Avatar: The Last Airbender (video game)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang in Europe) is a video game based on the animated television series of the same name for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Wii, Microsoft Windows, and Xbox. The game was followed by a sequel, Avatar: The Burning Earth, around a year later.

In the US, the game was a launch title for the Wii.

Gameplay

The Avatar: The Last Airbender video game allows the player to control one of four characters - Aang, Katara, _The_Last_Airbender_secondary_recurring_characters#Haru, or Sokka - in a single-player adventure similar to Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. Each character uses his or her own trademark weapon and fighting style, and is able to earn new special abilities through experience gained from defeating enemies. A variety of items can help the player with quests, or during battle (armor, chi, enchanted accessories, and healing potions). The game also enables the player to collect certain resources and bring them to artisans to make special items. Enemies include classic Firebenders, machines, and a variety of animals from the show, mainly the first book.

The console versions of the game were developed by THQ Studio Australia.

Plot

Characters

The main playable characters in the Avatar: The Last Airbender video game are Aang, Katara, _The_Last_Airbender_secondary_recurring_characters#Haru, and Sokka, three of which are main characters in the television series the video game is based on. Momo, a flying lemur, is also playable.

Aang is the fun-loving, 12-year-old protagonist of the video game. He is the current incarnation of the Avatar, the spirit of the planet manifested in human form. As the Avatar, Aang must master all four elements to bring peace to the world and restore the balance between the four nations. Aiding him is the fourteen-year-old Katara, the sole remaining Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, and her brother Sokka, a 15-year-old warrior of the Southern Water Tribe. Haru is a young Earthbender who helps the gang in their mission to save himself. Many characters from the show appear on this game such as Prince Zuko, who has a minor role in the game, only appearing in cutscenes; King Bumi, who appears in the fourth level.

Story

While training in the North Pole, Aang and Katara hear reports of a waterbender, Hiryu, going missing, which they investigate. They arrive at the Water Tribe as a Fire Nation ship attacks, led by Prince Zuko. They are able to fend off the attackers, but Katara is captured during the battle. Aang and Sokka follow the ship, but are slowed by a Firebending machine.

They follow the ship to an Earth Kingdom port. They slip into the jail and free Katara, who informs them of another prisoner named Lian the Maker, who is being forced to make machines for the Fire Nation. When they arrive at Lian’s cell, they find it empty, except for a map to an Earth Kingdom village.

They find the village under attack by machines. After fending off the machines and picking up Haru, they travel to the library of Omashu for clues to where the machines might originate from. The information from the library leads them to an uncharted island.

On the island, they find Lian, making more machines. She fears that Aang will not be able to master all four elements before Sozin’s comet arrives. She sends a machine to fight them as she flees to the Air temple. They defeat the machine and arrive at the temple as she is attempting to destroy the Avatar statues. They stop Lian, but Katara, Sokka, and Haru are captured by another machine.

Aang pursues Lian and the machine to a fortress. After Aang rescues his friends, they find Zuko, also captured by a machine. Upon rescuing him, Zuko attacks the group. At the end of the resulting fight, Zuko is knocked over a cliff and swept over a waterfall.

The four enters the fortress, where they find Lian, one more machine, and the missing waterbender, Hiryu, attached with an earthbender and a firebender to the machine. Lian tries to attach Aang to the machine, but he battles it instead. During the fight, Katara is struck down, causing Aang to enter the Avatar State and destroys the machine, burying Lian under its rubble.

As the four leave the temple, Zuko is seen crawling up on the shoreline, grumbling angrily.

Reception

The Avatar: The Last Airbender video game overall produced lackluster results and middling reviews on all the platforms it was released on. With its uninspiring storyline, repetitive and often uncooperative beat-em-up gameplay, craggy cel-shaded graphics, and lack of additional features, particularly the absence of multiplayer options, the game was viewed as poor representation of the original series which it was based on. Several saw the fact that the original voice actors for the main stars were used as the primary redeeming quality to the game. Towards that end, fans were severely disappointed that Toph was not included within the game. However, this was because the game was in production long before her character was introduced.

Overall, the general impression which the video game left as a whole was that, while decent enough to be enjoyed and a slightly higher quality in comparison to most licensed games, it failed to realize the potent concepts and dynamics that the series had generously laid out before it. This was especially apparent in regards to presentation of action sequences and the aspect of bending. One review for the Wii version went as far to comment, "...in the Nickelodeon cartoon, Aang soars into the air and flips about acrobatically, but in the game the character can't even jump, let alone fly."

Despite the critical review, THQ's Avatar: The Last Airbender performed exceedingly well commercially, selling over one million units worldwide as of February 2007 and becoming THQ's top-selling Nickelodeon product of 2006 due to the widespread popularity of the series. The game even went on to achieve Sony CEA's "Greatest Hits" status for the PlayStation 2 on July 19, 2007.

References

External links

• Official Site
• Announcement article on IGN
• THQ Press Release on Yahoo
• Wii Resource Centre: Wii: Avatar: The Last Airbender