Avatar: The Last Airbender
The game is a based on the Nickelodeon anime show but since I haven't seen the show, this review will be entirely based upon the game and the back story from the manual.
The world we are to enter is composed of four nations each made up of the attributes and the power of one of the four elements – Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. There are persons who can control these elements – bend them to their will and these persons referred to as Airbender, Waterbender so on and so forth. One who can control all four elements is call Avatar and the last one died leaving the spot open for our to-be hero.
The story is about Aang, an Airbender and how he and his friends will defend the world from the onslaught of the fire nation. Aang goes about looking for things, helping inhabitants of the Water World looking at penguins (penguins in the North pole – tsk, tsk) until the warriors from the Fire nation appear to capture "the Avatar". Time to get into battle to save the worlds, get a team, and acquire more bending power.
Acquiring his team, Katara, the Waterbender, Soka her brother, Haru, a tag along, they journey and battle through the different worlds. Characters can be switched by using the directional buttons, making it easy to use the best Bender for the job. The graphics on the PS2 are the best and the characters run fluidly through their environment. The graphics on the PSP and the GBA do not come close to the color and animation on the consoles – too bad. The story however, remains surprisingly the same.
The good part about the game on all the platforms is that it's an easy introduction to RPG games – this after all is targeted for kids. They will learn about building an effective team, how equipment amplifies some traits while depressing others, they will learn about traits, selling things, and keeping track of the stats. And in the meantime, having fun.
Reviewed by: Editor - 10/06
Ages: Everyone