Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has given me whiplash. Massive Entertainment promised a world of contrasts with its new action adventure, but I wasn't expecting that claim to be so surface-level. On one side, I'm looking at an open world with the potential to be among the most visually captivating ever conceived; and on the other, combat encounters spread across desolate RDA facilities that look as if they have been throttled by the ghost of Far Cry's past.
I'm disappointed to discover that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is effectively a first-person shooter at heart. Avatar presents one of the most wondrous worlds in popular culture, and our primary tether to it appears to be through an armory of assault rifles, shotguns, and rocket launchers. I don't like to be dismissive, particularly for a video game that I haven't yet had the chance to play, but there does appear to be a dichotomy between presentation and possibilities here.
