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Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora | Review Thread

Well I dont. The problem is. From what I've been reading. Its not very immersive if it doesn't hold a locked 60fps on either of my consoles and the story and missions are bland. It comes across as the blandness of things is immersion breaking in of itself. i.e they've created a lovely looking world, which has technical issues, together with a fatiguing gameplay loop.

I've yet to play it myself, but these are the impressions I've got. And I aint dropping £70 to £115 on that basimore

Random, but earlier today, I had a discussion with a buddy who happens to work at Ubisoft. We were talking about Avatar and how disappointed they are that a 120Hz VRR mode hasn't been implemented for current-gen consoles (they're playing it on the PS5). They believe it could have helped in improving the latency, given that the game doesn't really drop below 48 fps in performance mode, thus staying within the VRR window.

Now, here's the interesting part they shared with me. They're actually part of the dev team working on an upcoming Snowdrop Engine title slated for release in the future, and they're intent on pushing hard for a 120Hz VRR mode on both XSX and PS5 in this game which I can't really name.
Splinter cell remake,
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
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Denton

Member
Crazy to me how terrible Ubisoft designers and writers are.
Like, this game has pretty much the same story setup as many other games, e.g. TLOU or Kingdom Come, where a character close to protagonist dies in the beginning and that loss sets up the rest of the game.

But the difference in execution is staggering. In TLOU and Kingdom Come, when it happens, you know those characters, and you feel the loss. I played the intro of both those games multiple times, and it gets me every time.

In Avatar, you just shrug at the sheer idiocy of how it is executed. How badly it is written and directed. Zero emotion. Zero interest.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Got this on PS5. The performance mode is blurry AF even with motion blur off.

Visual mode isn’t much better looking and isn’t the buttery smooth 30fps you get with ff16 for example where it doesn’t even feel like a 30fps game.

Plays good so far. Character models do look great in cut scenes. Water is last gen.

Fun so far.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Got this on PS5. The performance mode is blurry AF even with motion blur off.

Visual mode isn’t much better looking and isn’t the buttery smooth 30fps you get with ff16 for example where it doesn’t even feel like a 30fps game.

Plays good so far. Character models do look great in cut scenes. Water is last gen.

Fun so far.
Don’t switch back and forth and 30 fps will begin to feel smooth.
 
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Crazy to me how terrible Ubisoft designers and writers are.
Like, this game has pretty much the same story setup as many other games, e.g. TLOU or Kingdom Come, where a character close to protagonist dies in the beginning and that loss sets up the rest of the game.

But the difference in execution is staggering. In TLOU and Kingdom Come, when it happens, you know those characters, and you feel the loss. I played the intro of both those games multiple times, and it gets me every time.

In Avatar, you just shrug at the sheer idiocy of how it is executed. How badly it is written and directed. Zero emotion. Zero interest.
it seems like it’s written in ChatGPT
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
God the controls on this are awful for controller, immediately it feels like they ran out of buttons because they don't know how to do contextual inputs. Everything is you holding a bumper or trigger and then pushing anouther button to get access to a single thing you otherwise normally wouldent use. Why give us navi vision and then also a scan tool? Why not just make it some fucking goggles that flip down to enhance you navi vision with a tech overlay... now you just need to use navi vision, ITS NOT HARD TO SOLVE!

Thank god i have a edge and making good use of the paddles.
 
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Just wanted to give kudos to the devs for avoiding the mistake that Guerrilla made by unlocking flying very early in the campaign in Avatar, as opposed to unlocking it very late in the campaign like in Horizon FW.
 

hussar16

Member
ACG's review sold me and I see eye to eye with him 90% of the time. As soon as he said "Far Cry Primal sequel" my nuts buzzed.

Looks like Im biting on Friday.

Fuck man this year can suck a fat dick. My wallet cries in agony on a weekly basis.
Very good comparison.however I'm having issues with the directions this game gives.its vague and the compass moves around so you don't know what's north or south
 

Chiggs

Gold Member
This is one of the most gorgeous games ever released if you're playing on a high-end PC. I'm no fan of Digital Foundry, but Alex was spot-on when he said this game gave him the same amazement Crysis did back in 2007.
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
Very good comparison.however I'm having issues with the directions this game gives.its vague and the compass moves around so you don't know what's north or south

Are you making waypoints at all on the map to help you where to go? That’s what I’ve been doing. It’ll show up as a little green blip on the compass. Follow that, simple.
 

King Dazzar

Member
A couple of interesting takes. PS5 seems to possibly be the better optimised version at this time. But both XSX and PS5 may have performance issues in the 60fps mode with VRR likely required. Definitely avoiding this until on sale for console, if even then.


 
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ManaByte

Gold Member
But both XSX and PS5 may have performance issues in the 60fps mode with VRR likely required.

I've had no problems on XSX with VRR enabled in terms of the framerate. Did have one strange studder when loading an interior environment at one point. But the performance mode has been great with VRR.

Do I need to have seen the second movie for this game's plot?

No it's set between the first and second movies. It starts 8 years before the first movie, then time jumps 16 years. So it's set about 5 years before The Way of Water.
 
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King Dazzar

Member
I've had no problems on XSX with VRR enabled in terms of the framerate. Did have one strange studder when loading an interior environment at one point. But the performance mode has been great with VRR.
Yeah the video echoes that. All fluctuations appear to be in the 50 to 60 range. I just wish, we didn't have to rely on VRR. I get better PQ with it disabled on my particular panel.
 
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This is one of the most gorgeous games ever released if you're playing on a high-end PC. I'm no fan of Digital Foundry, but Alex was spot-on when he said this game gave him the same amazement Crysis did back in 2007.
And from what I've seen, combat very much resembles crysis in a lot of ways.

And I think Alex is spot on in saying you should turn on explorer mode and ignore the Ubisoft hand-holding crap and chores.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
And from what I've seen, combat very much resembles crysis in a lot of ways.

And I think Alex is spot on in saying you should turn on explorer mode and ignore the Ubisoft hand-holding crap and chores.

It's more Crysis than FarCry. Game is great. I truly believe a lot of reviewers decided to shit on it just because they weren't able to will the Avatar sequel into failing at the box office. They'll get Cameron NOW!
 

graywolf323

Member
Yeah, I was actually looking to. Was just gonna add it to my follow list for a future sale and was surprised not to see it. I thought Ubisoftened their stance on putting games back on Steam? I know Valhalla came to Steam recently. Though I just checked and see Mirage isn't on there as well.
they seem to be bringing games to Steam later finally but still not at release 🤦🏼‍♂️
 

hussar16

Member
Are you making waypoints at all on the map to help you where to go? That’s what I’ve been doing. It’ll show up as a little green blip on the compass. Follow that, simple.
I have not.i tried the discovery mode which is more immersion and the way they want you to play the game but it's confusing because compass rotates
 

sinnergy

Member
It's more Crysis than FarCry. Game is great. I truly believe a lot of reviewers decided to shit on it just because they weren't able to will the Avatar sequel into failing at the box office. They'll get Cameron NOW!
I bet people are that pathetic 🤣
 

Stuart360

Member
Spent about 90mins just messing around with the settings to get the game how i want (settled for 1080p native/30 at ultra settings, one of the VERY rare times i will chose graphics over 60fps, the game just looks that damn good!), and i noticed a couple of things.
Now i dont know if FSR3 isnt optimized well for 10 series gpu's, but on my 1080ti FSR3 at ultra quality and quality actually ran slightly worse than native resolution, very strange lol.

And the old 'tick disable fullscreen optimization' box in the desktop icon gave me a noticable boost in performance, in fact Ultra settings ran around 10fps better than High settings after doing that. That was an old trick that worked on some Ubisoft games like Ass Creed Origins and Odyssey, and it works here too it seems, so def give it a try if you're on PC.
 
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Buggy Loop

Member


The game is a looker on highend PCs. Shame it's a first person game.


DF is doing a better job at selling me this game than any Ubisoft marketing so far.

WTF was that about the early preview with the shit graphics we saw not long ago?
 
To me these Ubi open world games are like CoD. 7ish, not worth getting them all. You may like buying the current one if you skipped a couple.

No harm in mindless 7ish romps.
 
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Denton

Member
And I think Alex is spot on in saying you should turn on explorer mode and ignore the Ubisoft hand-holding crap and chores.
I tried this, but the information about quest locations can be so vague ("it is located south west of Big Tree on shore of river X") that after I searched for something for 15 minutes and it could have been anywhere (because the map is so huge, as is that river, as is "south west"), I just enabled the guided mode again. It only displays the waypoint when using the avatar sense anyway, so it is not particularly distracting.

The map would have to be more distinct and locations more clearly described for it to be good idea.
 
All that tech and great art wasted on Flops of Pandora. Bit of a shame, but an MC score in the 70s isn't completely terrible, I'm sure it'll find its audience through deep discounts.
 
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Stuart360

Member
Its pretty ironic really that the best looking movie (especially the second film), is now also the best looking game of all time.
 
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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
If I'm not mistaken the game occurs between the 2 movies so no.

I've seen the first one, not the second one. Will probably remedy that over the weekend. I was expecting my copy of this to deliver via gamefly today but looks like USPS shat the bed, so not playing this before Monday at the earliest now anyway.
 

Stuart360

Member
I wanted to wait for the Steam version but that DF video is making it really difficult...
Just get a month Of Ubisoft+, then get the game when it launches on Steam in a year or whatever. The Steam version will probably launch at a discount anyway so that price,. plus the $15 for a month of UBI+ will probably be around the same price as if you bought the game new now. Plus the Steam release will probably have the expansion too.
 
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