To remind you, I’m still playing as many Avatar games as I can. This is in the lineage of the previous console games in terms of the developer, THQ Studio Oz/Australia, but represents a change of style. Needless to say, it’s based on M. Night Shyamalan’s controversial movie adaptation of Book 1, so it’s got the realistic visual style—the world design was a strength of the movie, not that it shows through terribly well here. Compared to Into the Inferno, it’s now a single player campaign (co-op is available in a separate optional arena mode), split between Aang and Zuko. Even more than the DS version, Zuko is portrayed as the main character: he narrates the stylish 2D cutscenes, his levels begin and end the game, the menu screen is a view of his shipboard quarters’ desk. I like this take given his role in the series, and again Dev Patel was one of the things the film had going for it.

Gameplay is a mix of combat and platforming/physics puzzles, with an over-the shoulder perspective. I got vibes of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, partly due to Aang’s ability to airbend physics objects to move and throw them, including enemies. The game is structured strangely, cutting down even more from the film’s truncation of the story. There are four environments: Zuko’s ship (a displaced flash-forward to the pirate attack, and Aang’s initial capture), the Northern Air Temple (the site of the Blue Spirit sequence in the film), caves beneath the North Pole city, and the Siege of the North. You alternate levels each as Zuko (or the Blue Spirit) and Aang. Zuko occasionally has to deal with a first-person Time Crisis-style shooter section, strangely enough.

As usual I’m looking for ways in which the game expands on the film/show, and there’s a few. The first thing you notice is that again the film’s restrictions on firebending have been lifted to facilitate gameplay; Zuko shoots fireblasts all day long like nobody’s business, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. (Aang also kills animals, which is a bit sketchy.) We have a Fire Nation tractor/tank thing as a boss at one point, which is interesting because you never actually see smaller military mechanisms like that in the film. Um, there’s Air Shells in the temple that amplify air currents for Aang to ride on? So that’s weird. The biggest thing would be the abandoned Water Tribe mines in the North, in the large cave system that is mostly previously unseen. They’ve been overrun here by a swarm of what are called “spider-crabs”—although the young have beetle-like wings—which spit goop at you. They range from cat-size to Shelob-size. Apart from this, there’s some small indication of content that was cut from the film in the unlockable concept art, such as the Kyoshi Warriors who otherwise are not in the game.

It pleased me that the voice actors from the film return; well, Zuko, Aang, and Zhao do anyway. Most exposition is covered by Dev Patel’s narrated cutscenes and Sokka and Katara have very limited appearances… I don’t think they’re even modelled in the game’s engine, only in cutscenes. The game doesn’t feel like it’s presenting the story super effectively… and the gameplay could be described as passable… at least the in-game achievement system gives some replay value…? The concept art is good in theory but mostly not worth it. Beating up Fire Nation and Water Tribe soldiers, bugs, and pirates can be fun but repetitive. It’s a far different experience from the DS game but even with that version’s brevity it covers more material of the story than this Wii version does (they share the 2D cutscenes by the way). The sad thing is it does show an improvement in the console lineage, if only in polish and mechanics, but that doesn’t save it from mediocrity. Ho hum.