Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (2005)

I played the PC version, specifically Gamer's Edition. The other version has Starforce DRM which will corrupt your Windows OS, avoid that one

I was hyped for this game as a kid, when I finally got to play it as an adult, I wasn't dissapointed at all. The only issue I have with the game are the porting issues.

The wonders

• I loved that the game has a minimalistic UI, it has no UI! Yup, no healthbar, no radar, no itembox, nothing! You have to press a button that makes Jack check the ammo, you can figure out the health of the character from the music and the color of the screen, etc.
• The shooting and spear throwing feels good, you will hit the targets without a reticle because you can aim using Jack's arm. It is fun to use other animals as bait or make them fight each other so you can finish off the survivor (You can make Venatosaurus and Millipedes fight each other, make a bat fight a Venatosaurus, etc).
• The actors from the movie reprise their roles and they do it quite well. Adrien sounds even better in the game than in the movie, he is somewhat wooden on the movie while in the game he does sound desperate.
• The music is very well made, it doesn't use the movie's tunes but instead has it own music that is comparable to the film's score. I really love the main theme/about to die theme due to how scary the chorus sounds.
• The creatures look good, are memorable and their presence is well known. I love how the game makes even the smallest creatures very hard to fight off and the giant creatures are either invincible or almost invincible; meanwhile with Kong, only the largest creatures can actually cause you trouble.
• The graphics look good for their time. The jungle looks good and the opening sequence is very well made, it feels like straight out of the movie.

The disasters

• Kong isn't that fun to play. Jack is very well made, but Kong feels rushed, he has a two hit combo, a grab, a throw, a tackle and that's it: you can use the millepedes as a weapon but they show up like once.
• The game is unstable at 60 FPS. It will drop frames or speed up for no reason, enemies will bug out and get stuck, the allies somehow become invincible, some scripts break, etc. Cap it at 48 FPS using the settings.
• The game can get very hard at times, specially if you panic and waste spears or waste ammo. Plus you die in like two attacks from the Venatosaurus, and they end up becoming the common enemy.

I highly recommend this game! This is one of the best movie games I have ever played.

This is a pretty spectacular adaptation of King Kong. I haven't seen Jackson's film in some time, but this still perfectly captures the sense of desperation and constant danger of the 1933 original.

It has an excellent sense of scale - what seems terrifying playing as Jack is a mere nuisance in the Kong segments. Admittedly, the Kong sections are more enjoyable to watch then play.

I adored the Jack sections though. Due to the lack of ammo you are constantly scrambling across the levels to grab spears or animal bones to fling at the enemies that surround you.

It helps that the lack of HUD makes it all very immersive and atmospheric, with well detailed environments and companion characters that feel lively as they react to the situation at hand. Denham stopping to film things was a lovely detail.

Considering the limitations of the development schedule Montpellier created something geniunely memorable and fun. They even manage to capture the sense of tragedy at the ending, when you realise that batting away airplanes is the one level where death is inevitable.