the path to liberty — as the central conceit spread out across the game — will snatch the player by the throat and will keep its victim gripped. Despite its recognizable, somewhat overused main theme of ultimate freedom, the story of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora serves its purpose while succeeding to branch out into multiple dimensions. This doesn’t only mean finding your place in the beautiful nature of Pandora, but also discovering your roots and paving the future for all your Na’vi friends.
A cinematic feast
From a technological point of view, the game’s graphics and cinematics make quite the impression. The eight-foot tall Na’vi look at least as good as their CGI-generated counterparts in the original motion picture, accomplishing very likable characters (of blue flesh and blood) with their big but pitiful yellow eyes, fluent animations and convincing voice acting. Performance, given the level of freedom in these vast and dense woods, filled with small wonders, is up to par as well. And with a soundtrack that often approaches epicness, the first ten to fifteen hours offer a real pleasure for players who like feasting on these types of dainties.
A climb towards a mid-game climax
At first glance, the gameplay does not disappoint either. There’s a short tutorial which focuses on mastering the controls and your special powers, the so-called Na’vi Senses. The Na’vi Senses assist you with spotting all enemies in the surroundings and with finding the quest targets. These are useful skills, as you find yourself totally alone in the huge woods of Pandora. It’s a bushy, overgrown environment filled with colors, stimuli and strange noises. With its ever-swaying vegetation, ray traced shadows and realistic reflections in the water thanks to Ubisoft Massive’s upgraded version of the Snowdrop engine, it’s obviously a wonderful place to linger. Unfortunately, there’s not always a lot of time for that. The RDA are on the hunt for you, elephant-sized animals instantly try to kill you when you get too close, and the frequently found poisonous plants can do some serious harm, too.
Immediately, you thus need to practice shooting with a bow and arrow crafted from thickets. There’s a staff sling with which you can launch explosives. Later on, assault rifles, shotguns and even rocket launchers are added to your weapon arsenal, as well. After all, you once were an RDA-soldier, remember? Most of the weapons can be upgraded or extended with mods, just like some of the gear and other equipment. The gun shooting and other types of combat are very satisfying and, as expected, do not differ much from your typical Far Cry.
Of course, not only your fighting skills will determine how long your Na’vi can stay alive in these turbulent circumstances. You will also need to learn how to follow important scents, how to draw the right conclusions from a handful of linked clues, and how to collect resources to keep your health and energy levels safe and sound. Especially the picking of plants offers an interesting mechanism whether it happens in a pristine fashion and without making the plant too wet. This results in having the best efficiency when eventually using that qualitative resource. Of course, you can choose to trade your collected resources instead, or to contribute them to gain some extra clan favor from one of the several Na’vi factions that charge you with tasks.
While the first quests urge you mainly to run, slide, swim, climb and swing on vines, the level of verticality of the world increases proportionally as the story progresses. On Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s figural summit, namely after an epic climb, you manage to finally soothe that much-anticipated Ikran. This amazing dragon-like mount brings you to even higher grounds but accordingly, also greater dangers.
A hidden checklist to complete after repetition kicks in
However, only shortly after that mid-game climax, the magic rapidly starts to wear off. Shaken by the fact that you have to apply the very same approach to get on the back of a direhorse, the copy-pasted moment induces a sudden loss of immersion, from which the game experience never really recovers. On the contrary, repetition sneaks in gradually with the story progression, like a vile snake in the jungle of Pandora. Inch by inch the Far Cry-curse takes over, when you have to infiltrate the samey RDA stations, where you need to flip those same switches again, manipulate the same valves, hack the same wires, destroy the same type of enemies, and so on and so forth. In the dark chambers of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s core gameplay loop lies a hidden checklist, where distance between fetch goals, quantity of enemies and startling difficulty spikes make the only real difference when compared to previous quests, deliberately slowing you in your (drive to) progress.
Fortunately, Pandora and its Na’vi, as sometimes soft-hearted but always fearsome warriors, never lose their charm nor their secrets. Especially the enthralling, alluring nature, its intriguing lore and the underlying liberty tale save Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora from the brink of ploughing into a Far Cry-pitfall, keeping you interested and busy for a long time. However, that is only the case if you are fine with picking up some mandatory busywork now and then, before you finally wipe that evil Mercer and his troops from your planet.
Reviewed on PC.
Download code provided by the publisher.
