Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World is divided into two parts, though one is far more prominent and plays significantly better than the other. For the majority of the game, you will be controlling up to three people simultaneously: Ann Darrow, Jack Driscoll, and Carl Denham, the three main characters of the story. Your adventure takes place on Skull Island where Carl is trying to put together the movie of a lifetime, with Ann as the star. But if you know anything about King Kong, you’ll realize that these ambitions do not turn out quite the way the participants expect.
Occasionally during the game, the characters will run into Kong as he battles the dinosaurs on the island, and at this point, you take control of him. This section of the game is very rudimentary as your only goal is to beat the crap out of the dinosaurs coming at you with nothing but your big, simian hands.
The first part of the game is where the meat of the action takes place. Here, in top down fashion, you take control of one of three characters at a time, switching between each as necessary. Each person has three different abilities that must be utilized in order to navigate the island successfully.
There are also various puzzles around the island that remind one of the consoles of old. Levers, traps, and movable boulders populate the island, and you must occasionally use the characters’ skills in conjunction with one another in order to solve the riddles. There does seem to be an overabundance of one type of puzzle (mainly using one character to move a maze of blocks), but there is a nice enough variety of them to where it never gets too old.