Как всего одна функция изменила «формулу Ubisoft» — Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora 2 года спустя

The Real Pandora — The Real "Avatar"!

The main advantage of the game is its graphics — Ubisoft artists know their worth. Despite all the problems that have plagued the French company in recent years, these guys somehow manage to make almost every one of their games look stunning time and time again — even despite all the other shortcomings. Although in this case, all that was required of them was simply to repeat what was in the films. But believe me, that also needs to be handled!

The Na'vi world in "Frontiers of Pandora" feels real: the flora and fauna are closely intertwined with each other, and every time you fly on your Ikran towards the next task, you seem to merge with nature. It's all so beautiful. There are a lot of different plants that you can touch and even collect — all this will be useful in crafting, as well as ingredients from animals that you can hunt. Great!

The sound design is also quite authentic — it immerses the player even more deeply into the living world of this planet, and the music — although there isn't much of it — puts pressure on emotions. You can close your eyes and feel the atmosphere of this colorful planet with your skin!

The plot of the game is very simple. There is an antagonist who used to seem like a friend to us, but is actually an evil villain: he slaughtered the protagonist's relatives and clan and now wants to harm the planet greatly — all for personal gain. Most of the time — and the game takes about 20 hours to complete — we travel through a large open world and gain the trust of three Na'vi clans at once, unite them, and fight the invader.

There is nothing outstanding about the story: banal messages, predictable plot twists, and almost cardboard characters — people, including those who help the protagonists, often look like textbook villains without any depth. Even the character who is the mentor for the main character still seems negative at one point — even if they try to soften it.

However, the lack of depth in the story is quite appropriate. In the films, the plot was also the most ordinary — especially in the sequel. The narrative in "Avatar" serves more of a nominal purpose — to create context and a reason to immerse the viewer/player in an amazing world and share its beauty with them. And in this regard, the plot of the project is quite viable — albeit very ridiculous in places. Especially when it comes to the logic and explanation of the world order from the human side of the conflict. And the ending is frankly weak.

Become Na'vi!

The gameplay of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is standard for most big-budget projects. We explore the open world, fight enemies, complete tasks from various NPCs, pick up — find or create — equipment, and improve skills. There is also its own analogue of the witcher's flair, which highlights everything you need for the task — a classic.

The battle process reminded me of the Horizon dilogy from Guerrilla Games: in "Frontiers of Pandora" you can also scan opponents, find their weak spots and shoot at them, which greatly increases damage. You can even destroy them with one successful hit! And since I love Horizon Zero Dawn, the impressions of the battles in "Avatar" were very positive!

As a weapon, the player can use:

Ammunition for bows, spear throwers and slings can be created on the go if you have the necessary resources, and for rifles and shotguns they will have to be picked up from defeated enemies or found in boxes.

There is also a hunger mechanic in the game. The character has an energy bar that affects health regeneration: if it is at zero, then you will not be able to heal automatically, but if it is full, then the protagonist will be able to regenerate right during the battle. You will only need to hide behind a corner for a few seconds.

To be honest, I didn't like this "feature" — it's not very useful in battle: you could just leave auto-healing or increase the number of slots for first-aid kits. And so you don't have time to get hungry during the battle and they give you so much food in the story that it's enough. The only good reason for its existence is to justify the existence of cooking, which I used a couple of times and then for familiarization, and collecting ingredients. That is, to increase the connection between the player and the world. Tolerable.

The research system in the game is controversial. On the one hand, it is very interesting to interact with the world: collect various resources, hunt, explore the world in order to, for example, avoid plants that can shock you with electricity or poison you. And the flights on the ikran are breathtaking!

But the parkour left not very pleasant impressions. Sometimes everything is fine and you naturally enter the flow, overcoming the task route in one breath. But this only happens when the game has prepared the path for the player in advance. Otherwise, when she asks you to climb to a height without explaining anything — especially at the beginning — difficulties begin. Here, as they say, get out as you can: if you want, look for a liana that you can climb; if you want, look for a special route; if you want — jump along the edges of trees and rocks. It may well be possible to get to the top. It's not that bad, just weird. But it works and that's fine!

Side quests in the game are useful for once! By completing them, we earn exchange points, thanks to which we can get valuable equipment from the three Na'vi clans — including legendary armor and weapons that greatly increase your strength! It's a pity that these missions are not very diverse in terms of gameplay: the typical "go there, find this, kill that." It's good that the stories are interesting.

Speaking of strength: there are no familiar character levels in the game — instead, there are strength levels. In fact, it's the same thing, but the difference is in pumping: if in the classic system we earn experience for killing enemies and completing tasks, which is why we increase the level, then here we increase our strength thanks to equipment and learned skills. If you remove all the equipment from yourself, then the level of strength will drop sharply. Well, we get points for learning abilities for completing tasks directly — if you want to pump completely, then you will have to complete all the tasks, including additional ones! Another point in the basket of usefulness of side missions — albeit a controversial one.

Ubisoft as a Synonym for Problems

And everything would be fine with the game if it was created by anyone other than Ubisoft. These guys have their own postulates that they adhere to, which repeatedly hits the quality of their projects hard. Frontiers of Pandora has a number of problems that cannot be ignored.

The level system here is too intrusive, almost as it was in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. There, if the enemy is 3-4 levels higher than you, then you can say goodbye to the chances of defeating him — you will pick at the enemy for six months, trying to lower his health bar to zero. He will have one or two hits to send you to the save point! It's about the same in "Avatar" — even at the easiest level of difficulty with a difference of 3-4 levels, the battles will become a very painful test, not to mention the high difficulties.

The problem here is that the game sometimes literally forces you to "grind" these levels — especially if you just want to go through the main story, because sometimes there is a gap in the recommended level between two tasks. And just as I was happy at the end of one of the missions in the middle of the game that I found a shotgun, with which I felt like a Terminator, in literally the next story task I was literally destroyed with a couple of hits. And it cost me a few hours to pump up, as I could already "face tank" damage from an entire army of enemies. There is no balance here.

The distribution of game activities is also lame. Then the game forces us to fight hordes of enemies for a long time, then spend several hours climbing locations, solving the same puzzle over and over again. Closer to the end of the game, you will frankly feel sick of the mini-game with hacking! It's good that the atmosphere saves — in places nostalgia for Horizon: Zero Dawn covered again. Especially when we explore an abandoned laboratory to learn more about ourselves and the lore of the current conflict.

The game lacks any variety. Whether at the beginning, we are occasionally sent to clear enemy outposts, or at the end. Whether at the beginning we fight the same soldiers in exosuits, or at the end — there are very few new types of enemies! The enemy bases themselves, like the missions within them, are all the same: everywhere you need to turn off switches and block vents — only the level of enemies differs! There are many outposts in the game — scattered all over the map! If you want to clear the game 100% — get ready!

Stealth and cover in the game are broken. If you're too lazy to level up, you can complete the mission in stealth — the game offers such an opportunity, right? Yes, but enemies sometimes behave very strangely: sometimes they don't see you at point-blank range, and sometimes they notice you even when you can't see them with your senses! Perhaps it's because of the height, because the Na'vi are much taller than humans and it's harder for them to hide, isn't it?

The same goes for cover. Often in battle, I would hide from enemy bullets using the landscape and more, but I would still take damage — is it really because my long blue head was preventing me from hiding?

If desired, the enemy AI can be completely broken. As an option: each base has an underground passage that is needed to sneak in quietly. But no one forbids you from coming out of it, firing a couple of shots, and hiding back — no one will follow you!

Two years of aging

In the two years since the project's release, the developers have significantly improved it. First of all, they fixed the technical part — if earlier the game could lose frame rate even on PS5, now there are no problems with this on the console. There were a couple of moments, of course, but these are exceptions to the rule. In any case, it has become much more pleasant to play! Except that sometimes the graphics level drops — especially during rain. The main thing is that they removed all sorts of invisible walls, crashes, serious "freezes" and improved stability.

The game also has a "New Game+" mode — you can replay the main story on increased difficulty: new enemies appear and additional story elements are unlocked.

But the main innovation of recent updates was the ability to switch to a third-person view — previously you could only play from the first-person perspective. And it feels about the same as in The Elder Scrolls series: strange. Despite the fact that the developers have adapted the battles to the third-person view, it is still much more pleasant to fight here from the first-person perspective — it is much more convenient to aim this way, especially if you need to hit a weak spot.

You can still use the new perspective when exploring — despite the external awkwardness, sometimes it is much better to see the surroundings and it becomes easier to navigate. Yes, the animations in the third-person view look awkward in places and are still not adapted to the hero's movements — they almost don't show how the protagonist clings to ledges, for example.

Diagnosis

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora still seems like a strange project even after 2 years. The game immerses you headfirst into the world of James Cameron's films — into his magnificent Pandora. And new "features" like the third-person view only deepen the overall atmosphere — even if it looks ridiculous, it sometimes helps. Even the stupid plot doesn't bother here, because there was no genius in the films either!

But problems with the level system and game balance easily bring you back to Earth and make you swear at the monitor. If the project was not made under the patronage of Ubisoft, who knows, maybe these shortcomings would not exist? Or am I too biased towards the French...

In any case, I will note that once I overcame the problems with levels and got used to some features, the gameplay began to bring me pleasure. I will gladly return to virtual Pandora again to get acquainted with the new addition. We recommend it to all fans of the franchise, even after 2 years! Even if you should be prepared for some shortcomings.

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