izigame.me

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™ is a good game - if you love playing the same game they have been making for over 15 years. You would think that it is "NEXT GENERATION" gameplay... well... let me tell you this - IT. IS. NOT. We came here to experience James Cameron's amazing PANDORA and play as an Na'vi ourselves but what we got was a Far Cry Avatar game with a lot of things wrong with it in the end. Below I will state the pros and the cons.
DISCLAIMER - I have EXACTLY 178 hours on this on Ubisoft. Not all of that time is JUST MY playtime as I shared a subscription with a friend. I just nabbed it on steam today so its in my steam library and FULLY own it now rather than subscribing to play it.
DISCLAIMER 2 - This is NOT a NEGATIVE review. This is a NEUTRAL review. I can't leave a NEUTRAL review so I had to make it negative sadly.

Cons/Issues/What is wrong or missing

⚫So my first issue is this - Copy-Pasted enemy outposts and facilities. If you notice, almost every single location is the exact same (apart from the zones of course). Nothing has been "James Cameron'd" and this, this made exploring Pandora so... so... pointless? Fruitless? Less rewarding? Say what you will, it's just clear that whoever thought about "Control+C" - "Control+V" was only thinking about lining there own pockets (or are pure lazy).
⚫My second issue was this - How indistinguishable the Na'vi clans are from each other. Imagine this, they are all blue with different TATTOO's on them or "PATTERNS" on their body but one is a TREE clan and the other GROUND clan (for instance) and the names are Boktu and Buktu, both pronounced the exact same... its almost disgusting that they got away with this. It feels like they just, again, copy-pasted the same Na'vi and changed their patterns up, clothes up and names A LITTLE and made them "clans". James Cameron shows us how to make them look different... why can't you Ubisoft?
⚫There are no bosses in Avatar, traditionally speaking of course. I am not kidding. The only thing that is considered a "BOSS" would be the at the very end of the story but... you can kill him instantly by blowing up a gas canister.
⚫You know what a direhorse is, yes? the horse mount -_-. You know what an IKRAN is, yes? Its the flying mount. Well, you get the tutorial mission for the horse on the second zone, and the FLYING mount... why? Who would choose a horse that NEEDS to be manoeuvred past rocks, trees, enemies e.t.c over flying... I mean... what is the point in the horse then?
⚫The ending parts of the story are so spectacular in terms of action but... the first half of the campaign had a much more lasting impression than the end (there are reasons for this I cannot mention due to spoilers)
⚫The main big bad's - RDA's John Mercer and General Angela are he worst "big bads" I have seen to date. You never encounter them. You basically sit on a discord video call with them while they trash talk you. This left a sour taste in my mouth once the credits started rolling.
⚫The weapons/Arsenal you are given, is lacking in so many ways. It is VERY limited compared to Far Cry 6 or Horizon Forbidden West. You will noticeably use the LONGBOW the entire game forgetting that ANY other weapon exists.
⚫Each mission is marked by a recommended level, right. Imagine - Destiny 2 or The division 2s gear level. Avatar has that exact same feature, but what makes this bad you might ask? Well, its completely null and voided. You can go in without gear on and just punch EVERYTHING by abusing your skills. Maybe not on the hardest difficulty as much as easy or medium but... why have that as a feature if it means nothing?
⚫You cannot lure animals to enemy positions to make distractions like Far Cry... why? oh, is it because I have a hacky hacky tool to disable robots and traps? Guess what, you cannot turn these "robots" on each other.... wow...
⚫There are locations in the game that have NOTHING to do on them but collect a singular bit of fruit after spending 30-50 minutes reaching that location. Yeah the areas look cool... but that's about 30 minutes of NOTHING but running to reach... a plant to make food? Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom STOMPS Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora here, AND THAT'S A NINTENDO GAME., or even better, ELDEN RING!!!

Pros/The oh so rights

⚫Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™ is a game that let's us explore Pandora, James Cameron's Pandora. From it's illustrious plants and fauna, to the sky islands shrouded in fog.
⚫The hunting mechanic in this game is fantastic! You get better rewards for a "clean kill" - a One Hit Kill - AND, you can PERFECTLY harvest plants? Fauna? to give you better versions of that item to craft stronger, more potent food for yourself.
⚫The HUD. This is a big one for me. If you know how BAD Assassin's Creed: Mirage's HUD was... you will be amazed with this games HUD tenfold. It has nothing there, not even a minimap. Letting you explore YOURSELF without your HAND BEING HELD the entire way. This can both be good and bad as at times, I did get lost trying to find a weapons shop, haha.
⚫The story holds its own up until the very end, and it has DLC to improve on some aspects that the game got wrong or just blatantly abused.

My Verdict

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora let's you explore a visually stunning alien world without the CLUTTERED HUD to put you off or break your immersion, but it sadly has many downfalls too, such as the copy-pasted enemy outposts, its one-dimensional combat and an environment lacking in any surprises but in splendor.
This makes Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.... basically a Avatar Far Cry game with no imagination of its own. To put it short, it's a basic shooting adventure that’s more inside the box than truly out of this world.

5/10. Its the best "Far Cry" in generations but that is not what we wanted from James Cameron's Avatar