King Kong Review - Xbox, Xbox 360

Play As The Mighty Kong

In addition to the human FPS elements, you also get to play as King Kong. These sections only make up about 1/4th of the game and are pretty brief. You play as Kong in a third-person perspective as you swing through the jungle and fight off enemies. Swinging is done through contextual button presses – press a button to jump onto a ledge and then press another button to grab a patch of vines and so on and so forth. The real meat of the Kong sections is when you get to fight. It plays somewhat like a very simple wrestling game, but it is pretty darn satisfying to snap a T-Rex’s jaw. Kong is a huge and very powerful creature and the game does an excellent job of really making you feel that way.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, King Kong is a very nice looking game. The character models look good and the enemies are nice looking as well. The dinosaurs in particular are very good looking. The environments you explore are made up of a lot of rocky ledges and jungle paths and while they look good, you see a lot of the same elements all throughout the game and it gets pretty old after a while. There are a lot of really great views spread throughout the game, however, which helps ease the pain of all of the gray rock you have to stare at the rest of the time.

The sound is one of the best parts of King Kong. All of the actors from the movie lent their talents to the game and they all did a great job. Jack Black, Adrien Brody, and Naomi Watts fit their parts well. The music is also incredibly well done and is a great orchestral score that matches the onscreen action perfectly. The sound effects are the real star of the audio portion of the game, though. When the creatures of the island roar you feel it right down to your bones and it is really something special.

Xbox 360 Version

On the Xbox 360, the game looks even better. The textures on everything are noticeably better and the lighting effects are really nice. King Kong and the V-Rexes are much better looking on 360 and even scarier looking than before which really does add a lot to the experience. The content is exactly the same on 360 as in the regular Xbox version, but the real attraction of King Kong is being immersed in the world and really living through the horror of Skull Island and the 360 does a much better job of doing this than the Xbox. Both are good, but if you have the option the extra $10 for the 360 version is money well spent.

Bottom Line

King Kong doesn’t really do anything new – we have tons of FPS games and third-person action games – but it puts it all into a nice package that really immerses you into the experience like few other games can. Throwing spears and playing with fire is very satisfying on a primal level that most of us city folk just aren’t in touch with anymore. The game is fun to play and well put together overall, but it isn’t perfect. It is a very short game at just a little over 6 hours, the levels are mind numbingly linear, the Kong sections are a bit too simplistic, and the puzzles are repetitive, but it is still worth experiencing at least once. I think the T-Rex chase sequences alone are worth playing through multiple times, so depending on how big of a dinosaur fan you are it could be worth buying just for that. Whether you rent it or buy it, it is absolutely worth playing and I highly recommend it.