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Strengths: Solid graphics and voice acting, immersive environments and story, video clips from film, universal price drop to $30
Weaknesses: Doesn't exactly follow the film, simplistic/linear gameplay, short overall length, limited replay value, NY level a joke
Summary: Movie-to-videogame translations have a pretty poor quality record, so when Peter Jackson stayed involved with this game and enlisted Beyond Good and Evil and Rayman creator Michel Ancel and his Montpelier staff in its development, the stakes for this title were raised quite a bit.
The results are mostly positive. You'll play as Adrian Brody for roughly 75% of the time in a FPS format taking on the various monsters of Skull Island while trying to rescue Naomi Watts. The rest of the time you'll play as Kong by navigating through various environments and taking on some of Skull Island's larger creatures (and eventually man in New York City).
The graphics are generally good, and most of the film cast (Jack Black, Brody, Watts, etc.) lent their voice talents to the game, giving it slightly more authenticity then it could have otherwise had. The gameplays generally works well, but unfortunately, the game does have a few nagging flaws.
During the FPS segments, you can carry only one firearm at a time, and given that ammo is limited, you'll have to rely mostly on spears. Although the environments are fairly creative and good-looking, they're also extremely linear, so you can forget about actually exploring Skull Island.
Finally, the entire game is only six or seven hours long (or twice the length of the film). You can finish the game in one long sitting, and you won't find much in the way of unlockables to keep you coming back. (Publisher Ubisoft recently announced an alternate ending is unlockable if you score high enough on subsequent replays.)
King Kong the game does a reasonable job of bringing the movie experience home. The film has underperformed at the box office, and the game has already seen a $20 price drop across the board as a result. Given the game's brevity and short length, you'll probably want to wait for at least another $10 price reduction before considering a purchase. Then again, you could always rent it.
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