Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (2023)

Still sticking with this but haven't had much time to play longer story games lately. I'm really enjoying the world, exploration, and playing as a Na'vi. They've nailed the feeling and movement to the point where you don't feel human, which is a unique experience.

With games this length though I have reached a point where I'm sort of ready to put it down. Unless a game truly grips me on all fronts I can't really justify sinking 30-70 hours into it. I hate dropping games and it feels like a waste of time if I've already spent 25 hours playing, but there's so many games out there to play I just don't know if I should hang on to something I'm not feeling anymore. Perhaps I'll power through the story and see how close I am to the end? Not sure what more the game can show me though. It's been a good ride!

I want to sit down and watch the gamescom show at some point, haven't seen a single trailer or clip from it yet aside from the Fallout season 2 teaser.

I'm enjoying this way more than I thought I would. The Ubisoft formula seems to be built for this kind of story and world design, I'd say it fits it even better than Far Cry or Assassin's Creed. Loving the environments, the movement and exploring the beautiful landscape!

The RDA are absolute dicks and it's super satisfying to lean into the gorilla warfare tactics and unleash chaos when you find a bunch of them at a drill site that's poisoning the land.

Can't really put into words how visually stunning this game is. I think I've finally found a justification for owning a PS5 after 5 years (how has it already been out for that long?!).

The opening is one of the most visually pleasing I've seen in a long time, and the environments in general are just hands down the best I've seen, period.

The HDR is making everything pop so beautifully no matter whether it's day or night, I've easily spent a few hours just filling my gallery full of screenshots before I've even unlocked photo mode, or even the main title screen. Also loving the story direction they've gone for here, far more compelling than what the movies were going for.

I showed up for Ubisoft disappointment and have received it. If they are good at one thing, it's fooling me into parting with cash-- time and time again, despite knowing the feeling I will have when I play their titles. At this point, I think that's what keeps me around.

I woke up one morning and randomly decided that I needed to play this. That being said, I didn't have any expectations. I knew I could feel a bit foolish later on for buying it.

I have no clue why it entered my brain. I didn't see any videos about it recently, didn't hear anything about it really. I saw the first Avatar film when it came out and haven't seen any of the others.

As a side note, I expect to have a particular fondness and nostalgia for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora at some point down the road. I usually do with these types of experiences.

My thoughts about the game after 3-4 hours so far...

• Perhaps a case study: How big budget, immersive graphics, environments and sounds DO NOT equal immediate fun for the player/innovation in design

• Dialog and story presentation, pacing are lacking atmosphere and subtlety. Which is an entirely too kind way to describe what most would just call "cringe-inducing, obnoxious, bloated"

• Navigating the world of Pandora can be fun and should be fun, but often times it isn't.

• Instructions to the player about how to progress via dialogue, the world itself, mission descriptions are atrocious. This game has a completely failing mark for accessibility/playability. It's not a good product in this regard, and it's not a good experience either. This isn't because the world is mysterious and begging to be explored. There isn't a difficulty or skill curve in this factor.

• Pacing is basically non existent. You'll encounter incredible set pieces that the developer must have been thrilled for you to see... but you'll only get there after 10 or 20 minutes of frustration which probably ends in you either looking up a YouTube video or stumbling into where you need to go.

• UI/HUD markers essential to progression often won't appear (an issue shared by many commenters on YouTube walkthrough videos)

• Enemies AI + animations feel stiff and outdated. Combat in general feels like it can improve, but so far it is unimpressive.

• If there is a way to restart a mission, I don't see it. This proved particularly game-breaking on an early mission where a time limit is started, and the player is then told to go to a place they have never been. Their only clues in regards to how to get there are provided by UI markers which don't seem to show up for many players. Other than that, none of the information in the mission description/dialogue or world itself can tell you where to go. This means that after about 2-3 minutes of failing to find where to go, it will be impossible to complete the mission. Now you have to stand there and wait for the timer to run out.

Well, I'm here with bad news.

Avatar Frontiers of Pandore needs a MANDATORY download in order to be played in ps5. If you don't download the """update""" you simply can't play.

So I won't buy this one... Well, since this one is a game I think I would enjoy, I guess I can buy it, but it will be second-hand, so I don't support, as I'll never support, this anti-consumer trash.