Kong smash puny bird!

There is a moment in 'Peter Jackson's King Kong' when you realize you've hit upon something that's beyond special. As scriptwriter turned action hero, Jack Driscoll, you stumble out of a cave on Skull Island while in search of actress Ann Darrow and her simian abductor, King Kong. The scene that greets you is as majestic as anything you'd see on the silver screen. As tall as small mountains, a herd of Apatosaurs lumbers by. The gentle giants kick up dust storms and unknowingly trample everything and anything in their path and wouldn't you know it, you gotta run through the herd to reach safety. It is one of those video game "wow moments" and 'Peter Jackson's King Kong' is teeming with them.

It is no wonder that there is a warning label on the box art to remind people that the screenshots are taken from the actual gameplay and not ripped from the cut scenes. 'Kong' is a masterpiece of video game artwork. Drawing upon their experience with such titles as the 'Farcry' series, Ubisoft has raised the bar once again when it comes to gaming sights and sounds with 'Kong'. All of Skull Island's jagged mountain peaks, raging rivers, fog-shrouded jungles, dilapidated temples, lush gorges and misty underground passageways are magnificently rendered creating a claustrophobic atmosphere of suffocating doom and gloom. As you follow suicidal director Carl Denham on his quest to film the greatest adventure film, you quickly realize from everything you see and hear that trespassing on Skull Island is tantamount to digging your own grave with a backhoe.

'Kong' is more of an interactive movie than a true video game. That isn't a knock against it though. It is what makes 'Kong' such a grand adventure. To accentuate that motion picture feel, there are no health bars, HUDs or metres of any kind cluttering up the screen. It is just you, the NPC characters, the dangerous denizens of Skull Island and the environment. It is a shame more games aren't produced in this way. Interactive movie games were all the rage once. For old school gamers like myself who treasured 'Dragon's Lair', 'Space Ace', 'Cliff Hanger' and 'Star Wars: Rebel Assault', it is a pleasure to see this format resurrected using modern DVD technology as opposed to the laserdiscs in the days of yore.

Mr. Denham, I am ready for my close-up.

Since there are no metres of any kind on screen, your health and ammo supply are shrewdly measured with video and audio cues. When you suffer damage from an attack, the screen will intermittently flash red, your breathing becomes laboured and you can hear your own heartbeat. Usually, if you can find a place to hide out and rest briefly, things will return to normal in a no time at all. As you fire the pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles or machine guns, Jack Driscoll will begin showing the first signs of mental collapse by talking to himself and in turn reminding you of how many rounds there are left and if it is time to reload. While the game is usually generous to a fault by making weapons and ammo conveniently available to you right before major tussles, there will be times where you have to reload or you will run out of ammunition while in the middle of having your leg chewed off by a ravenous Venatosaurus or the like. There are no weapon guides or sights either so even though the game is quite forgiving if you are not right on target, it is best to practice throwing spears and firing those weapons.

Skull Island is crawling with all sorts of fiends like our friend the Venatosaur. Apparently the megapedes, giant crabs, V-Rexs, giant bats (Pterosaurs) and swampcrawlers haven't bought into the low carb fad as they all consider you to be a nourishing snack. There is a food chain though that can be exploited to your advantage. In 'Kong', you are encouraged to feed the animals. For instance, bringing a giant bat crashing down to earth will cause the Venatosaurs or V-Rexs to rush over and gorge on the kill. This will distract them momentarily so you can run like heck. You can spear dragonflies, larva and small swampcrawlers and offer them as snacks too. The good thing about using spears to do this is that it gives you the capability of throwing the tasty morsel a safe distance away. Most piles of bone and wooden spears (your default weapons) which cover Skull Island are infinite too so you can stand over one and chug spear after spear at dive-bombing giants bats or charging Venatosaurs. The spears can be lit on fire too which frightens away some of the creatures.

'Kong' isn't all about trouncing the Jurassic Park rejects though. There are puzzles to solve and tricky obstacles to carefully cross too. The puzzles are strategic in nature and one misstep on a bridge or outcropping and you will become an unsightly splat on the jungle floor. Now and then, you are required to rescue or protect some of the NPCs as well. Needless to say, it will be a blessing not to hear the words "Jack! Help me!" any time soon.

Not surprisingly, the real star is the overgrown primate himself. It should be known that you don't actually get to play as Kong until you have successfully completed the first ten levels. Following that short-lived swap, it is six more levels until you switch from Driscoll to Kong again. The wait is all worth it though. Swinging through the jungle, swatting dozens of diminutive ill-tempered natives at a time and snapping dinosaurs in half as Kong is marvellous. Kong ain't the most skilled fighter but he gets the job done with punches, charges and throws. When an enemy is floored, Kong is able to make use of his jaw break or body break finish. By tapping the buttons, Kong will yank a dinosaur's jaws open until they snap or shatter its spine in a back-breaker submission hold right out of the WWE, if you smell what the Kong is cookin'.

'Kong' has gunplay and physical violence but it is not even close to being a grisly or gory game. The beasts pull that recognizable disappearing act when they die. When you shoot or spear enemies, there is a faint, blink-and-you'll-miss-it spray of blood and that's all. No heads or appendages are ripped off. You can't shoot any of the humans, including those pesky Skull Island natives. The game won't even allow you to point your weapon in their direction. Best or worst of all (depending upon how you view things), you never truly see the final phase of Kong's finishing moves...at least I don't recall seeing them. Kong turns his back and you just hear the bones breaking. Snap. Crackle. Pop.

The two knocks against 'Kong' are that it is a very short-lived adventure for the hard-core gamer and the finale leaves something to be desired. There is only one level where you rampage through the streets of New York, which are about as detailed as those city sets used in 'Godzilla' films, and the final battle at the top of the Empire State Building hurriedly draws to its inevitable conclusion. If the rest of the game weren't so darn good, the ending surely would have left a bad taste in one's mouth that lingered on.

In the history of gaming, there are a few releases that warrant the cost of purchasing an entire system. 'Goldeneye' and 'Perfect Dark' for the N64 and the groundbreaking PS2 version of 'Grand Theft Auto: Vice City' are a few of those extraordinary titles. In my mind, based on its astonishing graphics and feral gameplay, you can now add 'Peter Jackson's King Kong' to that list of rarities.