Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth
Score: 80% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: THQ Developer: THQ Studios Australia Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Action/ RPG
Graphics & Sound: Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth follows the second season of the hit Nickelodeon animated series as Aang continues to master the elements in hopes of stopping a massive war. In Book Two: Earth, Aang must find an Earthbender to learn under. Where the previous game didn't follow the show's storyline and felt more like a side-story or alternate tale, it had a somewhat unique visual style and feel. It was a top-down 3D action/adventure title that, while somewhat repetitive, stood out. The Burning Earth, on the other hand, just feels like another generic 3D action license game. There isn't anything particularly wrong with the graphics (besides a lack of any attempt to lip synch the voiceovers), it just feels bland and doesn't help the game to stand out. Audiowise, I'm in the same boat. The game's music is straight from the show and does its job, but so is the voicework. All of the lines said in the game are the exact same sound clips seen on TV. What this means is that the game offers no real lift and you are just playing through the same exact script of the show. I found this made the game feel a bit more bland because I've always enjoyed playing the game version of something and getting a little extra out of the storyline. This makes it feel like there wasn't a whole lot of effort put into The Burning Earth.
Gameplay: Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth gives you control of the various characters that Aang teams up with in the second season. Over the course of the adventure, you will not only control Sokka, Katara and Toph (Aang's blind Earthbending teacher), but also Momo, Appa and other secondary characters like Jet. You will travel from Omashu in an attempt to rescue Aang's old friend King Bumi, to the under-siege city and Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se. Like the show, the game's story is divided into Chapters. To be more precise, each chapter in the season corresponds to a level in the game and you play through the events of that show almost verbatim. The game typically has two characters (a second player can pop in and control the other character at any point) running around a 3D environment, taking out random enemies and going on various fetch quests in order to progress the game's story. In order to add an RPG element to the game, you will earn experience for each enemy you defeat. Instead of that experience going towards a particular character though, it goes to the overall party. So when you've filled up the little bar on the left side of the screen, a new point is given to each of the characters you play as. One of the nice things about The Burning Earth, is that you can go into the Menu anytime and re-allot this points differently between the Combo, Range and Special slots. This means that you can customize your characters to be more powerful in different areas based on your particular playing style, as well as customizing them for a particular level or enemy. There are a couple of other modes outside of Story. As you beat bosses, their battles show up in the Main Menu. Here you can go back to those events and fight them again (though I'm not exactly sure why you would). You can also pit the various playable characters you've unlocked in the Story against each other in a Versus mode. This mode was a nice distraction, but I rarely found myself in it.
Difficulty: I was able to plow through Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth in about a day's worth of gameplay. It isn't all that difficult and, with the exception of some early stumbling, I never died or had any trouble getting the feel for the game. This isn't really a bad thing though since the game is geared towards the show's fans, and while there are some exceptions (me included), the target audience for Avatar is not really the late teens to twenties crowd. So the fact that this game isn't an extreme challenge to experienced gamers is by no means a problem. Just be warned older siblings and parents out there, if your kid is having some problems, you will probably find the game a lot easier than they are. If anything made this game hard, it's some of the controls, but more about that in the next section.
Game Mechanics: Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth's use of the Wii controls is a little hit and miss with me. While I didn't really have any problems controlling my character during normal operations, there were a few times when the game's motion sensitivity hurt more than it helped. First the basic controls. You move Aang with the Nunchuck's stick, jump with the (A) button and melee attack with the (B). You perform your ranged attack by shaking the Wii-mote (something I found myself doing accidentally more times than I really wanted to) and using your character's special attack with the (-) button. Also of note is the fact that you switch the character you are controlling with the (+) button. Where I had problems was with the times I needed to use a focus move. Specifically Katara's Ice Bridge. In order to do this, you need to hold down the (Z) button and then position your Wii-mote vertically and move it horizontally (so it's pointing at the TV). The problem was that the game didn't always respond and it always took several tries and long waits before I successfully made the bridge. I didn't quite realize how messed up this was until I played the same areas on the PS2 and found the focus moves (that one in particular) to be easy to pull off. When it comes down to it, if you are still interested in buying The Burning Earth, I would recommend one of the other versions over the Wii one, primarily because of its somewhat iffy controls. But of the three versions I got a chance to play (Wii, PS2 and DS), I found the handheld one to be the best. Fans of Avatar might still like to play though the events of the show exactly as they occurred, but I found the DS' deeper storyline to be much more fulfilling.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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