izigame.me

So as I mentioned in my Gollum review, not only did I want to see if that game was worse than Ride to Hell Retribution, but also if this game was worse than Gollum. Well, here's the deal. This game is not as bad as Gollum, but it's worse than RTHR.
From the same publisher as Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing comes Skull Island: Rise of Kong. A game that had a development time of less than a year before shipping. Now, because GameMill Entertainment gave IguanaBee this much time for development, I am not going to be blaming IB as much S*** as you think anybody else would.
So yes, this is a very boring game with miserable combat. Now anybody that thinks about getting this (for laughs or that poor kid that got it from grandma) should do the most simple thing: Run away from unnecessary fights as possible. I spent the majority of this game running away because the enemies that roam around versus the required fights (which I will explain in a little bit) DO NOT give you skill points. It's pointless and will drain your health. Just focus on the required fights because these WILL give you Skill Points..... but even that is messed up. Sometimes you will get maybe 3 of them and sometimes you will get maybe between 5 and 10 at max. What's worse is that in the beginning of the game, you get Alucard'ed (for those who haven't played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, in the beginning of that game, you have powerful weapons and then they get taken away from the Grim Reaper.). You see, you play as Mother Kong (who looks a lot more.... Male? Lousy palette swaps) and you practice how to use these skills. Then King Kong's parents are murdered and when you grow up, you have no skills. You have to progress through the game to get these skills. I'm taking a guess that this is almost a 3D Metroidvania because you can go back to areas you previously explored and some areas require a specific skill to use. But do you get anything for them? Well, they do have additional optional fights that give you skills, but sometimes they lead to collectibles. Are they worth it? My answer is mostly going to be no (unless you need some more skill points for a specific skill you need.). I also recommend getting Armor skills and some more powerful Attack skills as this will help you big time in this snooze fest. I also need to point out the Queen Spider fight (worst boss in the game) because this fight sucks. The webbing that she walks on is so thick you can't tell where she is most of the time.
Next, I would like to talk about the visuals. They are ugly looking. Kong himself has hair that looks like one of my action figures I had as a kid (specifically the Toy Biz Marvel Beast 10" Action Figure which had some "fur" detail on his elbows and legs. Look at it and you will know what I am talking about.) Now for the backgrounds, because they are something else and have something I have never seen in a game before: rising and "melting" terrain. The cave areas have this weird "melting" effect in certain spots that looks like snow melting off of something. Was this a artistic idea or was that just a flaw with the game design and engine? I have seen terrain rise at times but I forgot where specifically. Also, I have clipped through some areas where Kong shouldn't go.
I need to address some bugs (well, besides the one I just mentioned) such as the attacks not connecting at times (Kong will do this swift attack that the animation will not complete, thus not be able to attack) and Required fights being stuck (when I get into one, sometimes the game has some enemies locked out of the fight and nobody comes out, having to restart the fight.)
So do I think that this is worse than Gollum? No. Do I think it's worse than RTHR? Yes. Here's why: those games had more time to be developed. Yeah sure they were crap, but they had time for things like voice acting (by the way, one lady speaks in this game and is a narrator. That's it. I would of rather not have any voice acting than have one person speaking in this game, thank you very much.), story writing, what the gameplay was going to be like. etc. This screams "RUSHED" in so many ways. It's just shovelware for people who are fans of the IP and will get it regardless. I should mention that there is barely any music here and the most of it just lasts for 10 seconds. RTHR made me laugh with it's awful voice acting and glitches/bugs. This game also made me laugh with it's weird graphical warping and effects along with bugs and glitches. Gollum just sucked (but had excellent music).
So this is the ranking
1. Gollum
2. Kong
3. Ride to Hell
GameMill is today's LJN.