King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie is publisher Ubisoft's entry in the Xbox 360 launch lineup and it's quite impressive. A project created by Beyond Good & Evil's Michel Ancel, his development team, and filmmaker and fan boy god Peter Jackson, it's a collaboration of first person adventuring and third person beat-em-up. It's easily one of the best movie based games ever made, yet it comes with a catch, that being a $59.99 MSRP for a seven to nine hour adventure. Rest assured that it'll be nine hours very well spent, but if cash is tight, you might want to seek out its current generation alternative.

Now I haven't seen the upcoming movie yet so I'm unable to comment on how close the game follows it, but DAMN! If the film is even half as exciting as this game then we're in for one hell of a ride. You get to spear dinosaurs in the neck, light sh*t on fire, battle gargoyle like monstrosities, and wade through the thick jungle foliage as Jack Driscoll, but for brief moments in the game (all too brief, actually) you'll get to play as King Kong. His rampages are one of the game's many highlights, as you can leap across the forest stepping on creatures and snapping T-Rex's jaws.

Both styles are a wonderful contrast to the other. Jack's missions (which are all played from the first person) are much more terrifying because he and his friends are outsiders in a strange land, and with that being said, you'll never know what to expect. The jungle has been designed in such a way that it's more ominous and evil than inviting, so this portion of the game, which represents about 80% of it, feels more like a survival horror outing than your typical run-and-gun testosterone fueled blood bath. You never burst through anything in King Kong; you creep, lest you be devoured by some famished predator.

To keep things terrifying the developers throw a measly amount of guns and ammunition into the mix. You'll be able to wield a handgun, shotgun, and automatic rifle but only one at a time and never with lots of clips. Instead, you'll have to use bones or spears that have been left behind and this makes things even scarier, as one miss could result in your untimely demise. But the good news is that the throwing mechanic feels very natural and unless you're frantic, you'll often times hit your target even if your aim is off, but more on that later. Also, the fact that you can light these spears on fire (mostly to solve simple puzzles, but the effect is always cool) is an added bonus.

The monsters that you'll face are pretty horrifying. Not only will you need to run from the aforementioned T-Rex but scorpions, raptors (at least they look like raptors), gigantic centipedes, weirdo fish creatures, and other nasty abominations as well, and each one would just love to eat you. But that actually winds up being one of this game's faults. You see, the AI isn't all that bright. Sure, it knows that it should probably attack you, but they run patterns for the most part, so if you manage to hide or run far enough away, the animal will give up chase and return to its normal beat, allowing you to continuously sneak up from behind and kill its ass. And they very rarely attack en masse, which gives you the option of playing it safe and picking them off from a distance.

I'm also a bit disappointed with how easy the game is. Not so much a wide open adventure as it is an amusement park ride, King Kong holds your hand most of the way. The areas you traverse, however large, usually contain a single exit and objectives are crystal clear. But some of them aren't all that enjoyable. Take, for instance, searching for these wooden logs that need to be inserted into these pillars. You need to locate them so you can open doors, but after doing this three separate times I grew tired. What I wanted to do was blast monsters with guns and stab at them with pointy bones, but instead I'm pouring over ruins looking for a piece of wood. I'm also miffed at how ammo is collected. You can walk up to a wooden box containing lots of bullets but only carry a limited amount, and upon returning to it once you've expended your ammunition you can't pick up more even though there are rounds lying at your feet.

To be fair, this design isn't horrible and I feel mixed about it. On one hand, there was a lot of potential here that went unrealized, but on the other, this quickened pace (because let's face it, back tracking sucks the big one) keeps things exciting and the story moving, so while I would have loved some added exploration, at the same time it's good to be able to kick back in a recliner and absorb the craziness. But that still doesn't explain some of the odd design decisions, such as allowing NPCs to climb up ladders while Jack is forbidden to do such things. That's stuff that we left behind two generations ago.

When you're not first person shooting you'll be tearing things apart as King Kong. The game transitions to a third person perspective and you basically run about the jungle (and later NYC) causing all sorts of destruction, the most fun being the showdowns with the T-Rexes. Unfortunately, these segments are improperly balanced because there's too few of them, and the climax isn't nearly as thrilling as it should've been.

For those of you with an Xbox 360, you're in for a delicious treat because King Kong looks quite impressive, especially when compared to its current generation counterparts. The textures look great from a distance, and detail on grass, the eerie glow from the moon, and the character models are fun to look at, though it's very obvious that this was a port. While most of it looks fine, other environmental objects, such as the ocean and how boats look while in it are quite lackluster.

The audio is actually superior to the visuals, and if you're running this through multiple speakers you'll be extremely impressed, though the game sounds just fine coming from a TV. King Kong's roar, gunfire, the voice acting (Jack Black included), and the music is all very well.

The biggest knock against this game is it'll cost you $59.99 and it only offers up seven to nine hours of play. Sure, there are plenty of other games on the market that take even less time to beat, but they don't feature a cheaper alternative, that being a $49.99 Xbox version, for example. Personally, and despite how enjoyable it is, I don't think King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (what a horrible title, I mean really) is worth $59.99, and to be even more brutal, I wouldn't pay $49.99 for it either. This is one of those put on your holiday gift list/trade in some stuff for store credit types of games. It just doesn't have the staying power to justify its cost, because I know that when you beat it you'll probably look to dispose of it as soon as possible. But it is a wonderful product that's worth playing, so at the very least give it a rent.