This might not be a stunning claim in an era where many open worlds now do the same thing, but most blockbuster open-world franchises didn’t even exist when Peter Jackson’s King Kong was released.
Verbs and environmental assets (like climbable wall textures or rocky outcroppings I can swing on) remain consistent with the other portions of the game but are used in novel ways that ensure seamless progression. I parkour through levels with animations that would be familiar in rhythm to players of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The levels in which I play as King Kong are in third-person. The visuals are better designed and executed than they have any right to be in a licensed product from 2005. The pace is so breathless that, when I have a moment to breathe, or view the island with a perspective I didn’t have time to consider before, it creates a sensation of awe for the polygonal world that is as genuine as it is surprising. The intriguing dance of the team behind Peter Jackson’s King Kong, is to then constantly re-contextualize and repurpose these universal pieces to create memorable scenarios, all within the frantic context of sheer survival. I can picture a reused sheltering ruin with my eyes closed, down to the number of trailing vines inside. The mechanical verbs I’m using (shoot, swap, throw, bait, etc.) are consistent, as are many of the assets I encounter. In another section, I ride down a waterway throwing spears at centipedes as they attack the fragile rafts of my group and attract the attention of far larger, more dangerous predators.
I sprint between enclosed ruins in one section, luring the raptors chasing me into traps of scrub grass I set alight with a flaming bone spear. Each Jack level functions as a self-contained, urgent adventure that also remixes the common building blocks of the entire game. The same monsters hunting me will gladly tear each other apart, as well as feed on the harmless “bait” creatures I occasionally find hiding in the world. The island has a basic ecosystem that isn’t just centered on my actions. The only tools available to me are ones I find in the environment, like spears made of bone, or rare firepower dropped by plane from sailors we hope to rejoin as we escape. Flesh-eating spiders, writhing centipedes, and actual dinosaurs are common, deadly sights. Microsoft announces final backward-compatible games coming to Xbox OneĬrashing onto Skull Island in the introduction of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, I quickly learn why you never intentionally go to a place called Skull Island.
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This is our introduction to the world of the movie, released before the movie itself. It projects the confidence and self-determination of original IP, because, in some ways, it is. With this context in place, it’s no longer a surprise that Peter Jackson’s King Kong isn’t presented as the ancillary promotional product it could have been. It’s a rare situation, based on the negative reports of other developers who have developed games based on licensed IP. The effort, money, and trust invested in everyone involved, despite the enormous corporate concerns at stake, was impressive.
The game’s screen is completely devoid of numbers or information of this type.įor Ubisoft, and seemingly the creative team of the 2005 King Kong movie itself, this wasn’t another Hooters. If Jack didn’t tell me how much ammunition I had left, I would be completely in the dark. “Five magazines left,” he tells me, counting down “Four magazines left.” “Three magazines left.” The minimal UI used by the game makes this information essential. The cast of the movie reprise their roles in Peter Jackson’s King Kong as well, the main character played by Adrian Brody breathlessly keeping track of how many magazines I have for my gun as I pump bullets into giant scorpion beasts. Obviously, they were bringing out the big guns. For the adaptation of King Kong, they assigned Michel Ancel, the creative lead behind Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil, as the lead designer. Ubisoft handled licensed material in a variety of forms before King Kong, filling different roles in localization, distribution, and publishing, as well as direct development. The licensing machine (and how Kong transcended it)įor every classic title like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time or Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, there was a Hooters: Road Trip, Dukes of Hazzard, or Chessmaster in Ubisoft’s catalog. Ubisoft’s various branches did a little of everything before it became the monolithic creator of open-world titles and dancing games that we know today. If you have an idle moment available, scroll through Ubisoft’s catalog as charted by Wikipedia.
Ubisoft was a very different company in those days.